Digitally Filtering Out the Drone of the World Cup 602
qubezz writes "World Cup soccer fans may think a hornet's nest has infiltrated their TVs. However the buzz that is the background soundtrack of the South African-hosted games comes from tens of thousands of plastic horns called vuvuzelas, that are South Africa's version of ringing cowbells or throwing rats. It looks like the horns won't be banned anytime soon though. A savvy German hacker, 'Tube,' discovered that the horn sound can be effectively filtered out by applying a couple of digital notch filters to the audio at the frequencies the horn produces (another summary in English). Now it looks like even broadcasters like the the BBC and others are considering using such filters on their broadcasts."
I dont need it. (Score:5, Funny)
My TV already has a digital filter. Its called the off switch.
Re:I dont need it. (Score:4, Insightful)
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I think that might be more accurately described as a binary filter.
Think of what he is using to operate the switch, buddy.
Re:I dont need it. (Score:4, Funny)
Think of what he is using to operate the switch, buddy.
I'd rather not. And don't call me buddy, pal.
Re:I dont need it. (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:I dont need it. (Score:5, Funny)
My TV already has a digital filter. Its called the off switch.
So when you get angry, do you flip it off?
Re:I dont need it. (Score:5, Funny)
No need to turn it off, just change the channel to a real sport.
Heh what do Slashdotters consider a real sport? Pod Races?
There are only three sports (Score:3, Interesting)
"There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games." ~ Earnest Hemingway
(Full disclosure: I race motorcycles.)
Re:There are only three sports (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:There are only three sports (Score:5, Insightful)
yeah, i really can't see how multiple humans, armed, some mounted on horseback, against a single animal trapped in a big pen can be called "sport" by anyone. it's torture porn; nothing more than drawn-out slaughter.
Re:There are only three sports (Score:5, Insightful)
Then I saw the bullfight.
It was torture, plain and simple.
I'm glad I saw it to witness the reality of it and next time I'm there, I'll join the protest.
Re:There are only three sports (Score:5, Funny)
A guy on holiday in Spain, feels somewhat hungry, so goes into the village restaurant. Gets the menu and after some careful study, orders the paella. Quite tasty it was too, but there was an absolutely delicious smell coming from the next table, where one of the locals, Carlos, was eating.
He calls over the waiter, and in his best holiday Spanish asks: "Tell me, what is that dish there, the one that smells so fantastic."
The Waiter replies: Ah yes, that is made from certain rather delicate areas of prime freshly killed bull. It is then marinated in our secret sauce mix, and garnished with fresh herbs, and just a touch of garlic, with our special red wine dribbling.
"Sounds superb, may I have some please.?"
"For you sir, as a special favour. But we have none left today. Come back tomorrow, an hour or so after the bullfight finishes"
The guy arrives on cue, his meal is ready, piping hot and tastes out of this world.
He calls the waiter over again, tips him hugely, sends his compliments to the chef, but asks. "But tell me, why was my portion so much smaller than the one Carlos had yesterday"?"
The waiter shrugged and replied "Senor, sometimes the bull wins...".
Re:I dont need it. (Score:4, Insightful)
just change the channel to a real sport
Sport?! This isn't mere sport, it's the World Cup man!
Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it's much more serious than that
-- Bill Shankly
Re:I dont need it. (Score:5, Funny)
You say that as if it were cricket.
Re:I dont need it. (Score:5, Insightful)
DING DING DING! Sir, I'd like to let you know that you have won the Slashdot "Sperglord Post of the Year" award.
Let's break this one down for all the viewers out there, John:
"I have a better idea" - I am superior to everyone posting in this thread, particularly the parent.
"Change the channel to something that isn't a sport at all" - I don't like games that are based on physical activity and skill. Sports are for dumb jocks who have no higher brain functions whatsoever. Now excuse my while I grab my 2-liter of Mountain Dew and Doritos and go raid Sunwell (or insert other WoW raid here, I'm not up on the current MMO trends)
"Spectator sports are a complete waste of time." - I don't like sports, and therefore they are a waste of time. Never mind that my previous suggestion was to CHANGE THE CHANNEL TO SOMETHING ELSE, and that any television watching could easily be construed as a waste of time. You see, the fansubbed Anime imports I watch are not a waste of time, they are high art that is clearly superior to watching near physically superhuman athletes compete at the top of their game against some of the most skilled opponents they will ever face.
