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What is sound mastering and why is it important for professional media duplication?

Modern sound recording industry as we know it today is a result of almost a century of continuous development and technical progress. We very often perceive it to be something that was around forever, and the high-quality FM broadcasts and live concert sound became something that is heard every day. Bot not many do actually think about the volume of work that stands behind that sound quality level.

The professional sound recording is a complex and multi-stage process that employs tens, and sometimes even hundreds of qualified professionals. One of the most important stages of this process is called mastering. You probably heard this term before. But what is sound mastering and why is it so important?

Broadly put, it’s both the final stage in the creative production of a track or album and the initial stage of its manufacture (where a physical product is concerned, such as a CD or vinyl) or output (ie, WAV/MP3 delivery to a download portal). In the early days of mass-produced music, it was the job of a skilled individual to physically transfer a final mix from tape to the ‘master’ vinyl record, which would then be sent for duplication.

As record labels realised that skilfully-applied processing could make a big difference in the perceived quality of music, mastering engineers were given more creative freedom to enhance mixes with equalisation and compression techniques. In today’s digital age, the mastering engineer is still essentially the middle-man between the finished mix and the consumer, correcting any ‘errors’ in the mix, making enhancements where needed, and editing/ submitting the final ‘master’ file for release – all without compromising the artistic vision of the original artist or creatively altering the mix.

So why doesn’t the mix engineer simply take on the task of mastering too? A mastered track should sound as good as possible on as many playback systems as possible, achieving a professional and consistent sound whether listened to on a car stereo, club sound system, cheap earphones, television, mobile phone, and so on. A producer or mix engineer has likely spent countless hours creatively blending multiple elements together to craft the final mix, and in doing so has ‘overlistened’ to the track in the same studio, which may not be the ideal listening environment. The mastering engineer is a final, experienced pair of ears that can objectively listen to the track, correct errors introduced by an imperfect mixing studio, and transparently sweeten a piece of music further.

Fans and listeners are used to hearing modern music coated with a professionally-mastered ‘sheen’ – sparkling highs, deep bass, consistent frequency spread and dynamic balance. Today’s songs and albums must compete with other professional records. A skilled mastering engineer has the equipment, experience, and ears to help a mix sit beside other commercial releases, adding that final 5-10% of polish.

Collections of individual tracks – whether destined for an EP, album or compilation – can each sound tonally and dynamically separate from each other. The mastering engineer will ensure the final collection of songs all sit together as a single cohesive product.

So basically, it is all about consistency and final polishing of the soundtrack. Sort of an additional quality assurance measure on the final stage of a master copy production, that is further on duplicated on a mass-production scale.

Quality of sound will also depend on the quality of the media storage it is recorded to. Therefore, choosing the right means of duplication is probably even more important than mastering itself.

Falcon Technologies International develops and produces professional optical media oriented towards different market sectors for more than 10 years now, and one of the sectors we prioritize, is media duplication.

Our FalconMEDIA DUPLI Line is a product that was tailored to meet the needs of professional media duplicators. It performs to good quality level with benchmark and quality control tests proving that DUPLI Line products have one of the lowest variability rates throughout the industry, which makes them a perfect solution for media duplication.

How National Archives are Going Digital

Paper was one of the humanity’s earliest means of data storage. Since its invention in China almost two thousand years ago, it is still one of the most important materials that we use in our daily activities: it is used as means of payment in form of cash, many important documents are still signed on paper, paper books are still more popular than the electronic ones and at the end of the day, don’t you still scribble your notes on the business meetings in a paper notebook?

Civilization used paper for centuries (and it will likely continue to do so for several more): our ancestors managed to leave us hundreds of thousands historical documents and books. From these sources, we are able to get the valuable information about important historical events and the way our ancestors lived. Paper allows us to see the footprint that previous generations have left in the history. It is a truly unique invention, as important and significant as the use of fire, iron and the wheel.

Nonetheless its undisputed value and role in the history of the mankind, paper have its weak side: it is not able to resist the influence of the environment. Old paper documents may corrode and the information recorded may gradually fade away and disappear over long periods of time. Before the invention of the first printing presses in XVth century, old manuscripts were copied manually in handwriting. Despite the complexity of that process, people understood the importance of preserving the information for future generations and some even dedicated a lifetime to restore the old manuscripts for the future generations.

