The idea that people can only see 24 frames a second is a myth. If the shutter angle/exposure time on films was changed so that there was no motion blur any scene with movement would look horrible. It gets pretty hard to tell beyond about 240fps if you have more frames per second, but still possible for some.
Yes, it's quite easy to tell if a video was shot using high shutter speeds, instead of 1/30 sec shutter speed which produces a natural motion blur. High shutter speeds produce a "stroboscopic" effect which looks quite odd when there is fast movement.
DSD means Direct Stream Digital. It’s as digital as anything else digital. You should of course not be looking at single bits when you view a PCM stream but need to look at each value where you can easily see how the value follows the sound wave. DSD is easier and cheaper to convert to analog but that doesn’t make DSD itself analog. In fact, DSD-64 resolves the voltage less precise than 24 bit PCM, and some could argue opposite with that perspective (time vs voltage resolution).
@@easystreetphoto2401 DSD is not FM. Rather each sampling is sigma delta based. Check here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-pkV5TjJFKEE.html
@@ThinkingBetter there are no samplings. the delta sigma modulator is a modulator circuit - a mixer, combining the carrier and signal waves. a high pass filter is enough to demodulate the signal and yield the original waveform.
@@easystreetphoto2401 There are no sampling of levels but sampling of the deltas (up/down) relative to the sigma (accumulated level) enabling a stair-case approximation of the output waveform. A capacitor can be used as a DAC of a raw DSD stream as bits are causing charging/discharging of the cap. The many saw teeth steps will however need some low pass filtering to avoid ultrasonic noise.
@@ThinkingBetter there is no staircase approximation of a waveform. there's a comparison of one voltage to a previous voltage to determine whether the next pulse is high or low. you can't get a staircase out of "high or low." there is no up from high nor down from low.
I had this same thought when I first learned of digitally sourced vinyl going back. I began thinking whats the point if its a PCM master transfer? Ive never really had the chance to do an "on the fly" a-b comparison however.
I am slighty confused with the function of a deta sigma modulator in dsd dacs. What is the function of a delta sigma modulator when we are playing dsd? Why do we use one for dsd? Since dsd can be played if a lpf is applied. If someone would be able to answer my silly question it would be much appreciated as i am chasing my own tail trying to figure it out. Thanks.
99% of your DAC out there are SDM which is PWM in nature. That DSD being a binary data is written for. low pass filter is to reduce floor noise induced by the sampling rate. the lower, more noise. When you have DSD512 or 386kHz PCM, you do not need to add a filter in your circuit.
It can make a lot of sense to add some EQ when the system including room acoustics is with a poor frequency response. But it is good to do some critical A/B testing with all bands on neutral (0db) to ensure you are not introducing any audible negative effects from it before calibrating it. And if you end up having to boost any frequency area more than 6dB, you should rethink your setup (speakers, placement or room acoustics). A great system doesn't need much EQ but usually any system can benefit from some careful use of it...if the EQ is a good one. BTW, one reason to use EQ is to compensate for any hearing issues e.g. as we age we lose ability to hear the high treble frequencies and adding a few dB (e.g. at 12kHz and up) can rejuvenate the experience quite dramatically.
You can make pcm equivalents to pdm. So they can both theoritically match eachother at some point, but with pdm you cannot do signal processing the way you can do it with pcm. I'd like to hear a blind test of 32 bit/384khz pcm vs (pdm) DSD 512. At some unknown point they become audibly indistinguishable and I'm sure we can all agree to that in theory. So why don't we strive to make the very best pcm Bit depth and sampling rate (true archive quality, which means massive overkill) and be done with it? For example: DSD 64 is 2.8Mhz at 1 bit. So why don't we try 2.8Mhz at 24bit pcm and see how that sounds? You'll also be able to do signal processing.
DSD-64 resolves approx. as a 96kHz 20 bit PCM stream making it superior to CD quality but inferior to the DXD (352.8kHz 24 bits PCM) that it is down-converted (= lossy transcoding) from when mastered digitally. Many modern DACs can already do DXD or even better sample rates so no doubt that the PCM roadmap will continue to expand with higher frequency content. Already now you have major streaming services providing 192kHz 24 bits PCM FLAC lossless and error-free playback such as Amazon Music HD. This already beats DSD-64 today. When PCM sounds bad it's mostly not because of PCM itself but more about bad algorithms involved in re-sampling (some Android devices, for example) or other processing. DSD can't be processed and that is a bummer but on the positive side, it sort of protects the integrity of it.