So you see, sports are pointless and the only people who enjoy them are meatheads. Thank you, Grisnakh, for helping to perpetuate the stereotype that all Slashdot posters are scrawny, basement dwelling nerds that can't participate in activities that most well-adjusted human beings can enjoy.
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How in the hell did you get that from what he said? Surely it should be...
Re:I dont need it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Your life must be so horrible if you waste no time, at all, ever.
Re:I dont need it. (Score:5, Insightful)
He's on here isn't he?
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I have a better idea: change the channel to something that isn't a sport at all. Watching stick and ball games is a complete waste of time.
There. Fixed that for ya. Motorsports, anyone?
Re:I dont need it. (Score:5, Funny)
I have a better idea: change the channel to something that isn't a sport at all. Spectator sports are a complete waste of time.
I love it when Slashdot posts tell me something is a complete waste of time.
Re:I dont need it. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's probably mostly about vestiges of tribalism, finding some completelly arbitrary "us vs. them"
Which might be not such a bad idea if it's the only practical way of releasing steam... (hey, at my place "sport fans" groups fight mostly with each other for some time now, even in basically predetrmined time and location, a bit out of sight)
Re:I dont need it. (Score:4, Informative)
Isn't the first rule that you don't talk about it?
Re:I dont need it. (Score:4, Insightful)
My plan is to learn American football by getting Madden late this summer so I can appreciate more of the complexity of the game and get drawn in. Maybe that will work.
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I prefer porn and baitin.
Re:I dont need it. (Score:4, Insightful)
What makes you think not having sports would lead to war? That's about the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of
Team sport as sublimated war --that's a new concept to you? Wow!
Now personally I have little interest in sport, but unlike you I don't begrudge others their entertainment. In any case international football is quite another matter from sport.
Speaking as a German (as I sometimes am) if you don't let us win either the European or World Cup every few decades we start the tanks rolling! ;) Seriously though, it is arguable that without the Wunder von Bern of 1954 we would not have witnessed the full blossoming of the Wirtschaftswunder of the late 50s and 60s, (only arguable though, because even by '54 the German economy was growing astoundingly). What is certain is that the euphoria that swept West Germany following Bern invigorated a thoroughly demoralised population and irreversibly affected the ideological complexion of the new country. A demoralised economically crippled Germany has not historically proven a good recipe for peace in Europe.
Fussball, moreover, affords one of the few socially acceptable avenues for expressing national pride. Safely contained within the stadium (hopefully), after the 90 minutes are up everyone goes home and once more become good Europeans. And it is by no means only in Germany that football is central to national idenity.
If you mistake what is happening in South Africa right now for sport, you simply don't grok it.
Re:I dont need it. (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with your idea ...
It's hardly my idea.
Which is pretty much the argument used by people who want to ban violent video games, yes?
I don't entirely disagree with you, but I do think that you are being too simplistic here.
For a start sports don't have to be explicitly "warlike" to function as sublimated war (Freud's idea, I believe). Of course violent video games, or as you may prefer "violence training simulators," are inherently violent, it is (imagined) violence being reinforced.
Reinforcing shooting balls into a net, or more relevantly watching balls being shot into the net by "your" team, would not seem so obviously to encourage bellicosity. [In fact I doubt that violent video games engender violence in all or even most users. It is quite possible that what encourages behaviour in one individual is actually cathartic in others --but I'm simply disagreeing with you here.]
Secondly your statement that there is "only" and endorphin rush fails to appreciate the pharmacological complexities of the situation. At least as important here is the adrenaline (US: epinephrine) rush. Our sympathetic ("flight or fight") nervous system is but rarely stimulated as it was in our evolutionary past. Driving fast, skydiving and many sports, including I would argue watching team sport (where we have a strong emotional investment in the team), engage it and literally "let off steam" which would otherwise manifest as non-specific anxiety and stress.