Nowadays the technical progress allows us to archive the information in a more safe and simplified way: through digitalization and electronic archiving.

The Telangana State Archives and Research Institute of Hyderabad, India has come up with a proposal for a digital library placing online all its documents that include ‘farmans’ and gazettes issued by erstwhile rulers and also a rich collection of manuscripts. The proposal has already been submitted to the State government for approval.

Once in place, the digital library will come as a boon for researchers, teachers, and students apart from the general public who at present have to go through a cumbersome manual process to check the material of their interest.

“Now, whenever a researcher or student approaches us, we take their request and locate the papers and hand them over. With the proposed system, students coming for research can view the information on computers connected to the server,” said a senior official.

The process has already been initiated and the institute has digitized more than 60 folios which are to be made available to the public through the digital library. The digitized content includes ‘farmans’, gazettes and manuscripts that were issued at different points of time by the then rulers. The impressive collection at the State Archives and Research Institute has thousands of documents related to the Moghal rule while the oldest document preserved here dates back to the year 1406 pertaining to Adil Shah.

Every year, researchers from the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, and Singapore among other countries visit the Institute for research.

Digital archiving has an important role in historical data preservation: as paper manuscripts and important historical documents are decaying under the influence of temperature, pressure and humidity fluctuations, there is always a risk of data loss. Therefore, digitalization becomes a must, rather than an option.

Just think about it: if the medieval monks would not copy the manuscripts back in the day, we would probably never know about some of the major historical events and scientific discoveries.

We at Falcon Technologies International understand the importance of historical data preservation. It is hard to underestimate the importance of these materials in the context of the history of the civilization. That was one of the ideas behind the development of FalconMEDIA Century Archival Disc – an optical media storage device, that is able to store data for centuries. Manufactured with use of gold and platinum layers technology, it is able to serve as a reliable and secure long-term data vault.

Source: Telangana Today

Next Generation of Optical Media is coming with the Archival Disc

Next generation of the optical disc is announced to be launched in the nearest future. The maximum data storage capacity on a single optical disc that is available on the market now is up to 500 GB, and the new format is going to be able to store twice of that.

The discs are called ‘Archival disc’ and it is claimed that the storage unit can retain its data for more than a 100 years.

Higher capacities in optical storage are made possible due to smaller sized pits and marks and shorter wavelength lasers and improved drawing rates. In the case of the ‘Archival Discs’ alternative approach is used: extra data is recorded on the land areas between grooves that are traditionally unused.

Optical discs have great potential to further enhance their recording density and storage capacity with technological advancements in, for example, signal processing technology. If we compare the growth in the recording density of HDDs, optical discs, and magnetic tapes, in 10 years, from 2016 to 2026, the recording density will improve by 7~15% for HDDs and 30~46% for optical discs. For the magnetic tapes, the increase is estimated to be less than 30%. To estimate the longevity of the media, industry standard acceleration tests were conducted. Error occurrence rates were measured in temperatures 30℃ and above and in less than 70% humidity. These tests estimate that the prototypes of the Archive Discs can reliably store data for more than 100 years. On the other hand, hard disks have a lifespan of a few years, and magnetic tapes a dozen or so years.

Because optical discs have a long life, unlike hard disks and magnetic tapes, there is no need to regularly migrate data from degraded media to new media. Moreover, optical discs do not require operations or cooling of facilities that are associated with hard disks, therefore, long-term storing of data on optical discs can reduce power consumed as well as costs incurred. If 1PB (petabyte) of data is stored for 20 years on HDDs, magnetic tapes, and optical discs, with widely available HDDs and magnetic tapes, the costs come out to be around the same, whereas with optical discs, it is estimated that the data could be stored at half the cost.

Another technology used on the Archival Discs is,”Crosstalk-cancelling technology”. This technology cancels crosstalk noise generated by adjacent tracks. This should ensure playback quality without read errors, even with narrow track pitches.

