Whats a good image management app?

In message , Bill in Co
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
[]
So do I - I have ears that are 52 years old, and thus less sensitive to
higher frequencies than they once were (-:
--

So how high can you hear now? You can find or dowload some freebie sound
test apps online, and give it a go. :-)
[]
I'm not actually _aware_ of any degradation in the last couple of
decades (I have a vague memory of discovering, about that long ago, that
I'd lost some of what I'd had earlier as a child, but nothing since); I
just _assume_ I must have lost some. (Not that I'm a disco or heavy rock
concert fan or anything, just normal ageing. BICBW.)

Trouble with these sound test app.s: how do I know (assuming I can't
hear something) whether it's my ears or the speakers I'm using that
can't reproduce that frequency?
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

" ... but ... on the sub-ether radio, [it said] you're dead!"
"Yeah, that's right, I just haven't stopped moving yet." (link episode)

I found a batch plugin for GIMP and it worked perfectly. On a quality setting of 90 and resizing by half, I have reduced the 2 GB to 200 MB.

Thanks for all the other suggestions though, I'll keep 'em in mind. ThumbsPlus was pretty good but it lacked the option to use Floating point instead of integer for the encoding.

On another note, JPEG-XR BLOWS. Same quality at the same filesize my ass, it was worse quality at the SAME size.

For the subthread:

1. I'm aware 1080p is just a resolution. You're juggling semantics and red herrings here, my friend. You remind me of American nationalists claiming in glee what a free country they have and then later give asinine lecture like a wise-ass how freedom doesn't guarantee happiness the next time some serious incident ****s the credibility of their ****ty, oppressive, malfunctioning country up.

Resolution MUST guarantee detail or there's nothing except a waste of bandwidth for the increase in resolution.

2. Conversion of analog audio to digital ALWAYS introduces quality loss, but is really damn hard to discern and anyone who can can't coherently explain what the difference is. It's like seeing living a life of darkness and this year seeing a flicker of bright white light for 1/500th of a second every couple seconds. You can't see it, but things feel different. You KNOW something is weird.

Either way, the sum is zero in the end. Vinyl media decays slowly and gradually the artifacts of damage arrive. Digital media retains perfect integrity for a short while but when it DOES decay, the data is utterly ****-canned forever without warning.

The faith in digital media is almost religious, the belief that it's "magic" somehow. People forget ones and zeroes are physical material that decay like anything else. Nothing abstract about this ****.

3. Please call don't call video "MP4". MP4 is an audio format, the successor to MP3, usually called for unfathomable reasons "AAC." MP4 video should've been called "MPG4" but the cock-filled wonders of the dip****s working at MPEG/ISO have no ****ing sense of consistency whatsoever, almost as if to purposely make discerning these containers and formats as confusing as possible.

To make **** worse, Blu-ray does not even utilize the MP4 container but "M2TS" or "DGA" and the basement-dwelling idiot fanboy communities pioneered a completely non hardware-compliant, practically identical-to-MP4 container called "MKV" to popularity.

Make. Up. Your. ****ing. Minds. Retards.

So if possible, refer to modern digital video as "MKV" since that's the most popular media container today.

4. 7GB? You can do way better than that, Paul. A VHS video can be compressed to 350 MB with very high quality depending on the length. Most 720p Blu-ray rips can fit under 4.7 gigs with perfect quality.

Industrial One wrote:
I found a batch plugin for GIMP and it worked perfectly. On a quality
setting
of 90 and resizing by half, I have reduced the 2 GB to 200 MB.

Thanks for all the other suggestions though, I'll keep 'em in mind.
ThumbsPlus was pretty good but it lacked the option to use Floating point
instead of integer for the encoding.

On another note, JPEG-XR BLOWS. Same quality at the same filesize my ass,
it
was worse quality at the SAME size.

For the subthread:

1. I'm aware 1080p is just a resolution. You're juggling semantics and red
herrings here, my friend.

Who are you quoting as "your friend"? No attrbutions were given.

