triumph pt. 2, and whinging

[vostoklake]

The new printer is working. I *suppose* it's worth the $125 I paid for it, because it's less whiny and clunky than my 1998 vintage printer. And it looks shiny. I suppose that's what my $500 allowance for production costs for my thesis can be justified on - printing out two hundred pages on the old thing would have been a hair-tearing experience.

Right now, David Gilmour is singing about buying a football team through my new 5.1 speakers. Well, two of them anyway. See, this is the Surround Sound version of Dark Side of the Moon which I got out of the library; but it's the wrong *kind* of surround sound. Sony are pushing their own "DTS/Super Audio CD" format, as opposed to the "Dolby Digital/DVD-Audio" format which the rest of the civilised world looks set to adopt.

Chalk up another wonderful success to capitalism. Instead of everyone sitting down like sensible human beings and deciding what's the best and most convenient format, we've got to have Duelling Standards for a while. And most likely, as happened with video cassettes in the '80s, the inferior one will win. *sigh*

Comments

[darthsappho.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... looks like it isn't the wrong kind of surround, but the wrong kind of drive. From a brief search, both SACD and DVD-A appear to be forms of DVD, but can be dual-layer DVDs with one layer being a CD instead of a DVD so it will play in a CD player. Generally the CD layer would be a standard stereo version of the same tracks as the DVD layer, though if you wanted you could make the two layers completely different. You'd need a special audio-compatible DVD drive to access the surround stuff on the DVD layer.

[laputain.livejournal.com]

My understanding is that SACD and DVD-A both use entirely different forms of encoding surround information. My soundcard uses the Dolby Digital standard, which is completely incompatible with the DTS system used on SACDs. So... it's the wrong kind of drive *and* the wrong kind of encoding.

[calenturian.livejournal.com]

"Money" is about buying a football team? I never knew that. Not that I was ever a big Floyd fan.

I had something to say about the TCP/IP standard winning against this more well-designed standard that a committee tried to impose, thus proving that inferior yet popular standards win in non-capitalist areas too, but uni was too long ago and I can't remember the details.

And getting up-to-date hardware is always justifiable, she says, noting down an iPod as "removable storage" on her tax return :)

[laputain.livejournal.com]

"A new car, caviar, four-star daydream,
Think I'll buy me a football team."

It's one of many themes of conspicuous consumption used in the song.

Stereo over all speakers

[(Anonymous)]

Did you already notice that there are options
to play average stereo CDs in a simulated
surround mode? ;-)

D.