eliasproon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Ask HN: Why is telephone “hold music” still such poor quality?”
Relevant Tom Scott's "Things You Might Not Know"-Video: "Why Hold Music Sounds Worse Now" - link to this video
0:00 / 0:00
#audiocompression#telephony#g.711
Hold music used to sound better. Here's why.
Tom Scott
6.7M subscribers • 29 videos on Hallway
- Recommended by 2 people: 2 on Hacker News.
- A classic. People kept recommending it from 2018 to 2023.
- Presented by Tom Scott
Beginner. No background in the topic needed.
2.9M views8 years ago2 recommendations
Systems programmingHistory and cultureNetworking and protocolsHistory of computing
Tom Scott explains how modern telephone audio compression and multiple transcoding steps degrade the quality of hold music compared to older systems.
It's not your imagination; hold music on phones really did sound better in the old days. Here's why, as we talk about old telephone exchanges and audio compression. Thanks to the Milton Keynes Museum, and their Connected Earth gallery: miltonkeynesmuseum.org.uk/ 🟥 MORE FROM TOM: tomscott.com/ (you can find contact details and social links there too) ❓ LATERAL, free weekly podcast: lateralcast.com/ youtube.com/lateralcast/ ➕ TOM SCOTT PLUS: youtube.com/tomscottplus 👥 THE TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES: youtube.com/techdifWhy it's here
2 people recommend thisWhat people say. Recommended as a clear and accessible explanation of how digital telephony compression affects audio quality.
colejohnson66on Hacker News • Recommends
On “Computer memory prototype ditches 1s and 0s for denser data storage”
There's a legitimate reason for that. Tom Scott did a video on it.0 It basically boils down to telephone switches starting to compress the audio. Compress and decompress multiple times (by various companies) on the way to you, and the quality degrades very quick. 0: link to this video
Svenskungankaon Hacker News • Mentions
On “Google Duplex: An AI System for Accomplishing Real World Tasks Over the Phone”
Doesn't most carriers heavily "compress" the sound, removing all sounds/frequencies that a human can't hear, etc? link to this video