> Exactly my point! So you dislike all movies and music on DVD and CD that were made from analog recordings?
Please stop making incorrect ASSumptions and putting your words in my mouth. Of course I don't.
> Maybe I just assumed you are criticizing this?
Yes, you did. Actually I've never seen a reason to not digitise LDs. I've been frustated for years that MAMEDEV wouldn't accept digitising *some* LDs apparently just because someone suddenly decided it was lossy therefore not perfect therefore not up to MAMEs standards, even though achieving a perfect digital dump/copy of an LD is actually impossible. The further irony being that an obvious double-standard exists because some LD games have already been emulated in MAME for years such as Firefox, MACH3 and others. I'd much rather see something preserved/emulated ASAP as well as currently possible/viable, then possibly improved on later, rather than just ignored and possibly lost forever because of some cluelessly applied technicality.
> What exactly is your point? If you go back and read my original post, it was in response to someone suggesting loss-free compression would be nice. My response was simply stating a FACT that digitising LaserDiscs is unavoidably lossy as they are analog. Then you jumped right in on the assume train.
> Yes it's obviously apparent to EVERYONE that this is a lossy capture. Really? even you? Remember this you posted yesterday?: > As far as I understand, what this hardware is doing is EXACTLY what everyone who has criticized LD captures said was required. Nope, assuming you agree that the criticism (that I've never agreed with, but whatever) was that it needed to be exact (i.e. lossless) to be in MAME. Even this approach is actually still lossy. But I welcome it because it signals that finally that whole stupid and meaningless "must be perfect" argument is finally coming to an end, so we can now have more LD games preserved.
Also you wrote, >In theory, if enough captures of the same thing were made from several different LD's then a MASTER copy could be assumed. Really not. Averaging multiple reads would be a great idea as it may eliminate spurious read errors so get the dump much closer, but it is formally impossible to ever get back to exactly what was on the MASTER, even with an infinite supply of untouched LDs and infinite number of reads.
> But what is your point? That dumping LDs is inherently lossy, but that shouldn't stop us. Secondly, people responding to posts need to respond to what was actually written, not the voices in their head.
> It shouldn't be used? There you go incorrectly assuming thats what I must have meant again.
> There's a better way? There's ALWAYS a better way possible when capturing analog. Higher resolution/faster A2D converters, higher quality analog compnents, smoothed out power etc etc. Its the same reason why Audiophiles spend fortunes on DACs and amplifiers but no matter how far down that road you go it can never be perfect by definition. Since you ask I'd suggest its best to use the actual player used in each disks' machine and use equipment that samples its output as accurately as possible, and also do exactly like you said: average over several reads/disks. Using the correct player for each arcade game would mean all the artifacts that the player's cheap electronics introduced are also captured, so the final result would more closely recreate the actual arcade experience, warts and all. That point alone does lead to a whole philosophical debate about what MAME is actually trying to preserve/emulate though.