• SloppyPuppy@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    26
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    11 months ago

    They should just do it procedurally on the fly. because after all there was probably some algorithm that generated those all these and saved to a file. Just cut the file…

    • MrMcGasion@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      28
      ·
      11 months ago

      I’ve wondered for a while now why so few devices seem to generate it on the fly. Even Google Home and Alexa devices seem to play a 1 hour long file that fades out and in. The older, standalone “sound spa” units played a loop a few seconds long, which bothered some listeners who could hear a pattern due to the loop (maybe due to compression artifacts). I imagine it’s probably just computationally more expensive to generate it on the fly, rather than playing a file, but I also suspect that it’s also just companies pushing out the minimum viable product, and looping an audio file is easiest - especially if the device is already designed to play music, or other audio files like “ocean waves” and “babbling brook.”

      • InvertedParallax@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        11 months ago

        Because marketing doesnt want to ask engineering and think they’re brilliant when they come up with their own solution.

        And when engineering tries to explain the downsides marketing gets mad like they’re being insulted.

      • SnipingNinja@slrpnk.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        11 months ago

        To this end, one of the pixel phone launches had a website with a really good background idea, which was looping so nicely on the website that I thought I’ll download it and use it myself but it loops so badly on their own bedtime sounds in the clock app and ytm that it’s just a terrible experience, I never tried it in VLC though

      • DarthBueller@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        11 months ago

        I can totally hear a pattern overlaying the white noise sound in my kid’s white noise machine. The sound of the pattern varies based on the level of battery charge, as far as I can tell. I thought it was some kind of unintended noise coming from the circuitry (like maybe bad caps). Given that the underlying white noise sound doesn’t seem to vary based on the state of charge, I am still not sure that the sample length is what causes the pattern, but now you’ve got me super curious to tear the damn thing apart to test the caps.