SURROUND-SOUND AND HOME CINEMA
As entertainment media, TV and the cinema have evolved in very different ways. Cinemas have long been regarded as superior to television in terms of sound and picture quality and ambience. The latter is enhanced by the fact that everybody in the audience wants to see the film, having paid to do so; and by having the place in darkness, with nothing to distract the viewer from the picture and sound. Many enthusiasts seek to recreate all these conditions at home now that the systems, media and hardware exist for it; or at least to get as close an approach as possible to the true cinema experience.
35 mm and 70 mm film, optically projected onto a large reflective screen, and viewed under the right circumstances, offers a picture quality and definition way beyond what is possible with current broadcast TV systems, together with a more natural aspect ratio (picture width/height proportion) than was available to TV viewers until the advent of widescreen TV sets and broadcasts. Although compromises with ‘letterbox’ picture transmissions are made, the results are far from satisfactory.
TV/VIDEO SOUND
The television sound system was for many years a ‘poor relation’ to the picture. All that was available, a single-channel (monophonic) signal, had restricted frequency response, and limited dynamic range and signal/noise ratio. Very often TV sets (even large-screen ones) were fitted with small loudspeakers and barely adequate audio amplifiers.
The first turning point came in the mid-1980s with Hi-Fi sound videocassette recorders. As explained in Chapter 17, their audio performance was far better than any other TV sound system, approaching that of audio Compact Disc. At that time, however, the only source media which could do justice to a Hi-Fi VCR was a pre- recorded (generally ‘movie’) tape cassette, and – because few TV sets were up to the job of reproducing the sound – it was often necessary to hook the VCR to a separate stereo amplifier to reap the full sound benefit.
Next came the Nicam transmission system described in Chapter 9; its abilities are reasonably matched to those of analogue Hi-Fi video recorders, and it became possible to record and reproduce good quality stereo sound, with Nicam decoders built into video recorders as well as large-screen TV sets. TV design, meanwhile, had evolved on the audio side so that there were now powerful inbuilt sound amplifiers; bass and treble controls; and the best loudspeaker systems it was possible to get into a plastic TV cabinet dominated by its magnetically sensitive picture-tube! Provision was also made, in most cases, for the connection of external stereo speakers.
SURROUND-SOUND AND HOME CINEMA
As entertainment media, TV and the cinema have evolved in very different ways. Cinemas have long been regarded as superior to television in terms of sound and picture quality and ambience. The latter is enhanced by the fact that everybody in the audience wants to see the film, having paid to do so; and by having the place in darkness, with nothing to distract the viewer from the picture and sound. Many enthusiasts seek to recreate all these conditions at home now that the systems, media and hardware exist for it; or at least to get as close an approach as possible to the true cinema experience.
35 mm and 70 mm film, optically projected onto a large reflective screen, and viewed under the right circumstances, offers a picture quality and definition way beyond what is possible with current broadcast TV systems, together with a more natural aspect ratio (picture width/height proportion) than was available to TV viewers until the advent of widescreen TV sets and broadcasts. Although compromises with ‘letterbox’ picture transmissions are made, the results are far from satisfactory.
TV/VIDEO SOUND
The television sound system was for many years a ‘poor relation’ to the picture. All that was available, a single-channel (monophonic) signal, had restricted frequency response, and limited dynamic range and signal/noise ratio. Very often TV sets (even large-screen ones) were fitted with small loudspeakers and barely adequate audio amplifiers.
The first turning point came in the mid-1980s with Hi-Fi sound videocassette recorders. As explained in Chapter 17, their audio performance was far better than any other TV sound system, approaching that of audio Compact Disc. At that time, however, the only source media which could do justice to a Hi-Fi VCR was a pre- recorded (generally ‘movie’) tape cassette, and – because few TV sets were up to the job of reproducing the sound – it was often necessary to hook the VCR to a separate stereo amplifier to reap the full sound benefit.
Next came the Nicam transmission system described in Chapter 9; its abilities are reasonably matched to those of analogue Hi-Fi video
recorders, and it became possible to record and reproduce good qual- ity stereo sound, with Nicam decoders built into video recorders as well as large-screen TV sets. TV design, meanwhile, had evolved on the audio side so that there were now powerful inbuilt sound amplifiers; bass and treble controls; and the best loudspeaker systems it was possible to get into a plastic TV cabinet dominated by its magnetically sensitive picture-tube! Provision was also made, in most cases, for the connection of external stereo speakers.