Falcon Technologies International is constantly monitoring the overall trends of the optical media market and tends to allocate its resources towards innovation and improvement of its professional product lines, in particular, the Century Archival, which is a cutting-edge technology, built with Gold or Platinum layer to ensure maximum security, longevity and protection for stored data proven by a number of internal and independent third-party tests.

Source: guru3d

When buying Professional Optical Media, pay attention to these points

Choosing the right product is always challenging. With all this competition on international markets, we may find a wide variety of options on the shelves out there: it is always about choices we make. But what defines our choice: is it price, quality, logo, recommendations of friends? Normally it is a combination of many factors that define our choice.

Choices that consumers make are driven by different types of triggers, but when you are purchasing something very specific and technical, it is necessary to be rational, as your choice can actually influence many things in future. It is very true for the market we operate in – data storage and informational security.

Choosing the right optical media may also be challenging, as there are so many manufacturers and everyone claims superior quality and longevity, however not all of them are transparent and honest in what they actually communicate in their promotional messages.

Here are some points worth paying attention to, when choosing the right optical media:

Raw material: Quality comes from Quality!

Reliable sourcing of high-quality raw materials is the fundamental element to manufacture quality products.

FTI uses the best Polycarbonate, internally develops our high-grade dye and utilizes the best material for its Optical Media recording layers such as Silver, Gold and Platinum in order to minimize batch-to-batch variation and reliable definition and selection of archival grade discs.

Lifetime Claims: Check the source!

Some manufacturers claim product durability that lasts for years, even hundreds of years, but do not explain how they came up with their figures or back up their claims.

FTI Archival grade Optical discs have estimated archival lifetimes exceeding 100 years or even 300 years. These lifetime estimations are obtained using recognize and verifiable Industry storage tests so called accelerated lifetime tests. Mathematical models such as the Arrhenius model 1.1 or the Eyring model 1.2 extrapolates the lifetimes observed at high storage temperatures into expected lifetimes at room temperature and enable predictions of how many years the recorded data can safely be recovered when the discs are stored at normal room or office temperatures.

Dye and Recording Layer Resistance: The Best for Less!

The metal layer(s) used must be corrosion resistant to offer robustness against minor included defects over the lifetime of the disc. Gold reflecting layers offer this robustness at an increase in cost over silver.

FalconMedia Archival grade Platinum-alloy solution is the latest development in archival grade optical discs to offer robustness while maintaining the cost advantages of optical disc storage by producing media with all the benefits of Gold media but at a more competitive price.

Quality Control Production Process: History doesn’t lie!

Finally, select a manufacturing Company that has consistently proven to supply reliable quality products. This is the best guarantee that quality control, product grading, process control and product stability are handled in a professional quality-conscious way that ensures every shipment and every disc meets the archival grade requirements.

We pride ourselves on our dedicated technical support and high-quality Control provided to our customers. FalconMedia is such a product from such a Company. FalconMedia is the perfect solution if you want to be assured your data will be retrievable and usable in the years, decades and centuries to come.

Printable Options: Consistency!

All FTI printable layers, regardless of product, adhere to FTI’s internal quality standards to ensure a consistently high-quality product regardless of product line. Our internal testing has demonstrated the following features compared to competitors:

Superior sustainability of printable layers before and after testing
Improved water resistance of the disc
Greater durability due to excellent bonding with substrate
Better results for ink drying

Guarantees: Be Covered!

The Company warrants that the Goods will be free from material defects under normal conditions of use and when used in conjunction with the appropriate equipment.

Customers can return to FTI, within 6 months of receipt of a shipment, products which are alleged to be defective or which do not comply with the order.

Security: No Forgeries Allowed!

In the security Law enforcement and legal world, security is key.

Make sure that your Optical Media is traceable and has a unique number to avoid forgeries and unauthorized copies.

FTI discs have a unique serial number and are 100% traceable!

Falcon Technologies International LLC is continuously performing benchmark and quality control tests under extreme conditions to ensure consistent batch to batch quality and product longevity.