You remind me of American nationalists claiming in
glee what a free country they have and then later give asinine lecture
like a
wise-ass how freedom doesn't guarantee happiness the next time some
serious
incident ****s the credibility of their ****ty, oppressive, malfunctioning
country up.

Resolution MUST guarantee detail or there's nothing except a waste of
bandwidth for the increase in resolution.

snip

3. Please call don't call video "MP4". MP4 is an audio format, the
successor
to MP3, usually called for unfathomable reasons "AAC." MP4 video should've
been called "MPG4" but the cock-filled wonders of the dip****s working at
MPEG/ISO have no ****ing sense of consistency whatsoever, almost as if to
purposely make discerning these containers and formats as confusing as
possible.

The bottom line is that MP4 *is* a composite format that normally contains
both video and audio streams. Period. The audio only component is m4a,
the video m4v. Together, they make MP4.

snip

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Bill in Co
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
[]
So do I - I have ears that are 52 years old, and thus less sensitive to
higher frequencies than they once were (-:
--

Yup, and that's the way it goes for all of us, unfortunately. Just like
loss in one's vision accommodation (due to the lens hardening) - aka:
presbyopia

So how high can you hear now? You can find or dowload some freebie sound
test apps online, and give it a go. :-)
[]
I'm not actually _aware_ of any degradation in the last couple of
decades (I have a vague memory of discovering, about that long ago, that
I'd lost some of what I'd had earlier as a child, but nothing since); I
just _assume_ I must have lost some. (Not that I'm a disco or heavy rock
concert fan or anything, just normal ageing. BICBW.)

Trouble with these sound test app.s: how do I know (assuming I can't
hear something) whether it's my ears or the speakers I'm using that
can't reproduce that frequency?

How many speakers or headphones do you know that can't reproduce 15 kHz?
:-)

Here is one such application that is easy to use. It's called Ear Test.
http://www.programming.de/freeware_windows.php

In message ,
Industrial One writes:
[]
For the subthread:

1. I'm aware 1080p is just a resolution. You're juggling semantics and

No, 1080 is a resolution, if we're talking still images. The p (or i)
determines the order (and possibly frequency) of pixel display when
talking video.
[]
Resolution MUST guarantee detail or there's nothing except a waste of
bandwidth for the increase in resolution.

Agreed.
[]
Either way, the sum is zero in the end. Vinyl media decays slowly and
gradually the artifacts of damage arrive. Digital media retains perfect
integrity for a short while but when it DOES decay, the data is utterly
****-canned forever without warning.

That's actually only true of digital media with error correction (which
most has). But the difference is that you can copy a digital recording
perfectly, given error correction, and such copying can be done
indefinitely.

The faith in digital media is almost religious, the belief that it's
"magic" somehow. People forget ones and zeroes are physical material
that decay like anything else. Nothing abstract about this ****.

See above. (The main problem with digital is marketing - just because
something is digital, it doesn't necessarily mean high quality, only
consistent quality; when the CD format first came out some decades ago,
digital _did_ mean - for most people - high quality. Once low bit rates
[even with compression] became common, marketers [or those who genuinely
didn't understand] kept the "digital means high quality" which was no
longer [necessarily] the case.)
[]
Make. Up. Your. ****ing. Minds. Retards.
[]
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

.... of the two little boxes in the corner of your room, the one without the
pictures is the one that opens the mind. - Stuart Maconie in Radio Times,
2008/10/11-17

In message , Bill in Co
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
[]
Trouble with these sound test app.s: how do I know (assuming I can't
hear something) whether it's my ears or the speakers I'm using that
can't reproduce that frequency?

How many speakers or headphones do you know that can't reproduce 15 kHz?
:-)

Not sure about the ones in this netbook.

Here is one such application that is easy to use. It's called Ear Test.
http://www.programming.de/freeware_windows.php


Oh dear - I seem to cut out somewhere between 11500 and 12000!
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

.... of the two little boxes in the corner of your room, the one without the
pictures is the one that opens the mind. - Stuart Maconie in Radio Times,
2008/10/11-17

On 7/27/12 12:53 PM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
I have ears that are 52 years old

Outrank you here, I'm closer to 65 than 64.