Finally my point was not so much about individual physiology or even psychological catharsis, but about the historical and cultural inscriptions which national football bears, especially in post-WWII Europe. To appreciate this requires an examination of C18th nationalist reaction to the Vormärz, the subsequent migration of the ideology of nation from the left to the right of the political spectrum, and how what was originally a movement of liberation led directly to the gates of Auschwitz. It requires an understanding of the role inter alia of sport, and first and foremost football, in containing the European curse, which, especially in the areas placed in suspended animation by Soviet rule, can still show it's destructive face today.
In the face of Srebenica, shooting balls into a net seems rather more harmless to me.
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Yes and video games cause mass murder.
Same argument and still wrong
It's wrong if you use it to support a conclusion like "video games cause mass murder". What violent video games DON'T do is they DON'T make someone less violent. They don't necessarily make someone moreso, either. I have always maintained that if a video game pushes you over the edge, you were already broken.
Re:I dont need it. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yep, that's the way I feel about it. I like playing games (including team sports on occasion), but I have zero desire to watch other people play them.
Re:I dont need it. (Score:5, Informative)
Or use the EQ on your TV if it has one or the EQ on your Surround sound.
He "discovered" something that most people have known for decades... using a notch filter takes out unwanted frequencies.
Wow! Just think what they could do with that when we discover radio!
P.S.: they were already doing this at the stadium on the crowd mics, they just wanted to leave it in for the "effect" but they already were notching it a little bit to reduce the impact.
Re:I dont need it. (Score:4, Insightful)
If you use your television's equalizer you will filter too much sound which in effect kills the atmospehre.
Getting the right sound in while letting the annoying Vuvuzela out is some seriuous job in sound enigneering. But hey, everything one doesn't understand must be easy to do [dilbert.com], right?
Re:I dont need it. (Score:4, Insightful)
Am I the only... (Score:2, Interesting)
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Not so much annoying as vaguely scary. I keep looking over my shoulder for attacking wasps. :P
Not alone (Score:2)
Am I the only...person who doesn't find the noise annoying? (Just curious.)
No, you're not, I'm in the same position. I'm not watching BTW ;)
Talk about cultural intolerance...
Oh, but starting your answer in the title, however, IS definitely annoying ;)
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The people bothered most by the noise is the players. They've been the ones complaining loudest. Those of us in the stands or living rooms can stuff plugs in our ears, but the soccer players can not. They say they can't hear the refs yelling-out calls, or directions from coaches. It's disrupting the game.
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Re:Am I the only... (Score:5, Insightful)
Still, if the BBC and others are going to start filtering them, we get the best of both worlds. Nothing has to be banned, no ugly racial tensions are stirred, and we can watch the World Cup without being driven halfway to insanity. Count me pleased.
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Wait, that's all I have to do to regain my status as a colonial power?
I never knew it would be so easy.
Re:Am I the only... (Score:5, Insightful)
if the BBC and others are going to start filtering them, we get the best of both worlds
Except we don't. The players are unable to communicate on the pitch in any way, leading to the worst standard of play. As players cannot be warned when somebody is behind them, they just play safe and hoof the ball up the pitch just in case. The world's top players are being made to look like talentless hacks in dull low-scoring games. This may well go on to be the worst World Cup, and after this the Champions League finals may go on to eclipse the World Cup finals.
Phillip.
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Definitely - this has been REALLY noticeable in most of the matches I have watched. There have been a bunch of instances already where defenders miscommunicated so badly they gave up some really strange scoring chances. It made them and the general play of the match sometimes look completely confused and amateurish, until you realized that they just couldn't hear anything their teammates or goalkeeper was yelling at them...
Re:Am I the only... (Score:5, Informative)
I didn't expect anyone on Slashdot to trot out the old and tired "real football" line. Soccer is the real football. You know, the sport that is played with the feet and with a ball? You must have been thinking of handegg instead, that American sport where players play with the hands and an egg, instead of a ball?
http://pix.motivatedphotos.com/2009/2/2/633692057194761860-handegg.jpg [motivatedphotos.com]
Re:Am I the only... (Score:5, Insightful)
Americans call a game "football" where physical foot contact with the ball, by both sides, throughout the entire game, adds up to maybe 2 seconds.