DSD in data are just 1 and 0, you can process that, just like PCM. Just that nobody writing for it. You can just convert DSD to PCM with zero loss and exact copy with the correct conversion rate. Convert to PCM so that you don't need to fork extra cash to rewrite the algorithm and extra CPU hardcode.
Well all electrical signals are analog! Digital just defines how the information of interest is encoded into that analog waveform. For example PCM is analogous to FM. It is interesting to note mankind's first electronic communication system was digital! Morse Code! As long is you could distinguish between a dot and a dash, you could decode the message. If the Morse Code was sent by radio, the background noise and static was irrelevant as long as you could still tell the difference between a dot and dash. Dot/dash = one/zero.
Yes, but with a movie, your eyes don't perceive the differences that your ears can, the old hammer, anvil, stirrup react more like a drum with reverb which leads into the next tone, like a waveform.
Oh Paul lol. So your saying that analog tape is not continuous and is made up of bits ? Which in turn makes vinyl made up as bits as well ? Amplification is made up of bits ? The transfer of analog signal down a cable is made up of bits ? Oh boy, you e really gone down the rabbit hole with this one lol.
Loosely speaking, Digital =defined standard part sizes, analogue =can be split into yet undetermined part sizes, which in theory could be split into infinite and infinitely small, however human measuring equipment (ears) have a know resolution limit. So Paul is right that our perception has limit that digital can exceed, however Paul is still “analogue” himself (until split into parts).
the analog- illusion he was talking about is the fact that energy in the universe comes in discrete packages, space becomes random fuzz below a certain scale, and time is broken up into packages by the time it takes lightspeed to cross a space- pixel. this means our universe is pixelated on the smallest level, the quantum scale. quantum comes from quantized, which in essence meams digital. its just so high resolution digital and so fuzzily (uncertainty principle) imperfect interconnected between "bits" that it can be viewed as analog
Few thoughts on what Paul said here. For starters, I would LOVE to see the difference in the oscilloscope between a PCM vs DSD file. Second, I would love to see what measures in the DSD music files gets when it’s converted to the analog Output. Lastly, I do believe PCM can be more like DSD if the recordings or playback is in 32 float. I know AAC lossy files (even though they were compressed) where in a 32 float and would take on the bit rate of DAC “standard” usually 16 bit. But a system that plays back 32 or even 64 float bit would be awesome to have.
@@infinite1der Based on what I have read and seen, PWM has broader applications not just used in DSD but also in electrical Engineering of LED bulbs and motors. I have a n idea of what PWM is but I’m a little confused in what it is exactly it is that’s why I’d like to see what Paul is talking about with the music wave playback in the oscilloscope
The question shouldn't be is it analog or PCM or DSD it should be do you enjoy the final product. I personally find PCM recordings grate on my nerves and I can't listen for very long except as background music. DSD recordings are not widely available and require special equipment to play and I have limited experience with them.
Movies are usually 24 fps because it has been like that for a long time and seen as "cinematic" if you look at 60 fps video compared to 24 or 30 fps video you will see a difference. Other than that I agree with you.
Some blockbuster movies are shot in 60 fps and it can “expose” a lot of the CGI if it’s slow down frame by frame. Also I’ve seen 60 fps used in “digital restorations” which is much like “upsampling” for audio. Even though it’s only an “illusion” the standard definition does improve quite a lot not like it was shot in HD but it looks better.
Here’s Gemini man shot in 60 fps starring (no other than) Will Smith. You even go to 120 fps. Idk those higher fps don’t like natural to humans even though there’s more frames per second but it’s definitely smoother looking. Sometimes in certain scenes and situations, it can be better though… ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-vX2vsvdq8nw.html
@@CT-rn6ms yep. 24 is. That’s why movie/tv audio is in multiples of 24 (48 khz and above) The “tv standard” in the US is 24 and I believe it’s 30 or 25?? fps in Europe in Europe. Its also really hard to convert everything in fps and Audio so that’s why it’s “standardized” at 24 fps.
Errrrr - not sure that's right. Digital is either on or off (0 or 1), whereas Analogue can be any value between 0 and 1 (or whatever the scale is), it's not just on or off it can be anywhere in between.
