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scott wrote:
>> I know the BT Vision system is supposed to allow you to download video
>> content to watch later, but I'm not aware of any system which can
>> manage it in realtime. (Certainly not just using a normal PC...)
>
> Many TV company websites let you watch TV live via your PC at varying
> levels of quality. I have certainly seen a few that exceed digital SD
> broadcast TV.
Seriously??
> How about BBC iPlayer, what's the quality like on that? (I can't access
> it outside the UK)
Pitiful. Utterly pitiful.
I mean, forgetting the minor detail that it's plain unusuable at certain
times of day, the picture quality is abysmal. (The sound isn't bad though.)
Also, if you use the iPlayer client (rather than just the Flash thing on
the website), it appears to turn our PC into a peer-to-peer client,
constantly uploading and downloading data even when iPlayer isn't
running. (It installs a background service which starts at boot.)
> YouTube also streams video at resolutions up to 1080p, you just need a
> fast enough internet connection to watch it in real time as it's
> downloading. IIRC the best digital TV broadcast streams use about 6
> mbit/s, so that should give you some idea what internet speed you need.
I've yet to see anything on YouTube which even approaches TV quality.
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> Certainly if your bandwidth is enough to transfer a full double-layer
> DVD (ie. about 8 gigabytes) in 2 hours, then it would be enough to *watch*
> that DVD in real-time over the internet. Not many people have such huge
> bandwidths, though.
That "only" comes out at around 9 MBit/s, a lot of people nowadays have
internet speeds getting on for that.
Anyway, there are also compression algorithms that are a lot more efficient
than the one used on DVDs. So in theory you could get DVD quality with a lot
less than 9 MBit/s if you use a better compression algorithm.
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> I've yet to see anything on YouTube which even approaches TV quality.
You did find a video that supports HD resolutions, and switch YouTube to use
that resolution, and watch full-screen? Search "1080p demo" to easily find
some.
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scott <sco### [at] scott com> wrote:
> Anyway, there are also compression algorithms that are a lot more efficient
> than the one used on DVDs. So in theory you could get DVD quality with a lot
> less than 9 MBit/s if you use a better compression algorithm.
MPEG-4 Part 10 (also know as H.264) can compress DVD video to at least
1/4th of the size without any visible loss of quality, so what you are
saying is certainly true.
However, MPEG-4 is still such a new technology that not many companies
nor devices support it well yet. (H.264 also requires quite a lot more
computing power to decompress than MPEG-2, which means that viewing
devices need to be more expensive.) Of course since we are talking about
internet broadcasting here, and thus people wathing on their PC's, that's
mostly a non-issue.
Digital TV could have benefited from using MPEG-4 instead of MPEG-2, but
it didn't. It's a bummer.
--
- Warp
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Invisible escreveu:
> http://www.xkcd.com/732/
>
> This puzzles me too.
yeah, my only conclusion is that you and the author of XKCD both use
(blurry) glasses. Perhaps that even may explain his simple art style... :D
> 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.
It *is* a significant increase and it looks specially good on big Full
HDTV screens in the living room, not a small 19 inches PC monitor. BTW,
mine here at work is a 19 inch LG monitor and is running at the maximum
resolution of 1600x900 pixels. That is below 1080p.
You won't even want to know what I ran back in 2004. Humor demands
exaggeration. :)
> (And hell, half the equipment and content that says "HD" on it isn't
> even full resolution anyway... Why allow half a dozen resolutions when
> it would have been far simpler for the designers and less misleading for
> the public if they allow only one resolution?)
Because, say, games at full HD may have to cut geometry or frame rate
here and there to fit comfortably?
> Hell, when I was at uni ten years ago we had computers exceeding these
> resolutions. With Windows NT 4.0, Service Pack 4. Has technology not
> moved on since then? It's not like there's any technical challenge to
> using a higher resolution, after all...
Regarding the iPhone resolution: obviously huge TV screens have far
"bigger" pixels than that on a iPhone display. Literally. From the
distance of your sofa, though, you don't notice them individually. Just
as a guy doesn't notice any lack of pixels at a tiny iPhone display.
> PS. I am similarly baffled by the current fashion for "widescreen" TVs.
> Given that 99.998% of all video content ever created is in 4:3 aspect,
> what the hell is the advantage of buying a TV with a 16:9 aspect?? I
> don't understand.
Yeah, why sell color TVs in a time when 99.98% video content ever
created is B&W? This is one of your "obviously impossible" kinda
comments, ain't it?
--
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9
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On Mon, 26 Apr 2010 18:04:34 +0200, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
>
> Digital TV could have benefited from using MPEG-4 instead of MPEG-2,
> but it didn't. It's a bummer.
Over here we have already started the switch to MPEG-4.
Depending on where in Finland you live, you might even be able watch some
of it (with a compatible receiver of course).
--
FE
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scott escreveu:
>> Certainly if your bandwidth is enough to transfer a full double-layer
>> DVD (ie. about 8 gigabytes) in 2 hours, then it would be enough to
>> *watch*
>> that DVD in real-time over the internet. Not many people have such huge
>> bandwidths, though.
>
> That "only" comes out at around 9 MBit/s, a lot of people nowadays have
> internet speeds getting on for that.
yeah, but DVDs are old wig. How about bluray-quality?
It's interesting because the topic started out by ranting about "low"
resolutions...
--
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9
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Fredrik Eriksson escreveu:
> 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.
Only today I've got a 10Mbit connection at home. I can view most HD
videos comfortably, meaning little time for buffering the video so I can
start playing them as they still keep loading. Resolution is not Full
HD at all and compression quality is worse than in bluray. And play
cursor may occasionally still reach buffer cursor before it's full.
> Are you sure you are not living in the jungle?
I live in Brazil out of the jungle, but even the jungle and slums are
wired... :P
--
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9
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Invisible wrote:
>>> why not increase the resolution *significantly*?
>>
>> Cost, both for producing the TV and for producing the content.
>
> Producing the content I can understand. It presumably costs more money
> to shunt larger volumes of data around...
Yes, inside the TV as well. How much did his laptop cost in 2004? How much
did his television cost in 2004?
Do the math on memory bandwidth for 1920x1080x60x32bits, for example.
> How is it *cheaper* to design something more complicated?
It's cheaper to manufacture something with lower resolution. Much, much
cheaper. And in the USA at least, there's only two HD resolutions, not "half
a dozen".
>> Did you have a 40" computer monitor ten years ago?
>
> No. But you would think that making a large monitor with a high
> resolution would be much cheaper than making a small monitor with a high
> resolution. (That would require a greater dot-pitch.)
*You* might.
(Actually, you're confusing terms here. A large monitor with the same
resolution as a small monitor will be *far* more expensive. A large monitor
with the same pixel count as a small monitor is what you meant.)
> Ah. So that's the true reason...
Wow. You're getting as snarky-cynical as I am! :-)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.
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Fredrik Eriksson wrote:
> Then you would ignore the market segment that consists of people that
> want something better than SD but cannot (or do not want to) pay the
> full price of 1080p.
Plus, 1080p on a 19" diagonal screen is overkill. You can't see the
difference anyway.
Heck, it's not obvious to notice the difference between 720p and 1080p on a
46" screen from a couple feet away. You actually have to look at it and
think about it, in contrast to SD vs HD.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.
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