Visual is easy, audio is not

[darrenyeats]

I believe image depth (on 2D visuals) is probably the equivalent?

[earwaxer9]

Video is easier than audio. I like plasma. I find it more real than LCD, although LCD is catching up. With video speed is very important. In audio its more complex. Its much more than that.

[MediaCenter]

Audio interacts with its surrounding both at recording and reproduction stages, but video only does it at the recording stage not much at the reproduction stage.

[magiccarpetride]

Audio interacts with its surrounding both at recording and reproduction stages, but video only does it at the recording stage not much at the reproduction stage.

??? Ever noticed how video looks different in different lighting conditions?

[Curt962]

There ya go MCR....a ground floor opportunity.

"Videophile lighting products". Taking a page from the audiophile handbook, a person could make a killing with "directional" lightbulbs, Cryo filaments, and the list could go on....

Don't forget Magic Pebbles to place on top of the video monitor....huge improvements. Need a new name though...."Video Crystals" or the like.

[Griffin]

Audio interacts with its surrounding both at recording and reproduction stages, but video only does it at the recording stage not much at the reproduction stage.

The magic words in video-land are "white balance" and "color management". Tons of interesting stuff around these issues, use google and be enlightened :-D.

During reproduction, as has been said by magiccarpetride, interaction with the environment is just as important if not more than for audio.

Unlike audio reproduction though, environment optimization for video is much easier to implement than it is for audio. Reflections can easily be seen and removed, colors can easily be measured and (provided the representation media's color gamut is large enough) adjusted for and the impact of external noise can be reduced or even completely removed by closing the curtains and switching on color calibrated lights. For audio, this often is a lot harder because a lot of trial and error is involved.

[Soulkeeper]

We have a tradition of looking at artificial images that strive to reproduce some aspect of reality, and suspending our disbelief. This tradition is many millennia old. In many cases, we can more easily interpret stylized images than photorealistic ones, at least partly due to this tradition. In contrast, our tradition of listening to artificially reproduced sound that strives to reproduce some aspect of reality, is hardly more than a century old (excepting the imitation of animal sounds and such, no doubt important to survival, but perhaps less important to culture).

We admitted to ourselves the futility of pursuing lifelike visuals long before the concept of lifelike audio was conceived. We understood that we had to wilfully buy in to the illusion that lines and stains on a paper could create, and we did.

Our understanding of how to listen seems less mature: We want to be fooled despite our best efforts to hear the trick. We want the illusion of sound to be perfect, like the Matrix. And that's pretty different from how we read pictures, still or moving.

Maybe because hearing isn't the primary/dominant sense of Homo sapiens. Maybe because audio technology developed so suddenly, and so impressively, that our own hubris caught us by surprise. Maybe because we feel/know that unlike the perfect video illusion, it is within the realm of possibility. I don't know which.

In the future, technology may be able to create a virtual reality that is lifelike enough to fool us. If it can do it with video, it can do it with audio, and vice versa. But that's in the future. For now, we'll just have to learn how to listen, and not least how not to listen.

[magiccarpetride]

We have a tradition of looking at artificial images that strive to reproduce some aspect of reality, and suspending our disbelief. This tradition is many millennia old. In many cases, we can more easily interpret stylized images than photorealistic ones, at least partly due to this tradition. In contrast, our tradition of listening to artificially reproduced sound that strives to reproduce some aspect of reality, is hardly more than a century old (excepting the imitation of animal sounds and such, no doubt important to survival, but perhaps less important to culture).

We admitted to ourselves the futility of pursuing lifelike visuals long before the concept of lifelike audio was conceived. We understood that we had to wilfully buy in to the illusion that lines and stains on a paper could create, and we did.

Our understanding of how to listen seems less mature: We want to be fooled despite our best efforts to hear the trick. We want the illusion of sound to be perfect, like the Matrix. And that's pretty different from how we read pictures, still or moving.

Maybe because hearing isn't the primary/dominant sense of Homo sapiens. Maybe because audio technology developed so suddenly, and so impressively, that our own hubris caught us by surprise. Maybe because we feel/know that unlike the perfect video illusion, it is within the realm of possibility. I don't know which.

In the future, technology may be able to create a virtual reality that is lifelike enough to fool us. If it can do it with video, it can do it with audio, and vice versa. But that's in the future. For now, we'll just have to learn how to listen, and not least how not to listen.

Historically, we've been enjoying trompe-l'œil (lit. 'fool the eye') trickery for quite a few generations now. However, the difference is that, with trompe-l'œil we walk unawares into the trick, being 'fooled', not even being aware that there is some trickery being played on us. Thus, for example, we may think that there is an extension to the room, while in reality there is only hard wall there with some smudges of paint on it.

With audio, on the other hand, we know upfront that it's a simulacrum, and yet we expect the illusion to be so strong, so powerful, that it will convince us and engross us and overpower us to the point where we forget that we're sitting in front of a machine that's producing the sounds. That's an incredibly tall order, that naive expectation of being taken for a ride and experiencing temporary amnesia. I doubt we'll ever get there.

[Soulkeeper]

Trompe-l'œil is an interesting analogy. We can let ourselves be fooled by it for quite a while, even after we've intellectually realized it's an illusion. It's static/rigid, but it's strong. But more an installation type thing. In a similar way you can simulate rain falling on the roof by using a rainstick. That can also be quite convincing, especially if you're not familiar with the sound of rain hitting the roof of the particular building you're in.

The quest for audio/video fidelity seems to be more defined by the medium, which it seems has to be portable in some way, and versatility. If it can make a convincing simulation/reproduction of both the sound of silk hitting silk, and saluting cannons, we tend to think it's good. OTOH, if it can only show different shades of blue, we don't want to watch the latest movie on it, even if they are the richest and most varied shades of blue ever witnessed by man. Etc.

[Rodney_Gold]

Photography does not capture the image as we see it , there is no peripheral vision , there is a fixed depth of field and colours are dependant on monitor and printer , dynamic range is compromised as well.
You will never get the captured image as you saw it at the time.
That same image can be captured many ways , for eg with shallow DOF or with deep DOF which will change the perception/perspective , as will the focal length of the lens and so on.
There are as many ifs buts and maybes in photography/videography as there are in audio , and both encompass an objective/measurement component and a subjective side.