I love Paul and everything, but he keeps mischaracterizing PCM vs. DSD. PCM's 44.1k samples/sec is far lower than DSD's data rate, but each PCM sample can represent over 65k steps, each one a different piece of information. Each DSD sample, however, is only either a "1" or a "0," so it takes many more samples to piece together the signal. There's more to resolution than sample rate. Also, we shouldn't get bogged down in "the world is bits" argument, but motion picture film frames are a poor example of digital sampling. Each frame is very, very analog.
Doesn't film work via a photo chemical reaction operating on tiny distinct crystals? Hence film grain? Like yes it is analogue, but it is made up of lots of tiny bits
I keep wanting to get excited about DSD but I get the feeling it's not exactly the be all end all answer and certainly not a direct replacement for good analog.
@@Crokto Exactly! Analog is just a matter of definition, when talking about film. Each frame- just like each analog photograph, is made of lots of tiny bits.
I own a DAC that filters the DSD signal so there is no chip or processing involved. A pure DSD signal, one that is recorded in DSD, and not converted from another digital format, is superior to any other recorded media I have heard. Caveat, I have never heard a master tape. The next best is direct to disc vinyl. Nothing is close to live.
When doing AD/DA, no addition process(example EQ, DRC....etc) you can add during the conversion for DSD or PCM. Many people just like to mislead saying you can't process DSD.
Paul, Paul, Paul … yes for the most part, BUT … the photo analogy is WRONG if we consider photographs made on FILM. (I will not get into a philosophical discussion of film vs digital photography…) As you well know, the silver-oxide grains (converted to pure silver or dye structures during development) are of varying size and shape - especially the latter being dependent on the specific chemistry of the development process. In that sense film-based photographs are not analogous (see what I did there?) to DSD being analog.
the world is analog. Digital was invented, not discovered! A signal is digital because it can only have a pre-defined number of values,(often 2), occuring at fixed time intervals, making it posible to correct errors, rather than adding them up
Not the best explanation by Paul. And it's best to just avoid what may be "reality". (FWIW physics suggests you are both continuous and discrete.) And yes, one can notice a difference between 25fps and 60fps video. Regarding DSD v. PCM (and the discussion should really be phrased as PDM v. PCM as "DSD" is a branding attempt by Sony and Phillips), in practice it appears that the debates continue but in commerce almost all music distributed is PCM, so I don't see a need to really worry about this issue. DSD may be superior (and there are theoretical papers and empirical studies which suggest that) but that may not be relevant because it has often been the case that what succeeds commercially is not necessarily what is the highest performance.
@@InsideOfMyOwnMind The reason PCM already won is that PCM allows digital signal processing and modern devices involve digital audio processing (PC, phone, tablet, car, TV, STB, wireless headphones etc.). Even digital mastering can not be done in DSD and all digitally mastered music actually got mastered into PCM even if you got a transcoded lossy DSD version of it (e.g. the actual mastering output was DXD, which is PCM). DSD therefore really only makes sense for analog mixed/mastered music (e.g. Octave Records) distributed to a niche market of audiophiles willing to download files for playback. Does DSD sound better than CD? Yes. Would I prefer DSD for an analog mastered music track? Yes, if the music itself is great. Does DSD sound better than the DXD it originated from? Of course not.
I don't agree it's best to avoid trying to define reality. Not to go into a long and complicated philosophical discussion, but this thinking is IMO the results of decades of postmodern mumbo jumbo by social 'scientists' who don't understand sh*t about physics.
@@ThinkingBetter Yet all your 99.9% AD/DA are SDM which is PWM in nature. DSD being the native data for PWM being rejected. But no a problem. DSD and PCM can translate to each other with zero loss and exact copy.
@@kongwee1978 DSD and PCM are different methods of sampling and transcoding between them is lossy. The ultrasonic “trying to match the analog shape by a binary step up or down” noise you have naturally in DSD is unique for DSD. You could transcode DSD to PCM with preservation of that ultrasonic noise using same high 2.8224 MHz sample rate and 24 bits PCM and call it “lossless”, but who is doing this? Also, many DAC chips are not entirely sigma delta on the output but using some hybrid stage.
You must have been hitting the good stuff there in Boulder Paul! LOL: "The idea of analog is false, the idea of analog is an illusion" Analog is very real and is, by definition, signals of information represented by a continuously variable physical quality. An analog signal is a continuous signal which represents physical measurements. DSD, also known as Pulse Density Modulation, is a digital signal, a discrete-time signal generated by digital modulation. "You can't tell from a PCM stream what is going on but from a DSD stream, you absolutely can"? Paul, did you forget that in order to quantize that 2.8224 MHz sampling rate (DSD64) huge amounts of noise must be added to the signal? That means whether it's a recording of a Beethoven symphony or complete silence, with DSD there is always a large quantity of noise in the recorded signal and that can definitely be seen on a scope. Isn't that why you need a low pass filter, Paul? Let's be truthful Paul. If you tried to run an unfiltered DSD signal through analog equipment without a filter you would do some serious damage to the equipment. The only illusion going on here is the illusion that DSD (PDM) is superior, or more "like analog" than PCM. That simply isn't true.