Between this and being the last major country to eschew the metric system, it's like you *want* the world to mock you ;-P
Re:Am I the only... (Score:4, Insightful)
So yeah I certainly saw the Brzil game, the question is did you???
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The sound bothers me, but I don't want the World Cup to become a homogenized TV event lik
Re:Am I the only... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not a tradition it's a fad. These stupid things only began to be made and sold in south africa around 2001. That's not tradition. That's a fad. They never stop. It's not just during the game.. they NEVER stop. It's dangerous to be around them without hearing protection. They've been measured at 127dB. That's louder than a rock concert.
And would I want to see a ban on fan traditions in my country? Um.. yeah. Yeah, that would be a good idea. FIFA really SHOULD start cracking down on fans acting like self-indulgent assholes and feeling entitled to act that way because, holy shit it's FOOTBALL and obnoxious hooliganism is part of the TRADITION dontchaknow.
At what point should they step in? How about when fan behaviour actually starts HARMING OTHER FANS.. which these horns do.
frankly I'd be overjoyed if this world cup turns out to have received abysmally poor viewership due to these things. Maybe then they'll act.
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The sound level of the instrument has been measured at 127 decibels contributing to football matches with dangerously high sound pressure levels for unprotected ears. A new model, however, announced on 14 June 2010, has a modified mouthpiece which is claimed to reduce the volume by 20 dB
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The first "Cheese head" was worn in a brewers game in 1987. By 1990, it was an incredibly common site. In just a few years, the term "cheeseheads" stopped being a derogatory term Chicagoans referred to Wisconsinites as, and became a term of pride for Wisconsinites. Seriously, it was a couple of years. If these horns have been going for 9 years, and they are that annoying and still used, then that is not a fad.
A fad is something like the "who who who" people would chant at the start of the old Arsenio Ha
Re:Am I the only... (Score:5, Insightful)
The american viewership will be abysmal because the coverage is not even at the standard of american football 40 years ago. What they need is more angles, more cameras, flying cameras, cameras on players, gyroscopic camera in the ball, cameras on the fans, cameras on the refs, cameras on hot babes, cameras cameras cameras... and someone that is good at producing to throw it all together live, so the thing flows and isn't confusing.
Sure, the way they shoot your football now it's like you're actually there... in the nose bleeds on one side if the field or the other. That shit is boring. I simply don't understand how there's all that money your football games, world cup... it's so much bigger than american football most Americans aren't aware... and they can't seem to understand that only Hollywood and it's decendants are any good at television, and in particular, sports coverage... I guess my point is, when you're that rich, you don't chince on the part that will make you richer... you buy the best, and instead, the foreign football games are produced by Mr. Magoo.
Btw, not sure why they haven't been notching these frequencies out... I mean, I can't believe the first engineer (or any of the engineers since) at the first broadcast of these obnoxious and meaningless noisemakers didn't just dial them in and drop them out... seems like it'd almost be a reflex to do that, so I call WTF on inexperienced foreign broadcasters.
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Best slashdot post evah.
And I've watched old superbowl broadcasts, and you are so fucking right.
Re:Am I the only... (Score:5, Interesting)
American football is short bursts of incredibly intricate plays in which every player is doing something worth analysis, and it provides long pauses during which that analysis can be shown from every angle possible in a three-dimensional world. The game we are talking about here is on a different time scale, in which players don't have so many set plays (since it doesn't start from the more-or-less known configuration of two separate groups facing each other), so every player needs to be inventive and adapt as the play progresses. There are also very few times when a producer can be sure nothing interesting is going to happen, so replays need to be kept to a minimum, and following the continually changing strategies might be more difficult with frequent camera-angle changes.
Also, I suspect there is a single feed for the coverage (can someone confirm?) so a video producer needs to be extra confident before interrupting the feed to however many networks to show a replay that might overrun the play that makes the game. For most American football games, I think the coverage is bought by a single network, and the person selecting the camera angles and replays works for the same people as do the announcers, so they may have more freedom to try things out.
