2001: A Space Oddessy or Oddity. try this at home.

I don't think this is frequency range related, most of the responders have surround sound systems that discriminate between Five channels or at the very least have a Two channel split. Animals may simply respond diferently to humans for a given sonic environment.

The Navy did advanced research on dolphins and found they had some amazing abilities. Dolphins sonically monitor an enormously large ocean area around them. They have massive parallel brain systems that can keep track of all that sonic feedback and they notice even the subtlest thing out of place.

If you tried to captivate and transport dolphins using a huge "transparent aluminum" tank aboard a star ship, they would notice.

reply to post by Cauliflower

I don't think this is frequency range related, most of the responders have surround sound systems that discriminate between Five channels or at the very least have a Two channel split. Animals may simply respond diferently to humans for a given sonic environment.

Sound is frequency no matter how you put it. Sounds you hear in the environment or projected by speakers are still a frequency of sound. The reason I brought up the range of human hearing, was because a previous poster is under the impression that no consumer level speaker system could produce sounds that surpassed the range in which we humans could hear. Whether it be on a mono channel (one speaker, no matter how cheap) or a 7.1 channel high end super system, each satellite (speaker) aside form the sub woofer (most only go up to 200Hz) will be able to generate sound frequencies in excess of 20,000Hz, that animals will be able to hear and humans can't. I think some people don't understand that volume and frequency are 2 different things. If you have an audio clip of a tone at 15,000Hz it will be at 15,000Hz no matter what volume setting you have it on (unless the volume is all the way down to zero effectively cutting off sound output from the audio clip)

Originally posted by Cauliflower
I don't think this is frequency range related, most of the responders have surround sound systems that discriminate between Five channels or at the very least have a Two channel split. Animals may simply respond diferently to humans for a given sonic environment.

The Navy did advanced research on dolphins and found they had some amazing abilities. Dolphins sonically monitor an enormously large ocean area around them. They have massive parallel brain systems that can keep track of all that sonic feedback and they notice even the subtlest thing out of place.

If you tried to captivate and transport dolphins using a huge "transparent aluminum" tank aboard a star ship, they would notice.

edit on 10-6-2012 by Cauliflower because: (no reason given)

I wonder if Dolphins would watch this movie as intently as the dogs? Seriously though I think it is pretty cool if this movie for some reason does mesmurize dogs.

My theory for the reason it does memorize dogs starts from the begining of the movie.

For a few minutes the screen is black and there is a humming tone.

I think that sound then continues at a level we can't hear but dogs can.

It keeps them focused in the direction of where it comes from.

I don't think it hurts them because my dog does not cry.

She just seems memorized.

I can't wait to hear about your results.

Curious as i was, i gave it a shot.
I downloaded 2001: a space odyssey and played it on my laptop.
Ive never seen this movie before so i watched the first scene.
I decided to go get my dog.
As i was turning, getting off my chair i noticed he was already behind.
This scared the HELL outa me!
It was 2am in the morning and the lights in my room were off.
And all i saw were his reflective glowing green eyes.
Yupp just thought id share that. I deleted the movie a minute after.
Way too creepy

Great thread OP...just wanted to let you know I'm going to try it with my terrier/Chi mix this wknd.

This is fascinating!

Anyone tried this yet?

I don't buy that animals can't see the television. I've seen a thing on that before, but it is complete bunk. My cat watches me play Mario on the Wii. She can follow every move Mario makes. I will even move him around the screen to watch her follow him back and forth. We also have a dog that knows when any kind of dog or horse is on tv, whether they make a noise or not. She runs up to the tv wagging her tail and whining.

Never seen 2001 but it has always been on my list to watch. I believe it is on Netflix, I might have to give it a try if it is. I have three dogs and two cats. Surely one of the five will be up to watching some sci fi with me.

ETA
I guess Netflix doesn't have it I was all excited, too!
After reading about you all discussing speakers, I thought of something. We have a basic surround sound system with a large speaker that sits on the floor. Often times our puppy will hear the tv from the speaker and start barking at it and trying to bite it. I think sometimes he can feel it vibrate on the floor as well. Could speaker vibration have something to do with it? Never seen the movie but many of you have mentioned it has a lot of background music.