Tests versus competitors have shown that FTI products:

Show up to 25% better results in accelerated aging test in comparison to any other analog products
Perform extremely well compared to notable competitors in standard industry measurements such as Tracking Errors (41% less errors) and Focus Errors (37% errors)
Show an error rate 50% lower compared to notable competitors after 250 hours of extreme environment conditions tests (PISum8)
Have excellent cross-compatibility with the major disc drive manufacturers including Pioneer, TEAC, Asus, Samsung and LG.
The sustainability of FTI discs and printable layers is superior to competitors before and after testing, with a lower possibility of disc failure based on internal comparison tests.
Show minimal disc-to-disc variation on key mechanical deviation measurements (vertical / radial / tangential deviations).

FTI Partners: River Pro Audio

At Falcon Technologies International we firmly believe in lasting and mutually beneficial partnerships. During the last decade we have managed to establish a number of such relationships, resulting in strategic market partnerships on the global scale.

One such partnership that has helped us to gain a significant market share in Europe is with UK-based company River Pro Audio.

River Pro Audio have always prided themselves on the quality, consistency and innovation of the products they stock and services they deliver. Naturally, championing a manufacturer who shares those ideals (and delivers on them!) was an easy decision to make.

As the official distributor for Falcon Media in Europe and the largest stockist, we have in partnership achieved a huge amount of conversions and, the bottom line, a huge amount of happy customers.

This partnership couldn’t have come at a better time; with Taiyo-Yuden bowing out of the optical industry, many European clients were in-between brands, with nowhere to turn to for high quality, reliable media. This push towards Falcon Media was a dramatic success and has secured their position in Europe as a high-end supplier of optical media.

As well as optical discs, River Pro Audio also manufactures and stocks a full range of casing. Well recognised in Europe under the ‘River’ range, these cases are made to the highest standards. Using nothing but virgin prime resin and high-end Japanese moulds, these cases are meticulously quality controlled to ensure they’re the best in the world.

By working in partnership with all major manufacturers of publishing equipment, as well as all employees being trained to an exceptionally high standard in their use and repair, River Pro Audio can also supply equipment and consumables at the lowest prices – as well as offering support and recommendations for your equipment and workflow.

It doesn’t stop here; River Pro Audio and their staff are constantly striving for improvement and will go above and beyond to assist your business or projects. For anything media related in Europe, whether that’s high quality Falcon Media, high quality casing and publishing consumables or equipment, they’re certainly the place to go.

For industry leading advice, or supply in Europe, feel free to contact your River Pro Audio Falcon representatives (Robert Butler-Ellis or Sampson Monger) on:

sales@riverproaudio.co.uk

+44 208 311 7077

From floppy disks to deep freeze: what’s the best way to store data?

A New York-based team of volunteer archivists and preservationists are working to transfer old VHS videotapes into digital formats. Volunteers meet weekly in a Tribeca loft filled with “racks of tape decks, oscilloscopes, vectorscopes and waveform monitors” to painstakingly digitize cassettes from the 1980s and 1990s. As they note, transferring video isn’t plug-and-go; much tweaking and troubleshooting can be required to get it right. That’s why they’ve only managed to transfer 155 tapes so far – a very small percentage of the total analog format archive.

The group partners with artists, activists, and individuals to lower the barriers to preserving at-risk audiovisual media – especially unseen, unheard, or archived works.

Whatever the content, once it’s digitized, it becomes publicly available via the Internet Archive.

And what about your own tapes? There are plenty of paid services that will help you to digitize old videotapes – or you can do it yourself using directions from open sources. And if you still have a big dusty box of your home video tapes stored somewhere deep in the closet, it may be a good idea to transfer their contents on the new storage mediums. In fact, we have already discussed that in one of our previous articles.

Tape manufacturers predicted 20 to 30 years of life expectancy, but media lifespan depends greatly on environmental conditions. Format obsolescence contributes to the crisis: Umatic and VHS tapes are no longer manufactured and BetaSP will soon be discontinued. Machines to play these formats are becoming more scarce as are the skills to maintain and repair them.

Of course, it’s not only the videotape that’s at risk. Entropy is relentless, and anything recorded on the old storage mediums will eventually have to be transferred and digitalized. Even if the medium remains intact, formats and interfaces become obsolete and disappear. Preserving data for the long term is a discipline worth more attention than we can give it here, but a few tips might be helpful.

