Wow...and flutter
I've got two videos ready to go - however as Patreon doesn't support embedding two in one post - I'll hold back the other one for a day so that it doesn't get lost in the mix.
As you may know, I have some extra family commitments happening behind the scenes, and as a result I've needed to rearrange things and make a couple of simpler videos recently. This (and the next) video reside firmly in that category.
Funnily enough though, it seems that the less time I spend on a project, the more people seem to enjoy it. Last week's quad video has been surprisingly popular despite being infinitely easier to put together than something like the V2000 video. Perhaps those densely packed videos can be heavy going for a general youtube audience (but of course, not for patrons).
Anyway back to this video - even though it's mostly just a to-camera chat, I ended up shooting the whole thing twice, two days apart, as I wasn't happy with the first version and no amount of editing could fix it. I think this is the first time I've done a synchronised two camera shoot like this and I'm pretty happy how it turned out (on the second attempt).
Comments (32)
Just heard your acting debut on the Planet X3 Promo video. :-)
I think the less said about it the better. I really tried my best - but it’s clear I’m not cut out to be a dramatic actor.
What's the digital player that you use in the video? Portable music players are becoming so uncommon that an older one would qualify as retro tech and a new one would deserve a review as an interesting rarity.
It's a silly story. In the Black Friday sales 2016 I bought two Hi-Res audio players with the plan to do a head to head comparison video. I got the Astell & Kern Jr and a FiiO X5ii. For one reason or another that video project kept getting pushed back - and eventually these new products became too old to review. When it came to shooting this video I came to the part where I needed to play a WAV file from a device with a headphone output and my phone...well you can guess. Also my Sony PCM recorder refused to play anything it hadn't recorded itself...so I unwrapped the A&K, charged it for 10 mins, and popped the file into it on a SD card. So after all these years it has come in handy in the end.
Pretty darn cool! I have a test tape for my 1/4" reel-to-reel, and you're not kidding when you say test tapes can get expensive! I liked the synchronized picture-in-picture you used to show close-ups of the meters!
Wow, this is why I have no hesitation being a Patreon member- even when you apologize for having to do "simpler" videos, it's still informative (and in this case a very relevant topic for all analog media). Keep up the great work with finding and fully exploring all esoteric formats. As an aside, while digital doesn't have wow or flutter, I have found it interesting that I hear some differences with different digital sources going into my upsampling DAC (that processes at 192khz). The standard answer I've heard is that even digital sources have different timings (even if sampling is the same). Ah, I guess it just means there will always be debates with audiophiles as to the "best" format (IMO, it doesn't really matter: I have great recordings from all media).
I hear the term 'timings' used a lot when it comes to reviews of digital devices - I've never been too sure how this translates into what you hear though - as in what 'bad timing(?)' would sound like. But like yourself it's not something that concerns me as I'm media agnostic too.
Many thanks Mat, for the download link for the digital wow & flutter measurement software.
Just FYI: 3 KHz vs. 3.15 KHz represent two standards - Japanese Industry Standard (JIS) and Deutsche Industrie Normal (DIN), respectively.
That’s good to know thanks. I'll add it into the comments under the video for no-one to read. ;-)
I have a suggestion for how you can make this video better: play some digital files of the test tone but slightly off frequency, and show how it constantly keeps displaying that it's off by a little bit.
I wouldn’t know how to do that. I just have a 3000 Hz wav file.
Now I hear this I remember something from elementary school. The tape deck had problems, and for the 2nd time a mechanic had come to fix it. He said the machine was alright. I deduced the machine had ruined some tapes, because our teacher would use the "pause" button to pause the tape. So some of the tapes were stretched a bit. The teacher was kind of relieved but not to happy. My first experience with problem solving and dealing with customers...
Yes perhaps I should have mentioned stretched tape as that's a common one. Of course if you're recording to a cassette and you are using the pause button a lot, perhaps holding it while the DJ talks between playing the top 40 countdown - those pause points will often occur mid-song on the other side, so you would want a machine that handled the tape gently.
Anecdote and question. Movie projectors of the 16-mm type (and surely others) as were used in schools Back In The Day could also suffer from wow and flutter (now that I have a good understanding of the terms thankyouverymuchMat). In 10th or 11th grade we were shown a film in class one afternoon, something from the NFB, I'm sure, as most were then and there, and the woW And fLUTtter WERE so BAd thAT I had to EXCuse MYself frOM ClasS ON AccoUNT Of exTREMe nauSEa. Best I can represent the sound going up and down ... up and down ... up and down ... Now, the question ... Is there a financial impact to the Youtuber if I skip the ad versus allowing it to play out? If there is, I'm willing to stop doing that (I have a mute button and know how to avert my eyes). But if there isn't a difference, I'll just keep hitting Skip when its offered.
Funnily enough besides Tape & Record - Projectors was the other use suggested in the manual. - As far as your question - I really don't know. I'd imagine so...but I don't know for sure...and then there's the question of clicks on adverts and how that affects things.
Test Disc Voice? When you played the voice - I tried to place the artiste... was it Rene Cutforth (or poss Jack de Manio)? It’s 50 years since I heard either - so I’m a little rusty. Can you put me out of my misery Mat? :)
Good ears. I really liked the voice but I didn’t recognise it. You were right with Jack De Manio. Elizabeth Knight also features on the disc.
Nice video, as usal. I watch all of them, never cutting it short. One thing to point out when you are troubleshooting wow and flutter with an instrument like this, is that you should always adjust/remedy ONE problem at a time. Otherwise you will not be able to pinpoint exactly whats whas the problem. Performing muliple adjustments at one time will often interact, with puculiar or hard to understand results. This is exactly in line with the methods used in my profession, that is to troubleshoot computer problems. Both hardware and software issuses. "Small steps", i the key. Also, always make sure you set the "baseline" correctly and exactly the same way before any test/measurement, so you are sure that you in fact test/measure exactly what is the difference from the last test.
Regarding the test tape, I wonder if modifying a tape mechanism to run at a tenth of the original RPM (or slower) and feed in a lower frequency signal to compensate would get you a better DIY result. Maybe a stepper motor and basic Arduino control. It would be interesting to know how close you could get.
Well I enjoy all your videos, always informative and presented in your friendly, matter-of-fact manner. Unfortunately for you, it is not really apparent to the viewers how much effort went into the production or how many hours of video tape ended up on the metaphorical cutting room floor, and certainly not how much money you had to outlay to obtain the test articles in the first place. Maybe you should include an effort rating to indicate how hard each one was - Red could be Blood, Sweat and Tears, Yellow for just Sweat and tears and Green for mere perspiration? I do slightly prefer the longer, more densely packed videos but can understand they must take far longer to research and produce. Thank you, Mat!
With the amount of new content on YouTube and the number of channels - people only have so much time in the day..so they pick and choose. They might subscribe to fifty channels - but only watch a handful of videos in a week. The subject matter is really the primary thing that attracts viewers to niche channels like mine. I'll continue to make videos about things that interest me to the best of my ability and the rest is really out of my hands. Patrons are 100% the ones supporting the big complicated in-depth long videos. If it were just down to youtube revenue - each video would be less than 10 minutes and with a max budget of £100.
Can you hire Owen Wilson to say Wow and flutter
Given the fact he advertises sofas on TV - it's probably quite possible.
I suppose it's all down to short attention sp...
"Perhaps those densely packed videos can be heavy going" -- possibly it's just that they're longer; more investment in time needed so people at the margins of spare time fall away. Anyway I do find time for them and love them. I hope you find the effort/payoff worth it!
It's been a tricky one recently as the extra effort hasn't been really paying off. However I do like making the longer videos so I'll carry on. The video that I'm just polishing off for release in a week or so is a 36 minute review with a cost that will far exceed the returns. I may well be the only person who will watch the whole thing, but it's a product category that I wanted to cover, so I did it.
Quick question: at the beginning of some of the tests you pressed the zero button. What does that do exactly? It can't be that you set the current incoming signal as the baseline because then you can't measure if it is actually running slow. Is it clearing it's internal memory of the frequency detection (to remove the data of past measurements)?
I’m not sure, I just press it when it’s giving wild readings. Hold on I’ll check the manual.
What I like is the mix between your thoroughly researched and perfectly cut videos and some in between sneak peak videos. The last ones are somewhat like a look behind the curtain and let the first ones stand out so much more! I will not say, they aren't great - but it show, how much you fine-pitch your other videos. Many thumps up!
Wow, what a fluttering video #sorry
Good explanation of an often misunderstood issue.