I would also be interested in seeing what the coverage in the U.S. actually looks like (including the half-time and full-time replays), and comparing it with BBC/ITV broadcasts. Maybe we are not talking about the same thing.
Re:Am I the only... (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't have to worry about the camera angles, the 0-0 games are MORE than enough to keep me from watching.
Last night's (my time) Portugal vs Ivory Coast 0:0 game was one of the most exciting in this cup yet. Uruguay vs France 0:0 was tedious and as exciting as watching paint dry. The fact of being a scoreless draw is not determinative of the quality of the game.
Now I can understand not watching a football code you don't personally enjoy. I don't watch AFL, Rugby only very rarely and for me American football makes even golf look exciting. What I certainly wouldn't do is bother to read articles about games I don't like, let alone comment on them.
What's more, I figure, it's probably me, rather than those games themselves. After all millions of people get excited about the other codes. I guess that American football, for instance, requires an understanding of the strategy and tactics I simply don't possess. It might be a bit like a cross between chess and football for those who dig it. To me it's a series of erratic starts and stops, hardly any time is spent actually playing?! I get as much out of it as I would from a recital of Armenian poetry.
OTHO, anyone who fails to appreciate the beauty of a game like the scoreless draw between Portugal and the Ivory Coast is clearly a deranged philistine! ;)
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Re:Am I the only... (Score:4, Insightful)
The comparison to hooligans isn't fair. There's no intent to hurt people or ruin the game for others, even if that's the outcome. Hooligans brutally assault innocent people without provocation, destroy property, throw body fluids, and threaten/humiliate players and officials. Even worse, it's not just out of control drunks, their actions are often organized and planned.
Re:Am I the only... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Would you want to see a ban on the fan traditions in your country?"
Like a ban on thundersticks? Yes, yes I would. Those things are horrible.
Re:Am I the only... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, when the World Cup was in Germany in 2006, you didn't see anyone try to hinder the traditions of violent neo-nazi hooliganism at soccer events. No way. We wouldn't want to ban things that fans like to do, even if they harm others and detract from the game.
Re:Am I the only... (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's not go pretending that this is some little guy sticking it to The Man kind of thing.
I know that quaint ethnic traditions are pure and good and "homogenization" is evil, but when you hold an international sporting event, there's the expectation that the players should be able to play the goddamn sport without interference from the fans. It's up there with "providing a stadium", you're just kind of expected to do that.
And yes, if the fan traditions of my country are disruptive to the game, I would very much like FIFA to ban them.
Re:Am I the only... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Would you want to see a ban on the fan traditions in your country?"
Only the fucking stupid and purely assholish ones.
This qualifies.
vuvuzela website (Score:4, Funny)
1. Cricket bat.
2. Hearing Aid.
3. Petrol funnel.
4. Water sprayer. (force trumpet side down into water)
5. Drinking funnel. Nuff said.
6. 4G mobile communication
7. Walking stick,
8. Light saber. (Just insert a torch) as seen on Starwars...
9. Jousting Stick (simply insert one into another.)
10. And of coarse... supporting any team/thing you like...
Opensource Cross platform Puredata Patch Vuvuzela (Score:3, Interesting)
Me and my friend made a Puredata patch (http://puredata.info) to filter the vuvuzela sound. You have the ability to choose the sound also, making it more dynamic.
check it at http://joaomartins.entropiadesign.org/2010/06/15/vuvuzela-filter-a-puredata-approach/
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Too much work (Score:4, Interesting)
When the World Cup started, I thought of playing around with notch filters to remove the noise, but the whole thing just reeked of effort. The human brain is actually pretty good at filtering out noise if you give it a chance. Just watch the games and don't worry about the vuvuzelas and before long you won't even notice them. I don't. It's a lot like what happens when you live next to a highway.
Re:Too much work (Score:5, Funny)
The human brain is actually pretty good at filtering out noise if you give it a chance.
Well, that and progressive hearing loss.
Re:Too much work (Score:5, Funny)
What?
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I would say woosh but you probably won't be able to hear it over the vuvuzelas...
