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jbridges
Joined: 19 May 2008
Posts: 3
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 Posted: Tue May 20, 2008 12:39 pm Post subject: Anyone notice the Prager Podcast is now super lo-fi? |
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Granted that the 32kbps MONO 22khz MP3 encoding that Dennis uses for the Podcast of his radio show is not exactly high fidelity. But for voice alone it was usually acceptable.
But as of last Friday's show, the podcast version is now encoded at half that rate!
It's now encoded as 16kbps MONO 11khz MP3, and it sounds dreadful.
You can hear the difference immediately in the title music, and it makes the entire show more tiring to listen to. Besides how it ruins music, it also ruins Dennis' voice, no more deep tones, it's awful.
It also makes callers on poor connections, or recordings in public places very difficult to understand. For instance President Bush's speech Dennis played on Monday Hour 2 had a horrible hollow echo effect from the low bitrate encoding that made it hard to understand.
I'm sad. |
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andydreisch
Joined: 24 Jan 2008
Posts: 763
Location: San Jose, CA
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| Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 9:47 pm Post subject: |
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Hi jbridges, didn't see this post. Yes, I have noticed the degradation in audio quality. I podcast Dennis (and Hugh Hewitt) almost exclusively so this hurts. I basically can't hear any call-in guest or caller.
I can't imagine why Townhall/SRN doesn't use Akamai or some CDN if their issue is bandwidth consumption. Podcasts are ideal to distribute in this manner.
An 8M MP3 file does not take long to download in this era of bandwidth options. So I have to think the change was made from a cost basis by Townhall/SRN.
Andy
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Organizer, San Francisco Bay Area DP Meetup Group
The most HAPPENIN' of any Prager meetup group!! |
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noevalley
Joined: 19 Dec 2007
Posts: 40
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| Posted: Sat May 31, 2008 10:18 pm Post subject: LO FI short wave. |
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I sent an email to someone that works for Salem and hopefully we can have some feedback on the audio issue. I am an audio freek, so i can tell you that the new prager/hewitt podcasts are now broadcast at the same audio quality as Short Wave Radio (16 kbs). If you are old enough you may have heard some SW radio. ! Noises in the background sounding like you were in a submarine. The ISDN line that i think Salem uses is 64 kbs and they cut it in 1/2 to 32 for the podcast and that sounds ok. Some like the BBS go all out and give the listeners 128 for their podcasts & it sounds excellent..
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San Francisco Bay Area Prager Meetup |
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jbridges
Joined: 19 May 2008
Posts: 3
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| Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2008 10:53 pm Post subject: Re: LO FI short wave. |
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| noevalley wrote: | | I sent an email to someone that works for Salem and hopefully we can have some feedback on the audio issue. |
Would it help for more of us to write? Do you have an email address to write to?
I tried writing Dennis directly, but received no response. I've been listening to Dennis less and less since the change, it's so unpleasant, the sound quality is awful at this low bitrate. |
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jbridges
Joined: 19 May 2008
Posts: 3
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| Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 2:46 pm Post subject: |
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Now we have some idea why they reduced the audio quality, or at least we can see Dennis' response.
Pragertopia.
Now you can download the shows at 64kbps, if you are willing to pay $7 a month. |
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andydreisch
Joined: 24 Jan 2008
Posts: 763
Location: San Jose, CA
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| Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 3:27 pm Post subject: |
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I think Dennis has a proclivity to hide everything behind ecommerce!!!
Hey, that's his prerogative. But for now, anyway, I'm sticking with the crappy-sounding MP3s on my iPod.
Andy
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Organizer, San Francisco Bay Area DP Meetup Group
The most HAPPENIN' of any Prager meetup group!! |
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