Sound Off!

摘要

A friend has given me recordings that were made in digital form of the 2015 BBC Proms taken from the HD satellite feed. Looking at the file information on my PC it states: Codec AC-3, Sample Rate 48kHz, Bitrate 384kb/s, Rate Control CBR, Channel Configuration 5.1 Surround. The quality is generally excellent, except that it sounds to me as though the BBC has brought back the dreaded OPTIMOD compression. Or similar. I am sure the level is changed according to the dynamics of the piece being played. The impression is heightened during some of the interval discussions where I can hear the volume hunting between the level of the person speaking and the background noise. I find this to be very disconcerting. Any such level compression should never be applied to a high bandwidth satellite transmission. Am I mistaken? It was not present in the 2014 Proms season.