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Wow, bad editing (Score:5, Informative)
Eh.. (Score:2)
My brain filtered it out after about 30 seconds. I actually think it's slightly less annoying than the background cheering during a typical NFL game.
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after listening to the "before" and "after" application of the notch filter, I quickly noticed that when you removed the vuvu's, you ended up with a slightly quieter, equally annoying general sound of the crowd.
The announcer really wasn't any easier to understand when the vuvus were removed. The audio's average level was just a little lower. (which did make it slightly easier on the ears)
Not much of an improvement. I can't imagine them banning vuvus would have much of an impact on the game -- for example,
Re:Eh.. (Score:5, Informative)
I can't imagine them banning vuvus would have much of an impact on the game -- for example, the crowd noise itself would be almost equally effective at preventing the players from communicating
Actually, it is much worse than normal crowd noise - they have already shown that a vuduzela can generate 125dB from 1m. 40,000 of those things can most definitely cause a level of hearing damage that normal cheering cannot.
I was in one of the louder indoor arenas (the HP Pavilion in San Jose) when it got over 105dB in the NHL playoffs - that was enough to cause my eardrums to literally start clipping, and a bit of pain after a while. I couldn't imagine 125+ dB for almost 2 hours straight...
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Exactly. It's much more difficult to tune out a sound of varying intensity than a monotonous drone. How often do you notice your computer fan? Or your central air? Or your sprinklers (if you have them)? More often when they're new, then maybe for a few seconds when they first turn on
What are the chances of that? (Score:5, Funny)
Chatroulette and sports broadcasters all trying to filter out the horn on the same day?
Streaming filter using SoX on Linux (Score:5, Informative)
I wrote up a blog post about using Sound eXchange (sox) to filter the sound here: http://www.russellbeattie.com/blog/linux-command-line-streaming-vuvuzela-filter [russellbeattie.com] , but the short version is this:
rec -d vol .5 equalizer 233 .1o -48 equalizer 466 .03o -48 equalizer 932 .02o -48 equalizer 1864 .2o -24 | play -d
or from a response to my post here: http://www.yusufk.za.net/?p=520 [za.net]
rec -d | play -d vol 0.9 bandreject 116.56 3.4q bandreject 233.12 3.4q bandreject 466.24 3.4q bandreject 932.48 3.4q bandreject 1864 3.4q
After testing, I feel the parameters could be tweaked a bit more - but these definitely make a difference.
-Russ
The answer is simple: (Score:4, Funny)
Meh. (Score:4, Funny)
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Call me when it works on Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh.
My TV has a control labeled 'Brightness', but it didn't seem to help...
Old Technology (Score:2)
vuvuzelas are a recent tradition (Score:5, Informative)
An earlier poster wrote:
I've seen a lot of comments around the Internet insinuating that if you hate the sound of vuvuzelas, then you're a colonial racist who hates South African culture.
The funny thing is that the vuvuzelas are a recent introduction into South African culture. They are not only post-Colonial, they are post-Apartheid.
The maker of the horns admits that the prototype came from the USA... http://www.boogieblast.co.za/vuvuzela.htm [boogieblast.co.za]
and this has been known in wider soccer circles for at least a year... http://www.footballiscominghome.net/the-hosts/the-vuvuzela/ [footballiscominghome.net]
and while the plastic horns have been around since the late 90s in South Africa... http://www.southafrica.info/2010/vuvuzela.htm [southafrica.info]
the current mass-producer only started up in 2001... http://www.vuvuzelas.com/about.html [vuvuzelas.com]
Additionally, there's the blaringly obvious notion that the vuvuzela looks nothing like the kudu horn it allegedly comes from and looks everything like a cheap rip-off of the sort of long thin horns you see draped with flags playing fanfares when kings enter in films set in the middle ages, but I suppose it's expecting a lot for everyone to think critically. Last time I checked, kudu horns didn't have embouchures, either, which is what allows the plastic horn blowers to last all game.
Interesting (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder how long before half of what one sees and hears in supposedly "live" TV has been digitally massaged in some manner.
You could take out ugly buildings to make a scene more aesthetically pleasing, notch out one particular persons voice, or remove an 'annoying' five seconds of tape.
