Talk:The Day The World Went Away (halo)

HDCD - worth mentioning?

Although the liner notes don't say it, the disk is recognized as HDCD by software Windows Media Player 10 and other HDCD-capable players. That kind of mastering is supposed to improve dynamic range of CD audio, but how can we make sure if that was intended or accidental? BenAkenobi 11:33, 8 January 2010 (PST)

now that's cool. it may be the only HDCD in the NIN catalog. worth mentioning if someone else can verify. - Seasonsinthesky 12:52, 8 January 2010 (PST)

Just confirmed with my copy - any other Halos you want me to check for HDness? sheepdean Try to speak as clearly as you can 18:04, 8 January 2010 (PST)

anything from The Fragile era is possibly HDCD. best to start with that record and work through any other singles, the AATCHB/Still CDs, etc. if you can :) - Seasonsinthesky 08:44, 9 January 2010 (PST)

Well, i asked Google and came up with this - http://www.discogs.com/Nine-Inch-Nails-The-Fragile/release/1895904 - Notes section says Into the void/Where is everybody? are also HDCD, and i see it myself with my EU copy. Though it seems out of logic to have the album partially-processed, because HDCD logo comes on screen at 8th second of 2nd track, so i believe it's a false trigger, decoder just sees a familiar bit combination, unrelated to HDCD encoding - like a false virus alarm. Same thought about TDTWWA, but the best way to tell is to compare the 16-bit and 24-bit waveforms (haven't searched for a software decoder yet). BenAkenobi 04:20, 9 January 2010 (PST)

i was wondering if The Fragile was HDCD. weird how only two tracks are, though, as you said. i've been reading up on HDCD over at Hydrogenaudio and it's definite that HDCD encoding doesn't happen by accident. as well, it is possible that it would only light up (on WMP, i assume you mean) at a certain point in the track, because HDCD information doesn't necessarily have to start at the very beginning of the track. for instance, with the peak extending function, that only engages at the top of the peaks of the waveform where they reach the top of the brickwall, and therefore would only light up the HDCD icon in WMP once the song reached the first of those points (if it didn't use other HDCD information, like noise filtering, from the start). anyway, here [1] is a three-page topic on various attempts to rip HDCD a couple of years ago. the third page has a step-by-step method to do it using EAC and hdcd.exe (link available in the topic itself), but you can also get dBpowerAMP to do it automatically. however, i'd only consider an NIN HDCD rip worthwhile if it actually reduced the dynamic compression (i.e. the peaks don't hit the brick wall), so if you were to use one of these methods on TDTWWA or the two songs from The Fragile, the most accurate way to see if the HDCD ripping has an effect is if peaks are restored on the HDCD rip compared to the regular 16bit rip. - Seasonsinthesky 08:40, 9 January 2010 (PST)

Tested both halos 13 and 14r (used hdcd.exe v0.2) - it does say "HDCD detected" but min/max gain values stay at 0.0 dB and Peak Extend Never Enabled. There's that predictable -6 dB volume drop in 24-bit file (exactly like people wrote on those forums), and the waveforms visually matched 100% when i doubled the vertical zoom of 2nd window of Nero Wave Editor (which i loaded test files into). Conclusion: false alarm, no need to check other halos. Another reason to say so: if it was real, it would have been discovered/discussed/documented/etc... much earlier. BenAkenobi 02:57, 10 January 2010 (PST)

damn. i figured it was unreasonable to hope the peak extender would have been included! - seasonsinthesky 17:15, 10 January 2010 (PST)

Played WITT and ITV singles in HDCD-capable "home theatre", the logo turned on, but not with Still. Today i have no doubt it's just false trigger on these imports. --BenAkenobi 09:30, 1 September 2011 (UTC)