but takes different meanings depending on the many different possible viewpoints. One group will use the word to mean that two articles of clothing can look identical under the lighting of the store, but will look wildly different in the light of the bedroom. It is also metamerism that allows what looks one way on the screen in RGB to look similar when printed with CMYK inks. It is also used in the controlled tests of the lab when a person is asked to mix 3 colors in order to match a target color – in fact, it was similar tests that the then young International Commission on Illumination (the CIE) used to proof the tri-stimulus system and to come up with the various color models that we are familiar with (think horseshoe).

Metamers are in the news because of laser light replacing xenon, and, like the always present but exacerbated ‘speckle’ is something that heretofore sloppy but lucky implementations were able to hide – not that the engineers were sloppy, but the technology was so ‘force over subtlety’ that the age didn’t allow any better. Unlike speckle, no one knows for certain whether metamers will be an actual audience problem. It may be something that we run into everyday and ignore. There are things like this that we just don’t notice on the movie screen as well – for example, what is seen as a circle if you are in a center seat takes the shape of an ellipse if you are over to the side. But the human visual system compensates for this with ease – you see it but you ignore it…except for stereoscopic movies, where the brain ‘sees’ an ellipse, and just adds that to the pile of straw waiting to get too heavy…bringing headaches and dissatisfied customers…force over subtlety yet again.

New Audio Systems – The attempt for same sound with different structures

Now, with increased computational power and the desire to immerse the audience with ‘natural’ sound, the audio world has entered the realm of (attempting) the creation of an equivalent set of combined sounds taking different presentation positions (the Object of object-based audio essence–OBAE) while attempting to create the same sound regardless of different variables – an audio metamer for want of a better term. The new Object-based audio systems presume that they can dial in a particular set of numbers to get a different arrangement of speakers to act just like another…across different systems with different crossovers and spectral response.

Good luck with that. The term of art is: to be subjectively consistent, making best use of the available resources.

Lest this progress be decried as just another manufacturer’s method of raking over the audience to get more money…or the exhibitor’s money since better audio doesn’t really have a ‘return from end-user’ built into the business model…directors are also pushing for this change, since it is the logical extension of what we all imagined audio could be back in our teen-age, garage-band, more-speakers-in-the-car days.

But that isn’t what we are here to write about. Our topic has to do with the many and several ways to achieve KAVI-based bliss when using the SMPTE Committee site. That is the true -mer, sharing knowledge (or in the case of your author here, only sharing time since he all too often finds himself as the dullest crayon in the room during these engineering meetings.) But getting into the process of using the SMPTE website needs some explaining for the novice. This may be the first of many tutorials.

Soon (hopefully, and relatively) there will be pictures and arrows here, with tips from good/better/best people making comments on this article. Because everyone has met this problem, not only learning how to guide themselves through the login and the disappearing Record My Attendance and the Please Vote emails with cryptic messages.

{mp4 width=”660″ height=”400″}smpte_1{/mp4}

but takes different meanings depending on the many different possible viewpoints. One group will use the word to mean that two articles of clothing can look identical under the lighting of the store, but will look wildly different in the light of the bedroom. It is also metamerism that allows what looks one way on the screen in RGB to look similar when printed with CMYK inks. It is also used in the controlled tests of the lab when a person is asked to mix 3 colors in order to match a target color – in fact, it was similar tests that the then young International Commission on Illumination (the CIE) used to proof the tri-stimulus system and to come up with the various color models that we are familiar with (think horseshoe).

Metamers are in the news because of laser light replacing xenon, and, like the always present but exacerbated ‘speckle’ is something that heretofore sloppy but lucky implementations were able to hide – not that the engineers were sloppy, but the technology was so ‘force over subtlety’ that the age didn’t allow any better. Unlike speckle, no one knows for certain whether metamers will be an actual audience problem. It may be something that we run into everyday and ignore. There are things like this that we just don’t notice on the movie screen as well – for example, what is seen as a circle if you are in a center seat takes the shape of an ellipse if you are over to the side. But the human visual system compensates for this with ease – you see it but you ignore it…except for stereoscopic movies, where the brain ‘sees’ an ellipse, and just adds that to the pile of straw waiting to get too heavy…bringing headaches and dissatisfied customers…force over subtlety yet again.

New Audio Systems – The attempt for same sound with different structures

Now, with increased computational power and the desire to immerse the audience with ‘natural’ sound, the audio world has entered the realm of (attempting) the creation of an equivalent set of combined sounds taking different presentation positions (the Object of object-based audio essence–OBAE) while attempting to create the same sound regardless of different variables – an audio metamer for want of a better term. The new Object-based audio systems presume that they can dial in a particular set of numbers to get a different arrangement of speakers to act just like another…across different systems with different crossovers and spectral response.

Good luck with that. The term of art is: to be subjectively consistent, making best use of the available resources.

Lest this progress be decried as just another manufacturer’s method of raking over the audience to get more money…or the exhibitor’s money since better audio doesn’t really have a ‘return from end-user’ built into the business model…directors are also pushing for this change, since it is the logical extension of what we all imagined audio could be back in our teen-age, garage-band, more-speakers-in-the-car days.

But that isn’t what we are here to write about. Our topic has to do with the many and several ways to achieve KAVI-based bliss when using the SMPTE Committee site. That is the true -mer, sharing knowledge (or in the case of your author here, only sharing time since he all too often finds himself as the dullest crayon in the room during these engineering meetings.) But getting into the process of using the SMPTE website needs some explaining for the novice. This may be the first of many tutorials.

Soon (hopefully, and relatively) there will be pictures and arrows here, with tips from good/better/best people making comments on this article. Because everyone has met this problem, not only learning how to guide themselves through the login and the disappearing Record My Attendance and the Please Vote emails with cryptic messages.

{mp4 width=”660″ height=”400″}smpte_1{/mp4}