--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 14.0.1
Thunderbird 14.0
LibreOffice 3.5.2.2

Ken Springer wrote:
On 7/27/12 12:53 PM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
I have ears that are 52 years old

Outrank you here, I'm closer to 65 than 64.

--
Ken

Well Ken, you might try that small app too just for kicks! (Ear Test)

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Bill in Co
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
[]
Trouble with these sound test app.s: how do I know (assuming I can't
hear something) whether it's my ears or the speakers I'm using that
can't reproduce that frequency?

How many speakers or headphones do you know that can't reproduce 15 kHz?
:-)

Not sure about the ones in this netbook.

Here is one such application that is easy to use. It's called Ear Test.
http://www.programming.de/freeware_windows.php


Oh dear - I seem to cut out somewhere between 11500 and 12000!

Join the crowd. :-)

That ear test program sucks. Why does it only go to 16 KHZ and doesn't give an option to sound on BOTH channels? For those of us with headphones, it is really unpleasant and annoying to only hear from one speaker.

Also, there's a click sound before the samples so this destroys the objectiveness of the test altogether.

If I were you, I'd generate a sine sweep from 0 to 22.05 kHz and make it exactly 22.05 seconds long. Open it in an audio player and pause when you stop being able to hear.

If you guys can't hear past 12 kHz then you must be really ****ing old. I can hear to 16.5-17.

On 7/27/12 6:00 PM, Bill in Co wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:
On 7/27/12 12:53 PM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
I have ears that are 52 years old

Outrank you here, I'm closer to 65 than 64.

--
Ken

Well Ken, you might try that small app too just for kicks! (Ear Test)

Oh, He double hockey sticks, it would just tell me something I already
know! LOL Too much time in the Navy around Curtis Wright R3350's
without proper ear protection.

I've always been different when hearing sounds. When shopping for my
main speakers, the salesman said "Listen, you can hear the guitar picks
on the strings." I'd listen and listen, and try as I might, couldn't
hear them. Bought the speakers anyway, and got a copy of the music.
Sitting at home, relaxed and "zoned" out, I noticed the picks
immediately!!!!

Nothing has changed, if I've got a piece of music that's relatively new,
and I'm just completely relaxed and immersed in the music, I'll
sometimes hear something new now and again I hadn't heard before.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 14.0.1
Thunderbird 14.0
LibreOffice 3.5.2.2

On 7/27/12 1:32 PM, Bill in Co wrote:

snip

Yes, that good ole, vacuum tube amp vs solid state amp debate (along with
the golden ear, gold plated, Monster Cable debate) is ... interesting.

From a technical standpoint, the Monster Cable debate is valid. The
bigger the wire, the smaller the degradation of an electrical current
over a given distance. But, that doesn't mean the average human ear can
hear it. Note the operative word, "average".

That same idea of the bigger wire is why most fire departments now use
large diameter fire hoses.

I wouldn't bet my life on the idea that one can't hear some differences or
different nuances between these, BUT again, that doesn't necessarily, and I
might add, LIKELY, mean that the vaccuum tube amp is more faithful to the
source material than the solid state one! THAT point is what is lost, in
all these debates.

Add in the fact that much of that "source" material is already run
through electronic equipment before you have something to play back, and
you've already colored that question.

Different loudspeakers can, and often, will sound different. But that does
not directly equate to the sound's fidelity, and some people will prefer one
sound over another (depending on its equalization, or even the small
remaining distortion terms (harmonic or IM) that might still be heard)

True. And most people go about shopping for a sound system in the wrong
way. They start by reading specs, looking at the equipment and price,
then listening to the music available at the store. Most never ask the
salesman about what the settings are on the equipment, or ask if the
volume for each pair of speakers can be individually adjusted.

