[BC] Digital Interference

[Tom Bosscher]

Robert Orban wrote:
  > Good lossless coding can reduce bit rate and storage space by 50%. The
> industry should transition to it from lossy coding, and the sooner the 
> better.
> 
> bob Orban

	And one of the best pieces of news is that Promo MPE, out of Canada is 
working on a new release of their program that feeds the radio stations 
the new cuts from the record companies. Promo was using their codec of 
some sort. My plant is all straight uncompressed linear. All songs are 
recorded via AES-EBU at 44.1/16 into the hard drive. We out right 
rejected Promo's codec. In email discussions with them, I pointed out it 
does not matter how good their codec is, the term in transcoding.

	After several emails over a two week period, things got real quiet. I 
was then asked by Promo if I would accept audio cuts that only used FLAC 
for coding, to which I said yes. My contact at Promo understands exactly 
the concern with 96/kbps multi coding. I am supposed to be getting the 
new program sometime this week.

	He went on to lament the (lack) of quality on the digital masters from 
the labels. In talking to him, and our programming people, I think the 
only way to get the record labels to back off on that wretched final 
limiter is create a weekly hall-of-shame. I do believe that by posting 
waveforms of the clipped audio on a high profile site, and maybe even 
the record reporting magazines, that we just might embarrass the record 
labels. I think it is worth trying.

	tom bosscher