Audio: The Movie [DVD]. York, PA: Tracer Technologies, 2006

If you teach audio production or a similar course, you might be interested in using Audio: The Movie, produced by Tracer Technologies, as supplementary material. Although the packaging states the DVD is a “college level course that will help you understand the principles of audio but bypasses most of the mathematics usually associated with such studies,” another statement on the DVD suggests it is “a course in audio theory for normal, average, every-day folks.” Finally, the www.tracertek.com Web site notes “this information is provided in easy to understand terms,” and for the most part, the viewer will find all these statements are fairly accurate. The first segment to Audio: The Movie, entitled “Getting Started,” takes a solid pedagogical approach and explains exactly what the DVD is about and what you will learn by watching it. Structured like a textbook, the DVD is divided into eight chapters of material. The introduction explains that the early chapters will present basic concepts, whereas the later chapters will offer more challenging and complex subjects, noting this is not unlike how information would be presented in a college course. The DVD comes with a 25-page “test booklet” designed to fit within the DVD package. The booklet provides a brief summary of the main points presented in each chapter, three multiple-choice test questions, and answers with an explanation of why a particular response is right or wrong. According to the booklet, “tests are designed not to determine how much you learned, but rather to help you think about the subject and learn even more.” There is some reliance on an “all of the above” approach with the questions, which probably allows for an expanded explanation section and references back to various segments of the DVD. Audio: The Movie content is presented with a narration track supplemented with ever-changing screen shots. Although the screens are mostly drawings or photos, animated screens are employed when it helps explain a concept. Some of the screens are full width, but many are various sizes that only fill a portion of the screen, and a few seem to have been resized to the point that they are distorted. Although the video is often static pictures, the pace is fast enough that there seems to be constant “action” with the result being that the viewer is not bored. Background music and sound effects are also used liberally to highlight a specific video screen or make a concept easier to grasp. For example, in a chapter 2 discussion of bandwidth, the viewer gets to both see onscreen and hear a comparison of 6 kHz bandwidth of human speech and the old 3 kHz bandwidth of telephone audio. The producers employ humor throughout the video, so the viewer might chuckle from time to time as he or she absorbs the factual content. In another chapter 2 discussion about the human range of hearing, they explain that a lack of high-frequency hearing explains why older folks hear words but find them hard to understand and Journal of Radio Studies/May 2007