So, they do the in store testing completely wrong, and probably end up
with something for X dollars that if proper procedures had been
followed, they would have ended up with a system they would have liked
much more for the dollars spent.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 14.0.1
Thunderbird 14.0
LibreOffice 3.5.2.2

On Friday, July 27, 2012 9:55:47 PM UTC, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message ,

Industrial One writes:

[]

For the subthread:



1. I'm aware 1080p is just a resolution. You're juggling semantics and



No, 1080 is a resolution, if we're talking still images. The p (or i)
determines the order (and possibly frequency) of pixel display when
talking video.

We started talking about video because it's an even better example of toxic marketing and ****ty products. When you take a picture at the max advertised resolution on the camera and it looks like ****, they'll say its your fault for not being an engineer, just like you guys accused me.

But when you're watching a movie that has been extracted, converted, processed and marketed by professionals and it doesn't even look 1080p despite the resolution, it proves my point. I'm talking about movies in the 21st century btw, although it doesn't really matter. 35mm resolution is roughly 4000p and they've been shooting movies on 35mm film since the 1940s.

That's actually only true of digital media with error correction (which
most has). But the difference is that you can copy a digital recording
perfectly, given error correction, and such copying can be done
indefinitely.

That's the real beauty of digital media and the only reason it survived in this moronic capitalist system, it forced you to buy replacements on a regular basis.

However, the other disadvantage is that analog has infinite resolution while digital is fixed, so this necessitates exaggerating the filesizes of video and audio to preserve it properly.

You would think HDDs are just like vinyl records, both are spinning disks. You think because of the density that they would be more efficient but think about uncompressed video, even if not in high-definition. A few hours already fills up a 2TB HDD which probably won't spin fast enough to playback in real-time anyway.

Nothing has really changed IMO, a movie still requires one whole disc if it hopes to match analog quality. Again, the sum is zero.

See above. (The main problem with digital is marketing - just because
something is digital, it doesn't necessarily mean high quality, only
consistent quality; when the CD format first came out some decades ago,
digital _did_ mean - for most people - high quality. Once low bit rates
[even with compression] became common, marketers [or those who genuinely
didn't understand] kept the "digital means high quality" which was no
longer [necessarily] the case.)

Yes, very few people seem to be aware of this but super-HD film has been out for over 70 years. These "drastic" increases in quality people have been following since the 240p VHS days to the now "high-definition" 1080p are ****ing pathetic compared to the 4000p 35mm film that has been out since forever. I have no idea how the hell they were able to get people to switch from watching the original theater-quality 4000p films to garbage 240p videotapes and then slowly start releasing "better quality" mediums. Pretty awesome scam.

... of the two little boxes in the corner of your room, the one without the
pictures is the one that opens the mind. - Stuart Maconie in Radio Times,
2008/10/11-17

I have no posters on my walls. My room is as white as a psyche ward. I guess I'm pretty damn open-minded.

On Friday, July 27, 2012 8:54:08 PM UTC, Bill in Co wrote:
Who are you quoting as "your friend"? No attrbutions were given.

-.-

The bottom line is that MP4 *is* a composite format that normally contains
both video and audio streams. Period. The audio only component is m4a,
the video m4v. Together, they make MP4.

You mean like how M3A and M3V made MP3? Please... let's voluntarily use some consistency if those stupid ****s at ISO can't.

Ken Springer wrote:
On 7/27/12 1:32 PM, Bill in Co wrote:

snip

Yes, that good ole, vacuum tube amp vs solid state amp debate (along with
the golden ear, gold plated, Monster Cable debate) is ... interesting.

From a technical standpoint, the Monster Cable debate is valid. The
bigger the wire, the smaller the degradation of an electrical current
over a given distance. But, that doesn't mean the average human ear can
hear it. Note the operative word, "average".

"Degradation of electrical current"? There is no such thing. Let me
explain:
The ONLY thing that would be different is the wire resistance (the
inductance and capacitance of the line is inconsequential at these
frequencies).

What that *could* mean (but generally won't in practice) is some small loss
in power to the loudspeakers. That would be due to the (normally
negligible) IR drops (power) "lost" in the line (converted to heat).

