P3D Stereo Sound and 3d

["George A. Themelis" <DrT-3d@xxxxxxx>]

If you remember, a few years back I mentioned that I took a tape recorder
with me to Greece, to record sounds that can accompany my stereo pictures.
At that time there was a short thread about recording the sounds in stereo
too.

Later I asked a simple question:  What is the best way to record & store
"sound bites" to accompany my stereo slides and do that in a flexible way,
i.e. be able to arrange the sound as you built up a different collection of
slides, aimed at a different viewing group.  I was thinking of something
like a CD where you can play a track and when you are ready, skip to the
next track while you change slides.

I could see that digital was the way to go with sound (instead of tape) but
back then recordable CD's were emerging slowly but were not an established
or inexpensive technology.  A few years later technology has caught up with
us.  In my new Pentium 500 MHz I have plenty of hard drive space and a
built-in R/W CD ROM (only a $80 update over the regular CD ROM).  So I have
been playing around transferring "sound bites" from tapes into the computer
and storing them as music "wav" files.  These can be then manipulated,
edited, etc.  These sound bites accompany specific slides.  When I am ready
for a slide presentation, I can write these sound bites into a CD, in any
order that I want.  This costs almost nothing with $1 per blank CD/R.

So far, so good.  That's exactly what I wanted to do and I am almost there
in a most convenient and inexpensive way.

While researching the market, I stumbled upon the Mini Discs.  Apparently,
these have been around since the early '90s but were never very popular in
the USA.  It seems to me the perfect medium for STEREO sound recordings.
You can buy a portable minidisc recorder/player that fits in your shirt
pocket which will allow you to make digital stereo recordings.  I went to
Circuit City and got the AIWA AM-F70 minidic for only $250.  Blank
minidiscs can be bought for as low as $2 each, can hold 76 minutes of
digital stereo sound and can be recorded up to a million times without loss
of quality!

This system replaces my cheap Radio Shack tape recorder.  Consider some of
the advantages over tape:  Smaller size.  Digital quality.  Random access.
You can record different sound bites in different tracks.  You can locate
these tracks very quickly.  You can edit them.  You can name them (making
it even easier to locate).  The advantages are just too many to ignore!

Now, why go the mini disc route when CD technology is becoming less and
less expensive?  Size is one factor.  Limited by the size of the CD,
players or recorders cannot be as small as the mini disc equivalent.  And
when you carry lots of stereo cameras, a small sound recording device is
what you would like to have!  

On the issue of stereo sound.  I recorded in mono vs. stereo and the
difference was impressive.  While walking around listening (through
lightweight headphones) to a stereo sound recording of my wife calling me
and talking to my son, I thought this was happening in reality and started
responding!  It is almost scaring!

Some of you might remember a thread some time back about stereo photography
with stereo sound, yes or no?  There are a number of issues with stereo
projection of still images, accompanied by stereo sound recordings.  First,
considering the sound systems available in most stereo projection rooms it
would make little difference if the sound is in stereo or mono.  Second,
what are we talking about?  Stereo slides accompanied by background music
recorded in stereo?  Whoopy ding!  Unless if the music or sound is an
integral part of the visual images.  But then, you have the dilemma:  Still
images and "moving" sound?  Let's say a safari in Africa, the sound of
animals running from one side of the room to the other and a picture of
"still" animals?  Or the sound of a plane taking off and a picture of a
plane frozen in the runway?   Unless if you are showing stereo slides in
such rapid succession that simulates real action.  These are a few of the
problems that put into question the use of expensive stereo sound equipment
in stereo still image projections.

But how about a good sequential stereo viewer and headphones?  Tracks
change automatically when the slide is advanced?

This is an interesting area of experimentation!  Putting together digital
stereo images and digital sound in one package is something to look forward
to in the future.

I must confess, I do not own a video recorder/player, never did.  Sometimes
I wonder if I am trying to duplicate this.  If I record sounds and take
pictures why not shoot video and do both at the same time?  Quality over
quantity might be the answer.  Stereo images are top quality in small
numbers.  Stereo sound independent of imaging leads to better sound.  You
can record sounds in places where you cannot take pictures.  You can
re-record again and again until you are satisfied with the quality of the
sound recordings.  You can take the pictures again and again until you are
satisfied with the quality of the pictures.  Tieing the two together might
not give you the best of any of the two.

George Themelis