In article , Iain Churches
wrote:

"David Looser" wrote in message
...


With the honourable exception of DG and Decca classical *all*
pressings were "budget" pressings in those days IME.

There are many other fine labels that should be added to that list.
including RCA Red Seal, Supraphon and Melodiya.

I'm not sure which "Melodiya" you have in mind. Some of the LPs with that
label that I have are really awful recordings (of fascinating music).
Whereas some are good. Hard to tell if the ones with ultra-high distortion
are due to poor initial recording or lousy cutting, etc. But in some cases
the problems are clearly with the tape recording as the same dropouts,
flutter, etc, also show up on later CDs of the same recordings.

That said I also have some "Melodiya" CDs where Denon (IIRC) did the actual
recording and production. These have about the widest dynamic range and
about the clearest sound I have heard on CD! They give the impression
that no level adjustments or compressions were applied at all, and the
works just played in one take. The results are impressive and dramatic.
Alas apart from the titles, etc, all the writing is in Japanese!

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
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In article , David Looser
scribeth thus
"Iain Churches" wrote

In many cases, it is still often found to be preferable
to the alternative.


I guess that depends on what you mean by "preferable". Whilst the old
technology often has "something about it" which some people undoubtedly
like, I can't think of a single example where the old actually performs
better than the new.



FM-v-UK DAB;?..

UK HD Half Definition TV ;?.....

--
Tony Sayer

"tony sayer" wrote in message
...
In article , David Looser
scribeth thus
"Iain Churches" wrote

In many cases, it is still often found to be preferable
to the alternative.


I guess that depends on what you mean by "preferable". Whilst the old
technology often has "something about it" which some people undoubtedly
like, I can't think of a single example where the old actually performs
better than the new.



FM-v-UK DAB;?..


Certain cost-cutting *implementations*of new technology may be poor. Just as
I'm sure that the point Iain was trying to make was that some CDs have crap
mastering, which again is hardly the fault of the technology.

UK HD Half Definition TV ;?.....


The HD TV I have seen has been excellent. I don't know where this
"half-definition" jibe has come from.

David.

In article ,
David Looser wrote:
UK HD Half Definition TV ;?.....


The HD TV I have seen has been excellent. I don't know where this
"half-definition" jibe has come from.

When did you last see it? 'They've' recently done just what they did to
both DAB and FreeView - dropped the data rate. Very noticeable here. HD
now looks more or less like FreeView did at its best.

--
*Ah, I see the f**k-up fairy has visited us again

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
David Looser wrote:
UK HD Half Definition TV ;?.....


The HD TV I have seen has been excellent. I don't know where this
"half-definition" jibe has come from.

When did you last see it?

Wednesday afternoon.

'They've' recently done just what they did to
both DAB and FreeView - dropped the data rate.

Of itself that means very little, unless it's the numbers rather than the
pictures that matters to you.

Very noticeable here. HD
now looks more or less like FreeView did at its best.

What I saw on Wednesday (BBC HD Preview) was far better than SD has ever
been.

David.

In article ,
David Looser wrote:
The HD TV I have seen has been excellent. I don't know where this
"half-definition" jibe has come from.

When did you last see it?

Wednesday afternoon.

'They've' recently done just what they did to
both DAB and FreeView - dropped the data rate.

Of itself that means very little, unless it's the numbers rather than
the pictures that matters to you.

The results here on the same TV are noticeably worse. Taking the same show
as a guideline - The Antiques Road Show. Drama is too variable in how it's
shot. Wimbledon was one of the first things I saw here in HD a couple of
years ago, and that was stunning. I'll bet it won't be this year.

Very noticeable here. HD
now looks more or less like FreeView did at its best.

What I saw on Wednesday (BBC HD Preview) was far better than SD has ever
been.

The preview is designed to showcase it. Bit like a demonstration in a shop.
You need longer term exposure to all sorts of material to decide.

--
*A closed mouth gathers no feet.*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote

The preview is designed to showcase it. Bit like a demonstration in a
shop.
You need longer term exposure to all sorts of material to decide.


Of course. But unless you are claiming that preview uses a higher bit rate
than the rest of the output you have to explain why you think it exempt from
the poor quality that you say the low bit-rate the BBC now uses causes.

David.

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...
In article , Iain Churches
wrote:

"David Looser" wrote in message
...


With the honourable exception of DG and Decca classical *all*
pressings were "budget" pressings in those days IME.

There are many other fine labels that should be added to that list.
including RCA Red Seal, Supraphon and Melodiya.

I'm not sure which "Melodiya" you have in mind. Some of the LPs with that
label that I have are really awful recordings (of fascinating music).
Whereas some are good.

I agree that Russian Melodiya did tend to be variable.
But fine recording that stick in my mind are the
Shostakovich MPO/Kondrashkin. and the Borodin String
Quartet. There are many more. I must dig them out.

Hard to tell if the ones with ultra-high distortion
are due to poor initial recording or lousy cutting, etc. But in some cases
the problems are clearly with the tape recording as the same dropouts,
flutter, etc, also show up on later CDs of the same recordings.

Russian tape was not particularly good (neither was British
tape of the era, either:-)). I can remember, for my sins, sitting
for many hours with a Decca third-party customer listening
to their recordings made on Racal-Zonal tape, and trying to level
match, copy and insert identical passages, sometimes from
out-takes, to replace those with drop-outs.

Also, in the interests of economy, some labels, maybe
Melodiya among them, were in the habit of re-using tape,
even when it had edits in it. So what you have heard might
not have been a dropout but a splice made on some other
recording!

That said I also have some "Melodiya" CDs where Denon (IIRC) did the
actual recording and production.

They may well have been made during the years
that Melodiya was a dormant label, and had no
production of its own.

Iain

In article ,
David Looser wrote:
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote

The preview is designed to showcase it. Bit like a demonstration in a
shop.
You need longer term exposure to all sorts of material to decide.


Of course. But unless you are claiming that preview uses a higher bit
rate than the rest of the output you have to explain why you think it
exempt from the poor quality that you say the low bit-rate the BBC now
uses causes.

You choose material which minimises any artifacts.

I'm not saying the quality is poor - just noticeably worse than before
they changed to the new decoder and dropped the bit rate. And I'm not the
only one complaining.

--
*Support bacteria - they're the only culture some people have *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
David Looser wrote:
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote

The preview is designed to showcase it. Bit like a demonstration in a
shop.
You need longer term exposure to all sorts of material to decide.


Of course. But unless you are claiming that preview uses a higher bit
rate than the rest of the output you have to explain why you think it
exempt from the poor quality that you say the low bit-rate the BBC now
uses causes.

You choose material which minimises any artifacts.

I doubt that it was. Much of the material seemed to be exactly the sort that
would show up artifacts, such as shots taken from a helicopter with a
detailed landscape moving in the background.

I'm not saying the quality is poor - just noticeably worse than before
they changed to the new decoder and dropped the bit rate.

Or, having heard that they'd dropped the bit rate, you, and others, started
looking for artefacts which you hadn't noticed before. It's well known that
one can sensitise oneself to particular faults in images by looking for them
and concentrating on them. When I was building my 625-405 line standards
converter back in the mid 1980s I became very aware of, and intolerant to,
the interline twitter caused by interlacing.

And I'm not the
only one complaining.

I know that, it doesn't prove anything. Since the issue of the quality of
BBC HD has become a cause celebre people are looking at BBC HD with a far
more critical eye than heretofore.

David.