Re: CDR's & MP3 for GS???

[spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

In article supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer) writes...

>spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector) wrote:
>
>>In article supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer) writes...
>>
>>>>    Now we can listen to the audio, right? Wrong. Even though
>>>>you would now have an 8-bit, 44 kHz, stereo audio file, it
>>>>would be several megabytes large, so you would need a program
>>>>that could spool the file in and out of memory as it played
>>>>(most GS players want to load the entire waveform into memory
>>>>before playing it, and 4-8 MB would not be enough). I believe
>>>>there is a program called "LongPlay" which does do spooling,
>>>>but can it support stereo audio? If not, you'd need to convert
>>>>it once again, from stereo->monorail.
>>>
>>>WRONG!
>>
>>    You must really enjoy embarassing yourself, read below.
>
>Mitch, you are being extremely rude.

    Oh I see, but quoting my entire paragraph of text with the
one word reply, "WRONG!"--in all caps--is considered polite?

    I suppose it isn't rude either to out of the blue post:

"Excellent! Now grumbling Mitchell Spector can't slam Second
 Sight users because the card 'can't play games' as he is so
 found to point out. Thank you. ;-)"

"Thanks, Olivier. I KNEW it was possible despite Mitchell's
 constant grumbling about the Second Sight. ;-)"

>>>Why is it that the author asks a simple question and you
>>>rub your palms together in joy as you swoop down and
>>>editorilize about how bad the IIGS is.
>>
>>    Why is it you are so personally wounded if I state technical
>>facts about a *computer* that hightlight its weak spots. Did you
>>ever stop and think that by facing the fact there is a weakness
>>in hardware or software, it might motivate someone to think of a
>>way of getting around that limitation? If there is a hole in the
>>road, what is the best thing to do? Pretend it doesn't exist and
>>tell people the road is fine, or announce it is there so others
>>know about it and maybe do something to fix it?
>
>Mitch, if a question asks "what is the technical weaknesses
>of this computer" your answer would be appropriate.
>
>But the answer to this question could easily be answered
>by "an MP3 player for the IIGS would not be feasable
>due to the fact that its current CPU can't handle the
>necessary decompression on the fly."  Instead, you give
>several paragraphs of IIGS bashing.

    Excuse me? Please show me where and how I wrote several
paragraphs of "IIGS bashing". I just reviewed my initial post
to this thread and what I covered follows: 1) That it is in
the realms of impossibility to write an on-the-fly MP3 file
player. 2) The possibility of an MP3->WAV convertor, stating
snags that would occur, but summerized it would be doable if
HFS were used and you took an additional step to convert the
finished waveform from 16-bit to 8-bit. 3) In order to play
the waveform you would require LongPlay or Oversampler to
spool the WAV into and out of memory, *but*, if neither one
supports stereo waveforms you would need to convert it yet
again into a monorail audio file. However, if stereo *can*
be supported, this step isn't necessary.

    Oh, and at the very end of the third paragraph I wrote
that MP3 is a file format best handled by a Pentium or PPC
Macintosh. That is stating a FACT, is it not? I would you
rather I had said MP3 is a file format best handled by the
Apple IIgs?

>>    If I download a true 8-bit stereo waveform (the left and
>>right channel are actually different) Oversampler will treat
>>it as a monorail waveform, or from my experience, get rather
>>confused and play only one of the two channels using the wrong
>>frequency. To the best of my knowledge, there are currently
>>no programs for the IIgs that can directly playback stereo
>>*.WAV files (the Audio Animator software only works with its
>>own unique stereo format, and rSounder allows you to load in
>>and play both channels combined or ONE channel at a time).
>
>Oversampler CAN play true stereo.  Did I say I'm
>using it to play WAV format files?  The Windows
>PC and Macintosh can do more than WAV files.  A
>waveform can be saved in raw binary format.

    Essentially a "WAV" file *is* a raw binary waveform, only there
is special header information which contains specific details about
the waveform (its sampling rate and resolution for example). From
my understanding, raw binary waveforms have an arbitrary sampling
rate, unlike WAV format which is fixed to 8, 11, 22 or 44 kHz, or
something of that nature.