Lifespan comparison of different backup storage media

Keep track of how long media is likely to last – but remember that the statistics are controversial projections, and many won’t be so precise. The general consensus is that consumer segment CD-Rs should last 30 to 50 years, DVD-Rs less than that, and CD-RWs and DVD-RWs even less. Similarly, tapes and hard disks can be expected to be readable for 10 to 30 years, while portable disks, USB thumb drives, and other solid-state storage devices may survive for half that time, maybe.

Back in 2005, The New York Times reported that 3.5” floppies have “an estimated life span of 10 years if stored in a cool, dry place with average care and use”. If you’ve still got any, we’ll bet they’re older than that!

With this in mind, regularly copy data to new media, especially if it’s approaching its expiration date. And make sure anything you haven’t saved is “in a cool, dry place,” not your attic or garage. It is strongly recommended to use a specialized archival optical media, like FalconMedia Century Archival, which are able to secure your data for up to 500 years.

Move away from physical formats that are becoming obsolete. For example, many people who used to back up their data on Zip drives, Syquest cartridges, and 1.44MB floppy drives no longer have access to these. Even interfaces can be an issue: external devices often used serial or parallel ports that no longer ship standard on computers (though desktop PC and ExpressCard laptop adapters can still be found). Make sure you’ve migrated your data before you dispose of an old device or format.

A common related issue: data trapped on a working hard disk in a dead PC or laptop. The Guardian serves up some useful guidance on installing the drive in an external USB enclosure and restoring from there.

Migrate data from obsolete programs, or at least make sure you have the tools to do so when necessary. Millions of people still have content trapped in ancient word processing. Tools for viewing such data or move it into “living” software include Quick View Plus and FastLook; for some formats, the free LibreOffice productivity suite or XNView image viewer might be all you need.

TechRepublic offers some useful high-level advice on planning a long-term strategy for protecting your data here.

All this is great as far as it goes, but as the amount of data we’re generating continues to soar, we’re likely to need some radically new. Here are some technologies that may potentially improve data storage in near future:

Analog micro-etching: The Long Now Foundation – which specializes in trying to envision the long-term future and solve the problems it might present – ran a full conference on super-long-term data storage. The solution it found promising enough to test: analog micro-etching onto nickel disks. Eight years later, they had a prototype: a disk containing information in about 1,500 human languages, plus translations of the Book of Genesis in each. Since the information is analog, it’s readable directly by humans (though they will need a microscope).

The Arctic World Archive: Officially opened on March 27 in Norway’s Svalbard Arctic region, the for-profit Arctic World Archive is already housing key documents from Brazil, Mexico, and Norway — safe, theoretically, from natural disaster and warfare. According to a report in The Verge, data is actually imprinted on special film, in huge high-density greyscale QR codes – and the archive is completely disconnected from the Internet to protect against hackers and ransomware.

DNA: According to Science Magazine, researchers have been making breathtaking progress since the first attempts to store data in DNA molecules back in 2012. DNA is ultracompact, and it can last hundreds of thousands of years if kept in a cool, dry place. And as long as human societies are reading and writing DNA, they will be able to decode it – not something you can say with confidence about videocassettes or QR codes.

Source: Naked Security

Back To the Future: XXth Century Formats are Coming Back

We all get nostalgic every now and then. Depending on the age, one may remember the “good old days” of his, which may be 90s, 80s, 70s or even earlier. Every decade of the last century had its own unique features, which are carefully kept in the memories of those who saw them and possibly even was a part of them. And those good old days had good old things, which we sometimes miss so much. From vintage cars to costumes, we love things that take us back to a far simpler era.

Today, our lives are hectic and complex and the gadgets we use – from smartphones to computers – are very complex too.

Music is perhaps the best example for our longing for simple things. The rapid onset of computerization meant that music was easily digitized – put in the form of ones and zeroes. Hence the term “digital”. On the other hand, music was recorded and reproduced in “analog” form until then.

The first mass produced digital music format was the humble Compact Disc, which is now over 35 years old. It was a revolution when it was introduced. Read by an optical laser with no real surface contact, the CD became the fastest selling new consumer format, until that crown was taken by the Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) in 1996. The DVD itself is based on the 12 cm CD platter.