The observation that "an unfiltered DSD signal through analog equipment without a filter you would do some serious damage to the equipment" is irrelevant and proves nothing. Neither does the fact that a DSD signal contains massive amounts of ultrasonic noise, prove that it isn't analog, or pseudo-analog. That noise content, the quantized nature of the DSD signal, and the requirement for a high-precision 1-bit decoder to reproduce it accurately, are the only distinguishing factors between analog and DSD. And in any case, DSD does not meet the basic requirement for a signal to be digital - there are no numerical representations in the stream. A better meaning of "DSD" would be Direct Stream Discrete, but unfortunately the audio world is unlikely to relinquish the "digital" label.
@@marianneoelund2940 The observation that an unfiltered DSD signal would do damage to analog equipment goes to show that the DSD signal is not an accurate representation of an analog signal and that an analog signal can not be "seen" in a DSD file as Paul implies. The fact that DSD requires massive amounts of ultrasonic noise does in fact prove that DSD is not analog because the noise is added to quantize the digital samples. The first step in creating DSD is an analog to digital conversion where the analog signal is sampled. As you pointed out DSD then requires a "decoder", also known as a digital to analog converter in order for it to be played back. The same is true for a PCM signal as well. So there is nothing "analog" about DSD (PDM) and you can't see an analog signal nor play a DSD file without the "bits" being converted back to analog.
@@JonAnderhub Sampling is not a "digital" function. It merely time-quantizes the signal, and it is done with purely analog circuitry. Paul was referring to the visibility of the average DSD signal level *on an oscilloscope,* and he is correct.
You're still on a mission. Why I do not know, but it is probably not quite as noble as you may like to tell yourself. "The only illusion going on here is the illusion that DSD (PDM) is superior" - both theoretical and empirical studies exist that indicate opposite of what you claim. " huge amounts of noise must be added to the signal?" - you keep going on and on about this. Look up why dithering is desirable in many applications, not just audio. "Analog is very real and is, by definition, signals of information represented by a continuously variable physical quality." - that may be what is told to beginning engineering students, but trying to understand what is "real" is much more difficult than you imagine. While I think Paul's description in this video is not the best, I think I know what he is getting at, as opposed to you who seem to be on this anti-DSD mission for who knows what reason.
@Anthony Crivello I absolutely agree, anything higher than 48 kHz should only be used for recording to allow for a less fancy anti aliasing filter before the adc ... but for playback, 44.1 or 48k already gives an accurate enough restitution of the high end of the audible spectrum, which you hear less as you age anyway !
Ah the fun. A well recorded performance with the right mics, boards, preamp, and most importantly a good engineer can sound great on a CD or album. Screw up any of the above and you get less than stellar results. After a point it doesn't really matter the recording medium. It is the artistry of the engineers that count. I admire the quest for audio perfection. Truly. But will it make a big difference on my sub$10000 rig?? Probably not.
If the true nature of reality is discrete ('digital') or continious ('analog') is a question that is still not definitively solved by science! And DSD is dicrete, not continious.
A photo is not made of little pixels. A picture in a digital form is made of pixels, like a png, bmp, jpg, etc. If you are going to compare get it right...
@@james6039 When I was in 4th grade digital cameras were not invented yet. There are no pixels in a photograph, there are in digital camera pictures...
This is an explanation from someone who clearly does not understand how digital audio works. The analogy with video frame rates is totally wrong. DSD is an obsolete and technically inferior format.
When the speed of DSD signal is faster than the speed of your receptive capability of your eyes, how can you tell the difference between analog and digital.
I love this guy and believe he is one of the top experts in his field but he insists that DSD is a substitute for analog and I totally disagree. Especially in the case of records, the record player is analogist to an instrument which depending on the setup, cartridges, tracking weight, quality of player, etc., makes the analog source inspiring and alive. You don't get that with SACD's. Now if the source is digital that is a different story. Generally, but not always, the analog equipment does nothing to improve it beyond the 0's and 1's.
