At first I didn't think it worth the time and effort to reply to the
below, but here I am wasting my time.
Pieter wrote:
> While Sjoerd's application base is fine and well tested - a lot of
people who buy the products are more computer savy these days and
expect a lot more from the products, like decent distribution maps, a
comprehensive list of species in the region, species descriptions etc.
Our CD-/DVD-ROMs are not intended to replace the field guides, but as
a complement: they carry the sounds which the field guides do not
provide, in a format which is infinitely more practical than a big
stack of audio CDs and a small stack of booklets. Users which "expect
a lot more" should wait until those more comprehensive products are
published.
> In addition, people trying to access the sounds will invariably try
and reverse engineer your software and compromise what (little)
copyright protection that offers.
Whatever that means... We make the CD-/DVD-ROMs to show (and let
hear) people the beauty of birds. If someone else can do a better
job: fine! Go ahead! We don't do this because of the (little) money.
> People instinctively distrust lossy compressions when used in
nature sounds (they tend to remove the upper frequencies which are
often the most important parts of the call, not to mention the
problems of re-sampling).
All kinds of things come to my mind now:
- lossy compression is used for most sounds on our CD-/DVD-ROMs
because otherwise all that sound (69 hours for the Ecuador DVD-ROM!)
wouldn't fit on a single disc. It is not inherent to the CD-/DVD-ROM
format (the author specifies for each recording what method to use:
64 kbps MP3, 128 kbps MP3, 64 kbps WMA, 128 kbps WMA, etc, and
also "no compression" is an option).
- if someone wants to use the recordings for playback, I bet the
compression makes no difference in 99.99% of cases. I use to think of
what my friend Tom Gullick (the world's top lister) said about
playback: "if birds are in the right mood, they will respond to any
recording. I had birds flying in to recordings on which I hadn't even
noticed it!".
- MP3 may "tend to remove the upper frequencies", but those weren't
present in those original recordings which were made on cassette
tapes anyway. And many excellent recordists taped on cassette tapes
(many still do!, certainly in the tropics). So they apparently
thought/think that the absence of those inaudibly (for us) high
frequencies isn't too important. Besides, MP3 and WMA may "tend to
remove the upper frequencies", but the sonograms show still plenty of
high frequencies, almost as much as with (uncompressed) audio CD
recordings.
> As for quick and easy access to the tracks and identifying the
species on an Audio CD - that can be achieved by publishing a CDDB
for the product on one of the several Internet databases.
But it's still nothing compared to the "Find" function on our CD-/DVD-
ROMs.
> as well as throwing ... some text in as well
You may not have noticed it, but the text is quite important.
And please note that our South American CD-/DVD-ROMs are also
installable in Spanish. I was told that my own Bolivia CD-ROM is
widely used in Bolivia, especially by biologists and students (even
though we only sold a few copies there.... I guess I shouldn't say
this, but a CD-ROM copy costs only a few dollarcents - much cheaper
than copying a stack of audio CDs and their booklets.)
> Your market for an Audio CD is far, far greater than that of a CD-
ROM (think Windows and Apple Macs here, plus how many people out
there actually own a computer).
John Moore told me how many Ecuador CDs he sold, and I can tell you
that our CD-/DVD-ROMs sell almost as well as his audio CDs. Add to
that all the illegal copies, and I think our "market penetration" is
far greater.
Walter Knapp wrote: "When making a disk of a country like Ecuador,
how many sales go back to the country? I'd expect even CD would be
much less common there, and computers of any kind very uncommon."
I think Walt never was around there. PCs are cheap and ubiquitous, at
least in Bolivia. And Bolivia is supposedly a poorer country than
Ecuador. People have strange ideas about "the third world".
> I think CD-Audio format is a better choice.
I don't.
Sjoerd
ps WMA stands for Windows Media Audio, which is Microsoft's
proprietary audio compression method.
--- In "Pieter Wessels"
<> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> With regards to the question posed by John Moore on Audio CD or
CD/DVD-ROM
> format for commercial products.
>
> The CD/DVD-ROM formats have the obvious appeal of more than 99
tracks per CD
> as well as throwing a few photographs and some text in as well.
>
> On the down side of CD/DVD-ROM: you have to develop an
application. While
> Sjoerd's application base is fine and well tested - a lot of people
who buy
> the products are more computer savy these days and expect a lot
more from
> the products, like decent distribution maps, a comprehensive list
of species
> in the region, species descriptions etc. You also have to provide
product
> support - I've never heard (well, far less frequently anyway) of
someone
> needing help playing a traditional Audio CD.
>
> In addition, people trying to access the sounds will invariably try
and
> reverse engineer your software and compromise what (little)
copyright
> protection that offers.
>
> People instinctively distrust lossy compressions when used in
nature sounds
> (they tend to remove the upper frequencies which are often the most
> important parts of the call, not to mention the problems of re-
sampling).
> The problem is that most people associate these sorts of
compression
> algorithms with sounds played through the computer, regardless of
the fact
> that these problems can be avoided by using a loss-less
compression. The
> problem of perception remains and many people will feel
uncomfortable or
> distrust sounds that appear to have been manipulated and played
through a
> computer.
>
> One also has to be fairly computer savy to create a play-back tape
from a
> CD-ROM. (I realise and don't even wish to start discussing the
ethics of
> using play-back never mind the copyright issues, but it happens and
people
> sell CDs because it happens).
>
> As for quick and easy access to the tracks and identifying the
species on an
> Audio CD - that can be achieved by publishing a CDDB for the
product on one
> of the several Internet databases.
>
> Your market for an Audio CD is far, far greater than that of a CD-
ROM (think
> Windows and Apple Macs here, plus how many people out there
actually own a
> computer).
>
> I think CD-Audio format is a better choice.
>
> Pieter Wessels
>
> _________________________________________________________________
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________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
"Microphones are not ears,
Loudspeakers are not birds,
A listening room is not nature."
Klas Strandberg
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