The birth of the Internet or more specifically, the World Wide Web saw the emergence of music formats such as MP3, a compression method that reduced the digital bandwidth needed for storing and streaming music. MP3 received a big boost with the introduction of the original Apple iPod in November 2001.

The storage capacity of the iPod Classic topped out at 160 GB, which effectively meant space for thousands of songs on one device. Today, every smartphone is practically an iPod.

MP3 did popularise music, but at the same time, nearly killed it. MP3, whose patents expired recently, was not an audiophile standard (unlike CD) at all. The sound quality was low and online piracy dealt a blow to legal music providers, at least until legal services such as iTunes came along.

CD and MPs became so widespread that they almost caused the death of the two existing music formats. (In the video sphere, DVD ensured the rapid demise of Laserdisc and much later, VHS). Sales of vinyl records and audio cassettes (the digital equivalent of audio cassettes, the Digital Audio Tape and the Digital Compact cassette, never really took off) plunged to an all-time low as CD and MP3 sales and downloads skyrocketed.

Everyone thought that both formats would die a natural death in a few years. After all, both formats were as old as time – the rudimentary form of the present Long Playing (LP) record was invented by Thomas Edison way back in 1877 and the audio cassette was invented by the Dutch electronics giant Philips in 1962. Pre-recorded cassettes came to the market in 1965.

But then, listeners realised the digital music lacked the warmth associated with analogue music. They felt it was lifeless, cold and distant. They somehow wanted to get closer to the heart of the music.

The answer: go back to basics. Yes, today, there is a remarkable resurgence in vinyl and audio cassette sales as people are rediscovering the joys of these two undying music formats.

The discs themselves can be manufactured in transpartent versions or with multiple colours, adding further value. One company even released an LP with embedded dinosaur bones. Collectors the world over gladly pay a premium price for vinyl because MP3 or online streaming services can never really offer these options.

The last seven-eight have been promising for Vinyl, a relic from the past. Sales of vinyl records have gone through the roof in both the US and UK, with Amazon being the number one seller.

The situation is not much different in other markets. Even in Sri Lanka, a music label has re-introduced vinyl albums by popular singers.

Vinyl accounted for 76% of total album sales worldwide in 1973; by 1994 this had dropped to 1.5% as compact discs (CDs) took over. Now things have come full circle as sales of vinyl in 2016 reached a 25-year high with consumers young and old once again embracing analogue physical formats of music.

More than 3.2 million LPs were sold in the UK last year, a rise of 53% on last year and the highest number since 1991 when Simply Red’s Stars was the bestselling album.

This was also the first year that spending on vinyl outstripped the amount spent on digital downloads. This is the ninth consecutive year that vinyl sales have grown around the world and this year will be no exception.

Every new album is now being released on vinyl and music lovers are lapping them up despite the higher prices. New vinyl record pressing machines have been installed around the world to cater to the increasing demand. There are already predictions that digital downloads of music would disappear altogether as people switch to streaming (which is now seamless thanks to faster Internet speeds), CD and Vinyl.

Pre-recorded audio cassettes are also about to make a comeback. At the moment there is only ONE large scale audio cassette replicator (National Audio Company, USA) left in the world and it cannot keep up with the demand. NAC alone will churn out more than 24 million cassette tapes this year.

Among the Amazon listings for audio cassette albums and performers are: Guardians of the Galaxy Original Sound Track, Beach House B-Sides, Caribou by Elton John, Cranberries, Ed Sheeran, Iggy Pop and Bob Segar greatest hits.

Cassettes, which enjoyed their heyday due to the Sony Walkman, may come back with an even bigger splash this time. Cassette sales are up by 82 percent worldwide for the year, and even Top 40 hit maker Justin Bieber is releasing albums on tape.

There is a general feeling that people are looking to get beyond the digital playlist.

Digital streams cannot carry complete album artwork, liner notes, lyrics, or back cover credits. A physical disc or tape is something tangible you can hold in your hands, share with a friend and once brought, it is yours to keep and enjoy. (On the contrary, you never really own digital content). Surprisingly, the very revival of the two formats is being led by the millennials who grew up with digital.

They realise that life means more than ones and zeroes and want to get a more intimate music experience. By the way, the surge in print book sales is also attributed to the younger generation. This is a good trend – music is meant to be not just heard, but felt as well.

