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YouTube puts the final nail in the loudness wars' coffin

productionadvice.co.uk

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Re: YouTube puts the final nail in the loudness wars' coffin

#121

Post by pcl »

IshKebab wrote: post #112
polshaw wrote: post #22

>[on YT] Everything plays at a similar loudness, regardless of how it was mastered. And no-one has noticed. None of us noticed; it seems like the labels and sound engineers may have; take this image comparing the dynamic range of the CD and youtube releases of Pharrell's "Happy"[1]- I thought at the time it might just have been a mishap or random occurance, but now it looks like it was a very deliberate move. So, rat…

The second video you link is 240p which is always going to have awful quality. You can't really use that for a comparison (unless I guess you force the first one to 240p too).

Are you suggesting that YouTube correlates audio quality to video resolution? If so, do you know what the correlations are?

Re: YouTube puts the final nail in the loudness wars' coffin

#122

Post by sigmar »

pcl wrote: post #121
IshKebab wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The second video you link is 240p which is always going to have awful quality. You can't really use that for a comparison (unless I guess you force the first one to 240p too).

Are you suggesting that YouTube correlates audio quality to video resolution? If so, do you know what the correlations are?

Youtube does indeed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube#Quality_and_formats (click the "show")

Re: YouTube puts the final nail in the loudness wars' coffin

#123

Post by vmarsy »

pcl wrote: post #121
IshKebab wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The second video you link is 240p which is always going to have awful quality. You can't really use that for a comparison (unless I guess you force the first one to 240p too).

Are you suggesting that YouTube correlates audio quality to video resolution? If so, do you know what the correlations are?

yes it does, if you use a video extractor, and look at the different settings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3PDXmYoF5U

.mp4 in 720p:

AUDIO: 44100 Hz, 2 ch, floatle, 192.0 kbit/6.80% (ratio: 24000->352800) ID_AUDIO_BITRATE=192000

.mp4 in 360p:

AUDIO: 44100 Hz, 2 ch, floatle, 96.0 kbit/3.40% (ratio: 12001->352800) ID_AUDIO_BITRATE=96008

(compared using : mplayer -vo null -ao null -frames 0 -identify videofile.mp4

http://superuser.com/questions/595177/how-to-retrieve-video-... )

Re: YouTube puts the final nail in the loudness wars' coffin

#124

Post by sigmar »

discardorama wrote: post #107
polshaw wrote: post #22

>[on YT] Everything plays at a similar loudness, regardless of how it was mastered. And no-one has noticed. None of us noticed; it seems like the labels and sound engineers may have; take this image comparing the dynamic range of the CD and youtube releases of Pharrell's "Happy"[1]- I thought at the time it might just have been a mishap or random occurance, but now it looks like it was a very deliberate move. So, rat…

Both of your links ([2] and [3]) are to YouTube; if they are normalizing the audio (as claimed by the author), then you shouldn't be able to hear a difference, right?

wrong. They are normalizing the perceived loudness. Which means [3] (which is the louder CD) will end up sounding squashed and equally as loud as [2].

Re: YouTube puts the final nail in the loudness wars' coffin

#126

Post by kbart »

vmarsy wrote: post #123
pcl wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting that YouTube correlates audio quality to video resolution? If so, do you know what the correlations are?

yes it does, if you use a video extractor, and look at the different settings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3PDXmYoF5U .mp4 in 720p: AUDIO: 44100 Hz, 2 ch, floatle, 192.0 kbit/6.80% (ratio: 24000->352800) ID_AUDIO_BITRATE=192000 .mp4 in 360p: AUDIO: 44100 Hz, 2 ch, floatle, 96.0 kbit/3.40% (ratio: 12001->352800) ID_AUDIO_BITRATE=96008 (compared using : mplayer -vo null -ao null -frames 0 -identify videofile.mp4 h…

Wow, that's new for me, would never thought of that.

Re: YouTube puts the final nail in the loudness wars' coffin

#127

Post by shortkud »

Does anyone actually have a source that shows YouTube has actually implemented technology that is doing this? Contrary to popular belief music videos are still encoded and mastered for delivery to VEVO by a few companies. Universal Music also has one of the largest catalog of popular artists. VEVO transcodes them and publishes to their platform. If they let Google transcode them or not I do not know. Depends on the partnership.

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/3079146?hl=en

Re: YouTube puts the final nail in the loudness wars' coffin

#128

Post by keeperofdakeys »

rlx0x wrote: post #56

Doesn't the process of compression (to make it seem louder) destroy some of the information? I always assumed this was a irreversible process?

Dynamic range compression does destroy some information, but you can still change the final playback volume.

Re: YouTube puts the final nail in the loudness wars' coffin

#129

Post by mikepurvis »

JoelHobson wrote: post #64
mikepurvis wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one which had me sad recently is the soundtrack to the game Bastion: http://supergiantgames.bandcamp.com/album/bastion-original-s... It's noticeable on almost every track basically as soon as the drums kick in. (About ten seconds into "A Proper Story", for example). It's depressing that this has occurred even on a piece of indie content for which so much care has otherwise been taken— Darren Korb was the sound de…

I always thought that drum sound was on purpose. I kind of liked the way it sounded.

Intentional or otherwise, the waveform certainly clips— you can see it in any audio editor, eg: http://imgur.com/a/WacOy

Since the drums sounds all started life as hi-fi samples, the detail is certainly there in the original Logic sessions. It would be an interesting experiment to do a listening test comparing the CD versions of the tracks against versions mastered with more headroom, either less loudly or to a 64-bit format.

It may well be that a certain degree of the grunge is artistic versus technical, but I suspect that in a blind test I would still prefer a version with slightly less muddy drums.

Re: YouTube puts the final nail in the loudness wars' coffin

#130

Post by kragen »

malka wrote: post #93
mattmcknight wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must be the opposite of cynical, because I assumed they were doing it to combat that. The FCC already acted against the practice on TV. http://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/loud-commercials

If France, the network cant increase the loudness during the ads. Instead, the sound is (sometimes, heavily) compressed. Annoying as hell.

That's what this article means by "loudness". They're talking about compressing the dynamic range so that the average power is higher, not increasing the peak power.
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