Sneaking Past Heavy-Handed Audio Compression on YouTube 234
niceone writes "Recently YouTube seems to have started applying extreme compression
to the audio of uploaded clips. This is the type of compressions used
by radio stations to make everything louder, but in this case applied
extremely badly. In quiet passages, breathing and shuffling become
overpoweringly loud. A gently plucked guitar chord becomes a distorted thud.
Listen to an example here. And here's what it could sound like — still not perfect, but a whole lot better. The
fixed version is thanks to a workaround proposed by
Sopranoguitar — the idea is to turn down the audio and mix in
a high frequency sine wave (I used 19kHz). The sine wave fools YouTube's
compressor into thinking that the file is at a uniform level (and does
not need the volume changing at all) but is filtered out by the encoding
process (so, no need to worry about deafening any dogs)."
Standards (Score:5, Funny)
YouTube is just trying to enforce a standard level of quality to the content. Everyone expects crappy video with lots of compression artifacts, so the audio might as well follow suite.
Brevity Required (Score:5, Funny)
Can someone post an example I could possibly listen to for more than one second?
No
Re:Ruff ruff! (Score:4, Funny)
Ruff ruff rufff, and ruff rufff, you little bigoted ruff ruff ruffff.
Translation : I'm ultrasound-deaf, you insensitive clod!
Re:Lack of Choices (Score:4, Funny)
It would be nice if YouTube offered some choices, such as volume adjustment
Yeah, I mean, who on YouTube would even think of abusing that?
Re:and who came up with it? (Score:5, Funny)
To YouTube videos? Sicko!
Re:and who came up with it? (Score:5, Funny)
To YouTube videos? Sicko!
What can I say? Unrehearsed rants into webcams really turn me on...
Re:and who came up with it? (Score:5, Funny)
But what if you move away from the mic to breathe ?
Chocolate Rain
*whoooosh*
Youtube makes my breathing loud again
Chocolate Rain
*whoooosh*
My eardrums are whimpering in pain
Re:and who came up with it? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: but is filtered out by the encoding process (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Brevity Required (Score:5, Funny)
CLICK THUD TICK SSSS No FWWWW CLUNK CLICK
I'm sorry--what did you say?
- RG>