Source: Sunday Observer

High-resolution audio: everything you need to know

High-resolution audio (HRA) has emerged as arguably the ultimate sonic selection for digital music fans, but what’s it all about, what do you need and how can you get it?

In the last couple of years, high-resolution audio (HRA) has hit the mainstream sound recording and distribution, due to the release of more devices and services that support the new format.

From dedicated devices like Neil Young’s PonoPlayer and the latest Sony Walkmans, to games consoles like the Play Station 4, smartphones like the Sony Xperia Z5 it seems everyone’s is joining this movement towards taking of the sound recording industry to the next level of quality.

So how does high-res differ from standard digital music formats? Downloads from sites such as Amazon and iTunes, and streaming services such as Spotify, use compressed file formats with relatively low bitrates, such as 256kbps AAC files on iTunes and 320kbps MP3 streams on Spotify.

The use of AAC or MP3 compression leads to partial data loss in the encoding process, which means resolution is sacrificed for the sake of convenience and smaller file sizes. With regards to sound quality, then, these formats aren’t telling the full story of our favourite songs. This might be fine on the bus when you’re listening to your smartphone, but serious music fans should want better. This is where high-resolution audio – or HRA, the term coined by the Consumer Electronics Association – steps in.

Astell & Kern, LG, Samsung, Sony and Pioneer are just some of the companies to have launched hi-res audio compatible products, while several download sites now offer. HRA also has the support of major labels and musicians.

It’s worth pointing out that the definition of high-resolution audio isn’t set in stone. Unlike high-definition video, which has to meet certain criteria to earn the name, there’s no universal standard for hi-res audio.

But the term tends to refer to audio that has a higher sampling frequency. High-resolution audio files usually use a sampling frequency of 96kHz or 192kHz at 24-bit, but you can also have 88.2kHz and 176.4kHz files too.

Sampling frequency refers to the number of times samples are taken per second when the analogue sound waves are converted into digital. The more bits there are, the more accurately the signal can be measured in the first place, so 16-bit to 24-bit can reveal a noticeable leap in quality.

There are several high-resolution audio file formats to choose from, all of which support the above sampling rates and bit-depths. They include FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) and ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec), both of which are compressed but in a way where (in theory) no information is lost.

Other formats include WAV, AIFF and DSD, the format used for Super Audio CDs. The relative merits of the formats can be argued, but most crucial will be compatibility with your particular products and system.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has issued a logo that will show up on every track and album that can be classed as hi-res audio.

Obviously the main claimed benefit of high-resolution audio files is superior sound quality over compressed audio formats. To illustrate why they should sound better than MP3s, for example, let’s compare the relative bitrates. The highest quality MP3 has a bitrate of 320kbps, whereas a 24-bit/192kHz file is transferred at a rate of 9216kbps.

24-bit/96k or 24-bit/192kHz files should therefore more closely replicate the sound quality that the musicians and engineers were working with in the studio.

With more information to play with, high-resolution audio tends to boast greater detail and texture, bringing listeners closer to the original performance.

Manufacturers including Bowers & Wilkins, Naim and Linn have been pushing for and producing high-resolution audio products for some time. We’ve now seen mass-market heavyweights such as LG, Samsung and Sony adopt the format to bring it to a larger audience.

With this wider availability, more people are able to learn and understand exactly what high-resolution audio is, and the benefits it can bring to music. There’s plenty of content out there, and there’s plenty of hardware to go with it. The future for the format looks – and sounds – very bright indeed.

At Falcon Technologies International we firmly believe in the core brand values that our brand is build on, and one of them is Quality. High resolution audio format development is very important step for overall music industry, that is currently taking the entire market to the next level.

As a company that have been continuously making efforts to improve the quality of our products, we understand the importance and praise development of such initiatives as high resolution audio standardization and introduction to the mass market.

Falcon Technologies International has specially designed product line to provide quality media storage for professional duplication and replication – DUPLI Line.

It performs to good quality level with benchmark and quality control tests proving that Dupli Line products have one of the lowest variability rates throughout the industry, which makes them a perfect solution for media duplication. Also, DUPLI Line comes with a no failure guarantee, so that media distributors can be sure that the end consumer will be able to enjoy the high quality media from a high quality storage medium.

