My Music, Video and TV
(This is an early draft, that needs a lot of work.)
http://mgrunes.com/MusVidTV.html

Copyright © 2003, 2008, 2009, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2022 by Mitchell R Grunes
General remarks on my web pages; Online Shopping Precautions; If a link no longer works; Contacting Me

1. Spatial sound is sound that people can locate in space.
   But, unqualifed, "spatial sound", or "virtual sound" specifically often mean any sound processing technique that helps people locate sound sources in 3D space - e.g., 3D surround sound, or binaural sound (see below), or it means virtual sound software or hardware (see below for definition).
   
   People say human interpretation of spatial sound is extremely complex and is partly learned rather than pre-wired. We take into account relative sound volume, phase, (ear, origin point and frequency dependent) time of arrival, in the two ears. We also use and interpret echos, and the effects on the other mentioned things of conduction, dispersion (differences in time of arrival between frequencies), scattering, and diffraction (bending) around the head and body. We also sometimes move, tilt and rotate our heads, and see how that changes what we hear.
   The Basis of binaural sound: Wikipedia Article on Sound Localization
   
   There are studies that claim that people who haven't heard surround sound (see below for definition) before can't interpret it in 2D or 3D. Just like there are studies that claim people who haven't seen flat pictures before, even if the pictures properly use shadows, perspective, reflections, and brightness variation, don't see them in 3D, because in the real world, people can also use parallax, adaptive focussing, and polarization effects, combined with head motions, to see depth and texture. Studies have shown that people who watch too much TV as young children never learn to see 3D in the real world; maybe the same is true of surround sound, and perhaps even binaural sound (see below for definition)??
   


2. Simple mono (or monophonic) sound Effectively recorded with one real or virtual (i.e., simulated) fixed location mike. You can not locate the sound source by listening.
3. Simple stereo (or stereophonic) sound Effectively recorded with two real or virtual fixed mikes. Best played back on 2 speakers, or headphones. Purely 1D spatial seperation, across a line.
4. Surround sound More real or virtual microphones and speakers. Can to some extent place objects in 2D. And, if some of the microphones and speakers are at different heights, in 3D. Because the microphone and speaker locations don't actually match the sound source locations, and don't take into full account conduction, diffraction, dispersion and scattering, can't actually locate things quite right. Among other things, that means that if you move around, the perceived location changes. It also in turn messes up and sometimes overemphasizes sound wave constructive and destructive interference. It does handle head rotations fairly well, and with many height speakers, may handle head tilts fairly well. When done fairly well, can sound fairly good.
5. Binaural sound Effectively recorded with 2 real or virtual microphones, located in the ears of a real or fake person's head. Works best if played back on headphones. In theory, this exactly reproduces full 3D sound as received by real human beings much better than surround sound. But like surround sound, has some limitations, because different people have different shape and density heads and bodies. Also, it does not respond to head rotations, tilts or moving around well. In my tests, I personally preferred real or simulated binaural sound to surround sound, but that might be because my headphones are higher quality than my speakers.
   1. Virtual surround sound Binaural sound produced from surround sound by software.
      Some people call binaural sound "surround sound", but that is atypical.
   2. Virtual reality games and headsets that implement binaural sound may respond to head motions, if the software handles it. Perhaps at some point binaural sound techniques will evolve to handle that too, which would be ideal.
6. Dolby Atmos is a mixture of surround and simulated binaural techniques, though Dolby doesn't fully describe it. They use many microphones. In addition, a sound engineer or software(?) attempts to determine where the sound sources are physically located in 3D, and that "metadata" is added into the bitstream in connection with each sound element. When played back on speakers, sounds like good 5.1 3D surround sound. When played on headphones, the best examples sound like binaural sound.
7. I haven't found any working examples of true surround sound on Youtube - perhaps Youtube can't do it, or most people don't know how to make it do it? The claimed surround sound instances are either binaural sound (which is better, in my personal view, if you use headphones), or don't work.
8. My attempts to use Windows sonic to turn surround sound into simulated binaural sound aren't nearly as good as many simulated binaural examples on the web. Also, there is no way to boost the center channel component. Does other software do better??
9. When I use Windows sonic, it drops the bit stream down to 16 bit 48,000 bps - which reduces quality noticeably if you use a good sound card and good headphones. I wonder if other software doesn't do that. 24 bits, 96,000 bps is better. (If you go even higher, some AVRs and other hardware have trouble using it, or won't let you play with it.
10. I mentioned Use every Headphone Surround Virtualization on all Sound Cards with EQ APO (Guide) above - I am reasonably happy with it, and it's free.
    

1. If the country you are in doesn't honor international copyright and other intellectual property laws, it is possible none of this applies - though that country may have other laws about what you can publish.
2. Unless I express doubts here (on this web page), the ones listed here are probably legit.
3. The companies that create the shows, or broadcast them over the air in the country you are in, are probably legit.
4. If the deal seems too good, it probably isn't legit. E.g., if you get free or cheap access to a large number of shows and movies that have very recently been produced, they probably aren't legit - unless the criteria mentioned above apply, it probably isn't legit. That said, some of the biggest streaming companies that I believe to be legit, sometimes do that too.) Of course, that is a very difficult criteria to apply.
5. If they advertise that you should use a VPN, they probably aren't legit. It is my belief that some of the biggest VPN companies subsidize the illegitimate streaming organizations, directly or indirectly. I'm not saying there are no legitimate reasons to use VPNs - there are.
6. If they say they are free, but ask for credit card info, or other payment info, they probably aren't legit. There are exceptions - e.g., some of the biggest media companies, like Youtube for materials that aren't suitable for young children. But for the most part, I think this is correct.
7. In fact, if they ask for credit card or other payment info, many of those are not legit. But some of them - mostly the big companies - are.
8. If they are accessed through a version of Kodi that you personally downloaded from kodi.tv, and you only downloaded Kodi apps through that site, and never had to turn on "unknown sources", they probably are legit. But if you had to download the app through another source, they probably aren't.
9. If they are accessed through a Roku box or Roku TV, or through an app that was originally built into your major brand name TV, they are probably legit, because those companies generally try to make them so. AFAIK, other streaming box companies don't try as hard.
10. Videos whose primary purpose is to advocate particular religious beliefs, from sites whose primary purpose is to advocate those beliefs, are often legit.
11. If the website name ends in .co, .ga, .ru, .tk, or .to, and you aren't in Columbia, Gabon, Russia, Tokelau or Tonga, respectively, they probably aren't legit for you. That's overgeneralized, but if you want to be careful to stay legit, it's the safe way to go.