Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83 v7 ucbtopaz-1.8; site ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!ihnp4!zehntel!hplabs!hao!seismo!harvard!wjh12!genrad!decvax!ucbvax!ucbtopaz!newton2 From: newton2@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA Newsgroups: net.video Subject: Re: Re(2): VHS vs Beta - future considerations ( about rfg's article ) Message-ID: <562@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA> Date: Tue, 25-Sep-84 03:11:49 EDT Article-I.D.: ucbtopaz.562 Posted: Tue Sep 25 03:11:49 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 28-Sep-84 05:35:46 EDT References: <577@trwspp.UUCP>, <619@hound.UUCP>, <580@trwspp.UUCP> Organization: Univ. of Calif., Berkeley CA USA Lines: 16 Your use of the relative dominance of Dolby noise reduction over relatively late-arriving (to cassettes) competitors like dbx to illustrate the point that inferior technology can dominate through huckstering marketing is exactly, one hundred-eighty degrees inaposite. The example actually demonstrates the opposite condition: Dolby's technologies by and large represent the unusual triumph of ingenious, thorough and honestly represented engineering methods in a market made by Barnums. Dbx, while a sound enough approach (purloined from telco practice common since compandors were developed) *when applied to relatively unimpaired media*, is ballyhooed in a meaningless and misleading cloud of hoopla which concentrates on a single number purported to represent the "quantity" of noise reduction. To learn how to think about the problem of noise reduction, as well as to read a superb model of a well-crafted and concise engineering paper, there is still no better beginning than Ray Dolby's "An Audio Noise Reduction System".. wq