Source: WhatHiFi

Falcon Technologies International hosts International Customer Seminar on April 4th and 5th

Falcon Technologies International recently hosted its international customer seminar in the stunning Ritz Carlton Al Wadi Hotel, which is located in a unique desert environment within our home Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah. We were delighted to welcome approximately 50 delegates who travelled from diverse locations such as France, Germany, Japan, USA and the UK, to discuss the latest developments, opportunities and innovations that make optical media the exciting and progressive industry that it is today.

The entire FTI extended a very warm welcome to all the guests, who enjoyed the superb hospitality of the Al Wadi Hotel, complete activities including a traditional Arabian Falcon show, archery, sailing, go-karting and golf. The presentation session included an overview of the economic growth Ras Al Khaimah has been experiencing in recent years from Mr. Shahram Hashemi, Group Director of Strategy and Investments at RAK Free Trade Zone, along with presentations from the FTI management team with demonstrations of new product development initiatives.

Speaking about the event our CEO Mr. Michael Gutowski said, “We are delighted to host the global optical media community here in our home of Ras Al Khaimah. Having the opportunity to assemble so many of our partners in Ras Al Khaimah was a very positive experience for us at FTI, the optical media industry in general, and for Ras Al Khaimah as a global business hub. We very much hope that all the attendees enjoyed their stay in Ras Al Khaimah, and hope to welcome them back in 2018”.

Here are some photo and video highlights from the event:

Cartridges Mean Nintendo Switch Games Will Always Cost More

If you’re old enough to remember the original PlayStation launching, then you’ll know how big of a deal switching to optical media was. Rather than shipping an expensive cartridge full of chips, games were burnt on to less expensive compact discs. It didn’t take long for other home consoles to follow and discs have been the preferred media for home consoles ever since.

With the launch of the new Switch console, Nintendo is reverting back to cartridge media for a home console. Nintendo handhelds have stuck with cartridges ever since the Game Boy launched, but there wasn’t really any alternative. For a home console, though, it poses a big problem in the form of pricing.

Inevitably, cross platform games will be released targeting the Xbox One, PS4, and Switch. You only have to look at listings for several popular cross-platform games to see the challenge Switch developers (and Nintendo) face. If the price for some titles is $29.99 for PS4, on Switch it’s $39.99 (33% higher).

The reason is the manufacturing cost. Optical media products are relatively cheap to mass produce, and regardless of whether you burn 5GB or 40GB to a disc the media costs the same. Cartridges, however, are relatively-speaking much more expensive and Switch cartridges can escalate in price depending on whether you need 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, 16GB or 32GB of storage. They also get more expensive per cartridge the smaller the batch ordered.

If you only own a Switch, then the price difference doesn’t really matter as you are stuck paying $39.99. However, many gamers will own, or plan to own, a PS4 and a Switch, much like many have owned a home console and a 3DS. In that case, Nintendo will lose out on cross-platform game sales to the PS4 or Xbox One due to the price differential. The PS4 / Xbox One are significantly more powerful than Switch meaning the same game will inevitably look better and run faster while also being cheaper.

The pricing issue is compounded by the fact Nintendo insists that digital versions of a game offered through the eShop must be priced the same as physical versions. So opting to invest in a large SD card and only downloading games won’t save you any cash.

With time and the continued success of the Switch, economies of scale should see manufacturing costs fall. But for the foreseeable future, Switch games are going to be more expensive than the same game on another platform. In fact, manufacturing costs will mean they are always more expensive to produce than the optical disc equivalent.

Will this impact a publisher’s decision to release games on Switch. Potentially, yes. But Switch sales will be key. If Nintendo continues to sell millions of units then the market exists to make releasing on the platform viable. And the more Switch sells, the bigger the cartridge orders can be, and therefore the cheaper they become.

FTI’s Falcon Media Dupli Line is designed to meet the professional media duplicators needs and a suitable product for the gaming industry. Benchmark and quality control tests prove that Dupli Line products have one of the lowest variability rates throughout the industry, which makes them a perfect solution for media duplication.

SOURCE: PCMag