Would every body please take note that the OP played the movie on their laptop. Laptop speakers are as bad as they get. We are not looking for audio outside of human hearing. We are not looking at low rumblings or subsonics.

I will suggest that laptop speakers may go higher than many humans are capable of but when the movie was made and encoded with the soundtrack it would have been limited to 20K at it's maximum.

I suggest you look else ware. Remember that what is a very very soft sound barely discernible can be quite hear able for a dog.

P

Originally posted by pheonix358
Would every body please take note that the OP played the movie on their laptop. Laptop speakers are as bad as they get. We are not looking for audio outside of human hearing. We are not looking at low rumblings or subsonics.

I will suggest that laptop speakers may go higher than many humans are capable of but when the movie was made and encoded with the soundtrack it would have been limited to 20K at it's maximum.

I suggest you look else ware. Remember that what is a very very soft sound barely discernible can be quite hear able for a dog.

P

Its important to read the whole thread before making one self look stupid.
There are examples on TVs, tabletops...

reply to post by pheonix358


I never said I played it on a lap top.

In fact I said I had pro recording monitors.

Reading is fundamental.

Looking at this from a different point of view... literally. I would say that it more likely to be what the animals are seeing.

Bear with me on this.

When I was young... very young, like a few months, you know the time when you have learned to sit up and focus your eyes and learn about depth and distance, about that sort of age. I remember being propped up in front of the TV and looking at the screen when it was on and flashing, but I could only make out what I now know to be static, like when the TV is not tuned to a station properly.

After looking at this static for a while, I realised that I could occasionally see pictures, mostly of faces, but they would keep disappearing. I believe that this was because I could recognise things on TV if the camera was static but found it hard to see things if the camera moved quickly. Of course, a human brain quickly learns to compensate through experience and growth. Perhaps a dogs brain needs a second or two to process and decode the images.

The over use of "Camera shake" these days makes it difficult for me to watch some films and TV shows. It started to be used occasionally as a cheap special effect to make the "Action" seem more exiting. Of course these day it looks like most movies and TV Programmes don't actually use a plot like the old days, a good car chase with plenty of shaking and 4 or 5 frames a second of different scenes for 10 minutes at a time, or even for the whole show, is all they need these days and a good sound-over of a rhythmic drumbeat and irritating music, especially over the top of 'spoken' sections of shows is the norm today. But I digress.

The first thing that struck me when I looked at some of the clips that were linked, was that the scenes I saw were all filmed with a very steady, slow moving and often slow motion cameras. so the brain, even of a dog, can more easily decipher the the picture information if given just a short time longer to actually 'see' it and so keep the animal interested. instead we now get in and out of focus, graphic effect laden, shaken to death garbage. No wonder that even the dogs don't want to watch it.

Take a lesson from the dogs... avoid overexposure to these over-fast frame rates and picture changes, the in-and-out of focus for no reason and madly shaken camera effects (or should that be Affects?) and the over use of disorientating graphics that are flashed all over the screen. They may be there to excite your brain and fool you into thinking someting is happening, but they just bore me, I prefer meaningful scripts, sound and action.

I haven't watched the 2001 film so I don't know about the "Camera shake" bits in the film, if there are any. And I while I acknowledge that sound may play an important part, in this case I think the steady camera did it.

reply to post by Frankenchrist


My apologies, I thought I read lap top speakers. In fact I did, just not your posts.

The point remains though, your still restricted to 20Hz to 20Khz. The rest of my post stands.

Again, OP, my apologies.

P

reply to post by pheonix358



No worries brother.

Any results yet?

I'm still curious.

reply to post by Frankenchrist


I'm planning to try it this weekend or else Monday or Tuesday night. My dog has never been interested in TV/movies/videos. She's a hound mix, so we've previously tried introducing her to hound howling sounds on the computer to see if she would take up howling, but she hardly paid any attention. Anyway, I don't expect her to pay attention to the movie because she never does, but she is a little neurotic so you never know. I'll be sure to report back.