This subtle dichotomy between actual real life and tv "real life" could widen to the point of audiences being fed the "Leave it to Beaver" version of the real. We're generally already pissed off enough that our lives don't match the fake TV shows but this could bring a whole new level of cognitive dissonance, since these are supposedly "live" evens.
The horns are there, in the stadium. They may be annoying but they are part of the event. I guess if it turns cloudy, perhaps they can photoshop in some blue sky...
Regards.
Just wait until 2020 in Sydney... (Score:3, Funny)
You'll have 15,000 fans all blowing Didgeridoos.
Trivial for broadcasters (Score:3, Interesting)
Better solution (Score:3, Funny)
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Cheers and yelling add to the excitement. These plastic toys just add to the irritation. I had to listen to a segment this morning just talking about it, and was forced to mute the volume it was so grating. Easier to just ban the damn things and then they can go 'unfiltered'.
Re:Filtering is Uncalled For (Score:4, Insightful)
No, so you can watch the entire game without a beehive buzzing in your ear. Come to think of it, this will probably resolve on it's own via the advertisers. When they figure out everyone is muting the game, and no one can hear their ads as a result, you can bet pressure will be applied on the stadiums to ban them. Although there may be thousands who go to the game to watch, there are millions made on commercials from the millions of viewers who catch the game on TV.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That would be true, were it not for the fact that, unlike most US sports, there aren't many ad breaks in a soccer game. Also, in the UK many of the games are on the BBC, and the BBC doesn't openly advertise -- there's no actual commercial breaks, and all its advertising is done unethically, through covert product placement -- since it's forbidden f
Filtering is called for (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it is something foreign, and probably also because it is African, they're all upset.
Bull shit.
People are upset because the noise is extremely distracting, conveys nothing about the fans' excitement with the game, and according to a South African audiologist who was on the news yesterday, the sound is well past the threshold for causing hearing damage.
It would be one thing if the sound changed to reflect the excitement of the crowd during the game, but it doesn't. It's just a constant loud wall of sound at basically the same level from the start of the game to the end.
It's similar in level and monotony to running jet engines at full throttle on test stands in the stadium, throughout the entire game. It doesn't add, it detracts.
What you are saying is that traditions have to be respected, no matter how stupid or disruptive they are.
I propose an alternative. All other countries should create a tradition of randomly setting explosive charges off in their stadiums whenever the South African team is there.
It's our tradition, and you have to respect it.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Or apartheid. Beat them at their own game and make 'em sit on the grass a mile away from the stadiums.
Re:Filtering is called for (Score:4, Funny)
Since that is not a part of our culture, may I suggest an alternative that is a well established part of our (geek) culture: pointing laser pointers at things. Imagine if every geek in the audience pointed one of the WickedLaser 1W blue lasers at the opposing goalie....
Re: (Score:2)
Imagine if every geek in the audience pointed one of the WickedLaser 1W blue lasers at the opposing goalie....
You just made me remember Shaolin Soccer. Thank you.
Re:South African Here (Score:5, Insightful)
As a South African, I wholeheartedly support anything that annoys the opposition.
Just don't expect "the opposition" to bring their shows to your country anytime soon. No FIFA, no Olympics, no big international events of any type. They're all gonna watch at these broadcasts, listen to the worldwide complaints, and mark "don't broadcast events from here" with an arrow pointing to South Africa on their maps of the world.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
batch that are 180 degrees out of phase with the ones currently being used
considering the number of them going off at once (hundred thousand or so?) and the fact that they're all fairly close to the same frequency already, statistically there's already another one going off that's 180 deg of phase of any one you look at.
None of that matters though. For one, the location of the observer is important for phase cancellation. These flakes are everywhere in the crowd. Echoes also get around the effect.
anyway,
Re:Get a vuvuzela! (Score:4, Insightful)
This has nothing to do with South Africa. It has everything to do with annoying pricks now having a new toy to annoy the crap out of me with. I wish you a great World Cup, really. You're not at fault for so many soccer fans being adult-sized noisy brats. But don't expect me to not complain when you give the not-so-little pests new weapons of mass annoyance.