Normally negligible, unless you're using very thin gauge or really long
connecting wires in the first place, and are really pushing the amp. (I'm an
EE; there is no such thing as "degradation of electric current", per se.
:-)

That same idea of the bigger wire is why most fire departments now use
large diameter fire hoses.

Due to the loss in the volume of water per sec you can get out of it, which
is analogous in principle. Except that the losses in normal speaker wires
are negligible. You can't really compare this to, say, using a 1/2"
diameter hose VS the mains line from a fire hydrant, for example. (Now if
you were using really thin wire to connect your loudspeakers to your amp,
well, maybe. :-)

I wouldn't bet my life on the idea that one can't hear some differences
or
different nuances between these, BUT again, that doesn't necessarily, and
I
might add, LIKELY, mean that the vaccuum tube amp is more faithful to the
source material than the solid state one! THAT point is what is lost,
in
all these debates.

Add in the fact that much of that "source" material is already run
through electronic equipment before you have something to play back, and
you've already colored that question.

Different loudspeakers can, and often, will sound different. But that
does
not directly equate to the sound's fidelity, and some people will prefer
one
sound over another (depending on its equalization, or even the small
remaining distortion terms (harmonic or IM) that might still be heard)

True. And most people go about shopping for a sound system in the wrong
way. They start by reading specs, looking at the equipment and price,
then listening to the music available at the store. Most never ask the
salesman about what the settings are on the equipment, or ask if the
volume for each pair of speakers can be individually adjusted.

So, they do the in store testing completely wrong, and probably end up
with something for X dollars that if proper procedures had been
followed, they would have ended up with a system they would have liked
much more for the dollars spent.

And just as an add-on note for any potential audiophiles out there, the
single most important link in the audio chain, and the one that should get a
LARGE chunk of the budget, is the loudspeakers. (which is often left as an
afterthought, by many people) But unlike some other components in the
audio chain, this one needs a listening test - specs aren't enough. And
what's worse is that the way it sounds in the showroom likely won't be the
way it sounds in your home, due to all the sound reflections off the walls,
carpet, etc.

Personally, I like (and am still using), some good old, Acoustic Research,
AR3s. (But I'm not spending $2000+ on a pair of loudspeakers, either. :-)

On 7/27/12 8:18 PM, Bill in Co wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:
On 7/27/12 1:32 PM, Bill in Co wrote:

snip

"Degradation of electrical current"?

Bad choice of words on my part, apologies. How about degradation of the
signal? LOL

snip

(Now if
you were using really thin wire to connect your loudspeakers to your amp,
well, maybe. :-)

Which was quite common when I bought my speakers. Still have them too.

snip

And just as an add-on note for any potential audiophiles out there, the
single most important link in the audio chain, and the one that should get a
LARGE chunk of the budget, is the loudspeakers. (which is often left as an
afterthought, by many people) But unlike some other components in the
audio chain, this one needs a listening test - specs aren't enough. And
what's worse is that the way it sounds in the showroom likely won't be the
way it sounds in your home, due to all the sound reflections off the walls,
carpet, etc.

Speakers are *THE* most important part of the system. Good equipment
matched with poor speakers will show the limits of the speakers. Good
speakers with poor equipment will show the limitations of the speakers.

Never, never, ever, ever look at the speakers when listening to them.
Tell the salesman which pairs you would like to hear, then turn your
back while he plays *your* choice in music. Make sure the volume is
always the same between speakers, the salesman should *never* have to
adjust the equipment, just switch speakers. All controls on the
equipment should be set to neutral. Pick the speakers you like based on
what you hear, don't get in a hurry. Once picked, start selecting
equipment of equivalent quality. You should be home free.

Personally, I like (and am still using), some good old, Acoustic Research,
AR3s. (But I'm not spending $2000+ on a pair of loudspeakers, either. :-)

Old ESS AMT 4's here, with the Heil Air Motion Transformers. Had to
have the woofers repaired, the foam surrounds finally deteriorated.
Back in the day, I almost spent $1200 on a pair of Tandberg speakers.
Damn, were they good!


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 14.0.1
Thunderbird 14.0
LibreOffice 3.5.2.2