DSP First: A Multimedia Approach

Rating:
Summary: I consider this book as a signal processing enabling book
Review: I consider this book as a signal processing enabling book and I use it with my students at the University as an introduction, previous to networking or Multimedia specific subjects. I recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a gentle introduction to digital signal processing, and is no willing to pass through a high math path. The math's are there but in their just proportion. The author is concerned about concepts, and the movies on the CD are of great help in order to get them. Th introduction to complex notation, difference equations and convolution are the gentles I've read. If you manage to solve the numeric exercises, you end with working concepts and skills in the area. The authors try to give examples from several fields like sounds, pictures and video in order to make the material understandable. Its not a very rigorous book but is a valuable one if you prefer concepts to mathematical rigor. After working the proposed projects, you can deal with filtering, image analysis, sampling, aliasing and several other signal processing techniques knowing what you are doing.

Rating:
Summary: Needs Improvement
Review: I'm not sure who wrote the positive reviews here, but I can tell you as a student using this book that it is among the worst I've ever been stuck with and most of my classmates seem to agree.

The concepts are made much more difficult than they should be by poor writing. The authors jump around constantly, use new terminology at times before introducing it, and provide examples that are inadequate in helping to solve the problems at the end of the chapter. Stylistically, the writing is very bland and sure to put you to sleep. The first sentence of the book is "This is a book about signals and systems."

Sure, this book may cover all of the core concepts involved in signal processing, but trying to make sense of it when you don't already have a background in the subject is quite a challenge. After reading the chapters, we were unable to solve most of the problems in the book until given the answers were given to us. I've dealt with bad textbooks before, but this one tops them all. Needless to say, it was very frustrating experience and I can't say I recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: Leaves room for improvement
Review: I'm stuck using this book in a class. There are some mistakes in this book. Mistake on 3.4.5 on page 64. Solution shown for Xk is incorrect. It should only be for positive values of k and a single sided spectrum not the positive and negative values of Xk and the double sided spectrum as it is shown. Along those lines, Figure 3.12 shows amplitudes at twice their correct value. The double sided spectrun is shown with the amplitudes for a single sided spectrum. If you use this example to do homework problems you will derive the wrong solution. Problem solutions on CD ROM are scans of someone's handwriting. In some cases these are blurry and hard to read. Some of the animations are jerky making them difficult to grasp the concept they are attempting to get across. Some of the examples jump critical steps in the solution leaving the reader scratching their head trying to figure out how the author jumped to the solution shown.

Maybe this book is great after the fact of struggling with the concepts. In my opinion, it needs work.

Rating:
Summary: Oops! These reviews are for another book
Review: The reviews listed here, as of 12/30/03, are identical to the reviews for the 1997 book: "DSP First: A Multimedia Approach", by the same authors. Humm, I wonder how that happened!!!

(I don't own, and have not read, this book; but I had to enter a "star" rating to post this message. So I entered a 3-star rating which is in no way indicative of the quality of this book.)

Rating:
Summary: Oops! These reviews are for another book
Review: The reviews listed here, as of 12/30/03, are identical to the reviews for the 1997 book: "DSP First: A Multimedia Approach", by the same authors. Humm, I wonder how that happened!!!

(I don't own, and have not read, this book; but I had to enter a "star" rating to post this message. So I entered a 3-star rating which is in no way indicative of the quality of this book.)

Rating:
Summary: A fantastic book
Review: This book is a great introductory book on analog and digital signals. It doesn't require any previous knowledge on signals and systems. It is student friendly, and can help alot in understanding the basics of the topic. I recommend this book to all those who would like to take an idea about signals.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding, a favorite book
Review: This book, along with "Understanding Digital Signal Processing" and Steiglitz' "DSP Primer" are the best, most useful, yet gentle introductions to DSP I have ever read. If only I had this book before I entered grad school! The CD-ROM that comes with it is very well done; a brilliant presentation! Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: The best introductory DSP text!
Review: This is by far the best introductory DSP book - forget the rest and get this one. The authors take you by the hand and with their years of teaching and research experience, lead you step by step into the strange and unique world of DSP. The CD examples, animations, and audio summaries are extremely valuable. Make sure that you look at them, only then will you really "get it", instead of being just an equation manipulator. This book is also very well suited for self-study professional engineer. Bravo! The standard has been set, let's see if other authors can follow.

Rating:
Summary: The best introductory DSP text!
Review: This is by far the best introductory DSP book - forget the rest and get this one. The authors take you by the hand and with their years of teaching and research experience, lead you step by step into the strange and unique world of DSP. The CD examples, animations, and audio summaries are extremely valuable. Make sure that you look at them, only then will you really "get it", instead of being just an equation manipulator. This book is also very well suited for self-study professional engineer. Bravo! The standard has been set, let's see if other authors can follow.

Rating:
Summary: A horrible attempt.
Review: This is probably the worst textbook that I have used in the past two years. The book makes a lot of basic concepts seem very difficult and a lacks the proper examples to even explain what the problems at the end of the chapter are asking. The wording is very boring and tends to put the reader to sleep- making the poor explanation of concepts even worse. The authors jump around and often fail to define terms or use them before they are explained. The index has proved to be worthless in many of these instances. There are a lot of problems that I do not believe could be solved by a new edition.