Could you post the link again please?
On Apr 1, 2011, at 2:37 AM, Svein Berge wrote: > Hello Dave, > > Thanks for the feedback! I'll answer each comment separately. As a general > comment, I should say that these products aim to be as useful as possible to > as many users as possible while limiting the feature set to something that is > easy to document, understand and support. The free player serves two purposes > for me: To increase the general interest in B-format, but of course more > importantly, as promotion for the plugin, where any income will come from. It > was therefore absolutely necessary to strip it of enough features to make the > upgrade worth the price for enough people. > > 1. lack of with-height surround playback > > With-height surround has always been one of the big selling points of > ambisonics, but not the only one. In my opinion, and I know opinions are > divided, other features will be more popular among current recording > engineers and sound designers. The plugin (but not the player) supports a > limited set of 3d layouts with up to 8 loudspeakers. If there is enough > interest to justify the time investment (remember: nobody other than users > are paying for this) I might make specialized versions for 3d playback over > large loudspeaker arrays, but the plugin is intended to appeal to the masses, > where horizontal outweighs 3d by orders of magnitude. > > 2. route outputs to audio channels > > This might be a candidate for improvement. I will make a note of it. The > player supports the three most common channel orders for 5.1. The plugin > allows you to drag the loudspeakers around to change the channel order, and > so has less use for it. > > 3. here's no option to play UHJ > > I don't think the harpex algorithm works with UHJ, although no theoretical > analysis has been done. I've listened to some UHJ recordings, and they > _sounded_ nice, but I feel it would be disingenuous to advertise UHJ support > if the theory does not support it. Anyone is free to experiment with UHJ-to-B > converters in combination with Harpex-B of course. > > 4. No loop or playlist mode on the player. > > These are already noted as candidates for improvement. > > 5. counter-productively expensive (compared to Reaper or Plogue) > > As you all know, the marginal cost of software is close to zero, everything > is in the development. So, when you compare a specialized product to a > mass-market product, it makes no logical sense to compare their feature set > without at the same time dividing by the potential sales numbers. It should > be noted that I am not paid by anyone to do this work, so the business model > here is that the users must pay for all of the development. Since this plugin > in practice requires the use of a soundfield-type microphone, which is not > really a mass-market product, I don't expect to recoup any reasonable wage > for the time spent on it. From a customer's point of view, the price should > be considered in relation to the cost of all the other gear involved - the > microphone, recorder, computer, daw etc and the relative value added by the > plugin. I think it's a good deal, but don't expect much sympathy from > academia. > > Svein > > > > On 1. april. 2011, at 10:43, Dave Malham wrote: > >> Yep, I've downloaded it too and it does look nice - I am _very_ envious of >> that display! >> >> The following comments are on the free player. Aside from any worries I (and >> no doubt many of those who remember "active steering" quad decoders) have >> about any sort of active level/position dependent processing, the current >> version has, as far as I am concerned, some limitations which rule out its >> use at present. The most serious of these is a lack of with-height surround >> playback (except, presumably, over phones). I mean, come on guys - this is >> the 21st century! The player also does not have any means (as far as I can >> see) to route outputs to audio channels (Windows version, not checked the >> OSX one yet). This is one of the big limitations of VLC which has stopped us >> pursuing that as the optimum cross platform player. There's no option to >> play UHJ...which is still important. No loop or playlist mode on the player. >> >> Anyway, more next week when I have had a chance to get into our studio and >> try it out (if I can figure a way to route the signals) >> >> Dave Malham >> >> PS - I think the full plugin is counter-productively expensive! I mean, come >> on - a plugin that costs more than many hosts that it might be used in like >> Reaper or Plogue and almost as much as the full Max/MSP/Jitter package, all >> of which have far more functionality and represent much higher investments >> in development time and resources. Fair enough (I suppose) for people who >> can afford to shell out for Protools - but for anyone else??? >> >> >> On 31/03/2011 17:15, Richard Dobson wrote: >>> On 31/03/2011 11:59, Svein Berge wrote: >>> . >>>> In addition, there is a free B-format player application, which is >>>> intended for playing back b-format material. Hopefully, this can make >>>> some modest contribution on the popularity of b-format as a surround >>>> sound format. The player is available for windows, osx and linux. >>>> >>> >>> >>> Hi, just downloaded it; plays very nicely, and looks great. One thing >>> though - it looks like it is exclusively a decoder, i.e. treats any generic >>> multi-channel file (.wav) as if it is BFormat, so it seems it can't double >>> up as a general multi-channel soundfile player - which would be quite >>> handy. Of course one reason for the AMB format was specifically to >>> disambiguate plain m/c files from bformat ones, to make such operation >>> easier. >>> >>> Richard Dobson >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Sursound mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound >> >> -- >> These are my own views and may or may not be shared by my employer >> /*********************************************************************/ >> /* Dave Malham http://music.york.ac.uk/staff/research/dave-malham/ */ >> /* Music Research Centre */ >> /* Department of Music "http://music.york.ac.uk/"; */ >> /* The University of York Phone 01904 432448 */ >> /* Heslington Fax 01904 432450 */ >> /* York YO10 5DD */ >> /* UK 'Ambisonics - Component Imaging for Audio' */ >> /* "http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/mustech/3d_audio/"; */ >> /*********************************************************************/ >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Sursound mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound > > _______________________________________________ > Sursound mailing list > [email protected] > https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound Danny McCarty Monolith Media, Inc. 4183 Summit View Hood River, Or 97031 415-331-7628 541-399-0089 Cell http://www.monolithmedia.net/ http://www.danielmccarty.com/ _______________________________________________ Sursound mailing list [email protected] https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