>>    Perphaps you should as well. Oversampler does not support
>>stereo *.WAV files, attempting to load one in will get you a
>>distorted piece of audio that is being played back at about
>>half the frequency it should (increasing the playback speed
>>won't make it stereo either). The author of Oversampler is
>>the same person who wrote Hermes/Shadowrite and I believe
>>still part of F.E. Systems who's members still frequent this
>>newsgroup. You if think I'm wrong, ask the author directly.
>
>Hey Mitch, it is YOU who is wrong.

    Nope, I'm afraid I have to hit and serve that "wrong" back
into your court once again.

>Did I ever say "play a WAV format file?"  No.  Ok, if you can't
>find a Mac or Windows PC program that supports raw
>digital audio which Oversampler can play, try a few
>stereo samples created by the Sonic Blaster.  These
>are true left-right separate stereo.  rSounds from
>this board go into the right and the left speakers
>as separate channels (NOT doubled as you claim).
>Play the samples with Oversampler and then tell
>me it is not outputing true stereo.

    I didn't believe this would make any difference, however for
the benefit of the doubt, I tested your claim. Originally I was
using a stereo "WAV" format file and it did not work.

    Okay. I save a waveform as "PCM Raw Data" from my PC and
tried it with Oversampler. Failed, with the same problem as
WAV format. Next I recorded some digitized stereo audio using
my AE Audio Animator and saved in _both_ AE format and raw
binary format. This gave slightly different results, but also
failed. Once again the waveform was monorail, with the left
and right channels mixed together and doubled to both speakers,
however the right channel that was mixed in was very faint.
It definitely was *NOT* in stereo, I took a recording where
the music came out of the left channel, with the singer in
the right channel (each was on its own distinct channel when
recorded, there was no seconding guessing if it was stereo).

>>    The only program that even *recognizes* it's dealing with
>>stereo *.WAV files is rSounder, which brings up a message box
>>asking if you want to combine both channels or independently
>>load the left or right channel.
>
>AGAIN, DID I SAY WAV?  Just because I'm taking
>sound from a Mac or Windows PC does not mean it
>MUST be the WAV format.

    Your going to have to tell me what I did wrong, or send me
a stereo audio sample. After doing the above tests _and_ from
what I know of Oversampler, it does *not* support true stereo
waveforms. Find me a recording where the audio is distinctly
separated, save it in a format Oversampler recognizes, and
then upload it to the Ground FTP site so I can hear it for
myself. Sound fair?

>Why is it that everytime I say something good about
>the IIGS (or a non-Intel PC like the 6x86) you jump
>on me and go on the attack?  I thought it was just with
>the IIGS because you wanted to "repent" for your
>past allegiance to it, but when you learned I had a
>6x86, you went to great lengths to try to say it sucks.

    Um, You claimed the Yamaha Soft Synthesizer and WinAmp,
programs that heavily depend on FPU (Floating Point Unit)
performance, sounded terrible. I mentioned that the reason
it may sound off is due to the FACT (not opinion) the 6x86
has an FPU equivalent of roughly a Pentium 75, not than a
Pentium 166. HOW DO YOU PERCIEVE THIS as my saying "Your
computer sucks"?

    If someone asks, "Why does Super Mario Bros and all other
IIgs games with scrolling backgrounds produce tearing?" and
I reply, "The answer is the VGC writes video to screen at
1 MHz and all animation is offloaded to the CPU" is that going
to great lengths to say it sucks, OR is that just giving a
technical explaintion which contains no bias? Well?

>Look at it from my point of view: I like the IIGS.  I
>like non-Intel PCs.  You try to attack both.  It seems
>to me like you are targeting me!

    I target you? Let's see, you started the debate in this
thread, you started the debate in the MIDI one--both times
attacking my messages with non-biased technical information.
Don't let it be said you don't have a good sense of humour.

    You know, I'm finding all these debates you keep dragging
me into very draining and a HUGE waste of my time considering
your counter arguements rarely hold a shred of merit (example:
MP3 vs analog tape casettes). Are you trying to permanently
drive me out of comp.sys.apple2? Well congratulations, your
almost there. I'm starting to clearly see why so many people
left this newsgroup and thinking maybe it's soon time I
joined them.

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca