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Visual audio data... A new form of audio compression?

Ive thought about this numerous times when looking at the EQ in my winamp.

If someone were to create a program/device which can read that EQ's visual information, and then translate it into the correct sound frequencies, wouldnt that greatly reduce the audio data, since it would be simplified into visual data.

If my winamp/CD player/DJ mixer/etc. can translate audio into visual data, why cant the process simply be reversed and the visual data be translated into audio.

Granted, the visual data would have to be much more detailed than what you see in winamp or any CD player's EQ. 44 100 frames of visual information per each second on of CD-quality audio, as well a range of 65 536 states for each frame to be in. But still, I think this would hugely reduce space.

Hmm.....

I bet someone steals my idea and makes millions

When you think about it, you'd have to have just as much data as any regular sound format. You'd need a visual point for each frequency, during each period of time... and you'd pretty much end up where you were if I'm not mistaken.

I don't think that would really work, audio compression is different from video compression, because different tricks work with our eyes and ears.

For example our eyes don't see red as well as other colors so often video compression reduces the resolution of red parts of the image. On the other hand our ears aren't good at hearing a soft sound directly after a loud sound so audio compression tends to remove the softer sounds which hopefully wont be missed.

Of course some techniques can be applied to video and sound. You can put both types of file in a zip file and get some compression. But you'd get better compression of an audio file using flac.

So there maybe some video compression methods which can be used to compress sound, using video for sound wouldn�t work very well.

On a slightly different topic I think there is/was a toy video camera which would record black and white video onto an audio cassette

Re: Visual audio data... A new form of audio compression?

quote:

Originally posted by DeleriuM2K Ive thought about this numerous times when looking at the EQ in my winamp. If someone were to create a program/device which can read that EQ's visual information, and then translate it into the correct sound frequencies, wouldnt that greatly reduce the audio data, since it would be simplified into visual data. If my winamp/CD player/DJ mixer/etc. can translate audio into visual data, why cant the process simply be reversed and the visual data be translated into audio. Granted, the visual data would have to be much more detailed than what you see in winamp or any CD player's EQ. 44 100 frames of visual information per each second on of CD-quality audio, as well a range of 65 536 states for each frame to be in. But still, I think this would hugely reduce space. Hmm..... I bet someone steals my idea and makes millions

I hate to burst your bubble, but what you describe is basically what MP3 compression does. It divides a song into chunks, say one second long, and then it analyzes the frequencies present in that chunk--specifically, how strong each frequency is, which is exactly what the spectrum analyzer in Winamp displays. The compression comes from discarding information regarding frequencies that are not very strong or frequencies that are not very perceptible to the human ear (e.g. high frequencies). The bitrates of an MP3 roughly correspond to a cutoff of which frequencies to keep and which frequencies to discard. Higher bitrates mean keeping more frequencies and thus better preserving sound quality.

Good example Nou.

You could do it, but if you think about it you're adding a whole plethora of information by making it visual, so there is no way it would do any better than keeping the audio data as simple as possible and compressing that. What you're talking about could be likened to trying to get to your neighbour's house more quickly by using the space shuttle. In the end it's quicker to walk

Yea, but you have to admit, owning a shuttle would be tight. On the other hand, if that boy band Lance kid ever makes it to space I don't think I will be as interested.

quote:

Originally posted by Nou You know film used to use a visual waveform audio track... Optical audio tracks...

Film still does use optical audio tracks. It's called Dolby LtRt, and it contains, L(left) C(center) R(right) S(surrounds) within 2 optical tracks.

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