>> I mean, if you're going to force everybody to buy a new TV, new
>> receiver, new type of disk and a new machine to play it, why it increase
>> the resolution *significantly*? Why only increase it by a small amount?
>> I don't understand that.
> 
> Partly bandwidth related. The UHF/VHF frequency space has only a certain 
> amount of bandwidth per channel. Now, while a HD broadcast in 1080p at 
> an "acceptable" compression ratio might fit nicely within the allotted 
> bandwidth for a channel, doubling the horizontal and vertical 
> resolution, for example quadruples the number of pixels on the screen. 
> Eventually, the video would need to be compressed to the point where the 
> image would be nothing more than a macroblock-fest.

Quadrupling the number of pixels doesn't necessarily mean that the 
*compressed* signal takes more bandwidth. I'm sure I'm not the first 
person to notice that using higher resolutions tends to make the video 
more compressible. (Although, sure, I imagine there's a limit to how far 
you can feasibly go.)

Then again, since we replaced our old CRT with a shiny new LCD, suddenly 
I notice that just about *everything* on TV has DCT artifacts all over 
it. (I guess the CRT was too blurry to show this.) It's quite annoying.

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Mike Raiford wrote:

> Partly bandwidth related.

Ooo, here's a random thought: Do you think there will ever be a day when 
the Internet becomes fast enough to watch TV-quality video in realtime?

When do you think that day will be?

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On 4/26/2010 4:49 AM, Invisible wrote:

> I especially love how I have a widescreen TV, but you have to manually
> flip between 4:3 and 16:9 aspect. Even though it's connected by a
> digital link, so you'd think it could *detect* which kind of signal it's
> receiving...

Heck, the device producing the signal even does this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widescreen_signaling

There is a slight issue, of course with HD signals, since they're only 
intended for the 16:9 aspect ratio, if a program was originally intended 
for the 4:3 ratio, it will be "pillar-boxed", but the signal is still 
16:9, so you must manually change the TV's widescreen mode if you want 
to fill the screen.

> That being the case, it's not entirely easy to tell whether you're
> watching a widescreen broadcast, or a normal one with the top cut off.
> (Unless of course you configure the TV to show black bars at the side -
> but it's my mum's TV, and she always complains when I configure it that
> way.)

I don't care for the stretching, though when viewing 4:3 full-screen on 
my TV it's not as severe as some, the only reason I do stretch it, 
though is because my TV is an old-school CRT projector and prone to 
burn-in. If it weren't for that, I'd display 4:3 in its native format. 
Perhaps your mother has the same concerns?

-- 
~Mike

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On Mon, 26 Apr 2010 17:15:28 +0200, Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>
> Ooo, here's a random thought: Do you think there will ever be a day when  
> the Internet becomes fast enough to watch TV-quality video in realtime?
>
> When do you think that day will be?

About five years ago.

Are you sure you are not living in the jungle?



-- 
FE

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On 4/26/2010 8:28 AM, Invisible wrote:
>> Maybe the fact that Windows is not good at scaling has meant that
>> making a 150 or 200 dpi monitor that is used from "desktop" viewing
>> distances would be impossible to use due to the tiny physical size of
>> the fonts and other GUI items?
>
> Plausible.
>
>> I was running it for a while on my laptop with a non-standard dpi
>> setting. On the whole Windows and Office was fine, but IIRC my CAD
>> software screwed up, with some buttons being shifted outside of the
>> window so you couldn't get to them!
>
> Haha! And I bet that CAD software was the most expensive thing on the
> whole PC, by a mile... ;-)
>

That's the biggest part of the problem out there, many apps were written 
without regard to a higher DPI setting, and do some wacky things if 
they're used with a higher DPI. I think Windows 7 has some compatibility 
settings somewhere to help alleviate some of these issues. So, high-dpi 
display may be coming soon.
-- 
~Mike

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>> Ooo, here's a random thought: Do you think there will ever be a day 
>> when the Internet becomes fast enough to watch TV-quality video in 
>> realtime?
>>
>> When do you think that day will be?
> 
> About five years ago.

Really?

And where the hell does this happen?

> Are you sure you are not living in the jungle?

Yes, quite sure. (I hate the outdoors, remember?)

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 26 Apr 2010 17:25:35 +0200, Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>>> Ooo, here's a random thought: Do you think there will ever be a day  
>>> when the Internet becomes fast enough to watch TV-quality video in  
>>> realtime?
>>>
>>> When do you think that day will be?
>>  About five years ago.
>
> Really?
>
> And where the hell does this happen?

Here.



>> Are you sure you are not living in the jungle?
>
> Yes, quite sure. (I hate the outdoors, remember?)

I thought you enjoyed skiing. Is it just plants that you hate?



-- 
FE

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On 4/26/2010 8:00 AM, Invisible wrote:

>
> 2. A stretched image where everybody has elliptical heads.
>

I don't know how things are in the UK, but over here, everyone generally 
has an elliptical head. ;)

> 3. One of the various "zoom" modes which distorts the image non-linearly
> to supposedly give a better picture than a linear distortion.

Mmm, my father in law had a TV that did this. It was quite literally 
nausea-inducing. I always wound up with a nasty headache after watching 
anything in 4:3 on that TV.

> 4. Cut the top and/or bottom off the picture to make it fit.

Depending on the program, this is acceptable, of course if there's 
titling or a crawl across the bottom of the screen... it's a nuisance.

> Everybody seems to hate #1, but lots of people apparently see nothing
> wrong with #2 or #3. *shudders*

Yeah, I don't get it. The only reason I really want the screen filled is 
so my CRT doesn't burn-in.

-- 
~Mike

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>> About five years ago.
>
> Really?
>
> And where the hell does this happen?

Virgin have a system called On Demand in the UK.  Here in Germany we have 
T-Home.  Obviously you need a fast internet connection (about 6 MBit/s or 
higher IIRC) to receive broadcast quality video.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPTV
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_on_Demand

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>>>> When do you think that day will be?
>>>  About five years ago.
>>
>> Really?
>>
>> And where the hell does this happen?
> 
> Here.

Who is it?

It's me.

>>> Are you sure you are not living in the jungle?
>>
>> Yes, quite sure. (I hate the outdoors, remember?)
> 
> I thought you enjoyed skiing. Is it just plants that you hate?

OK, I rephrase: I hate being outside for no particular reason. Like, 
"hey, let's go for a walk outside". (Or rather, "let's wander around at 
random for no purpose when I could be coding stuff".) Apparently some 
people like to look at the view or something...

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