On 04/26/10 02:40, scott wrote:
>> Question: Why aren't there any widescreen cinemas yet?
> 
> WTF?

POTD

-- 
Copywight 1991 Elmer Fudd.  All wights wesewved

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On Mon, 26 Apr 2010 15:33:14 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> With our sound system, it's just like going to the cinema
> 
> My brother had movie theatre seats for a while too, until he realized a
> couch was more comfortable anyway.  It was amusing, tho. I think he
> still has them in storage.

We thought about doing that, but we'll only be in this house for about 
another year, then we're moving again (after the kid graduates college 
and moves out, this house is too big for just two of us); we decided that 
here in Utah, a house with a room that's easily converted to another 
bedroom would be more valuable, so all we have to do is patch the holes 
from the mounts for the screen and the projector - no problem. :-)

If we were going to be here longer, I'd have even run the wires for the 
speakers in the walls. :-)

>> On the downside, had to replace the bulb in the projector last weekend.
>> Had a spare on hand, but those bulbs are not cheap. :-/
> 
> That they aren't!

Got about 16 months of use out of the original one.  Noisy when they 
blow, too - like a firecracker going off.  I'd had one do that to me in a 
class I was teaching once, and still wasn't fully prepared for it when it 
went.

Looks like I can get my bulbs sub-$300, though, which isn't bad; the 
replacement I got was valued at $450 by Mitsubishi.

>> But yeah, our PS3 is connected to it, so I end up playing the
>> occasional game on that screen.  It's really nice - even my wife likes
>> it, and she initially thought the idea was ridiculous, but she now
>> admits freely that it was a good idea. :-)
> 
> Yeah. And a wii is pretty spectacular too when you're not looking at a
> tennis court that's 20" wide.

Yeah, last year our team did a "development week" (for the course 
developers), and one of the recreational activities was a wii connected 
to one of the screens in one of the big classrooms - I don't recall for 
sure, but I *think* those screens are 20' diagonal.

Jim

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On Mon, 26 Apr 2010 10:25:12 +0100, Invisible wrote:

> Question: Why aren't there any widescreen cinemas yet?

I missed this the first time around, don't know about in MK, but over 
here, ALL of the cinemas are widescreen.

Jim

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> bedroom would be more valuable, so all we have to do is patch the holes 
> from the mounts for the screen and the projector - no problem. :-)

Oh, these were just bolted to planks, basically. Totally movable. Not really 
the actual movie theatre experience, I'll grant.

We did have a row of airplane seats for a while, after the Frnklin Institute 
science museum closed their 747 exhibit and basically threw away the plane. 
Did you know insurance companies value a row of 747 seats at about $700, or 
at least did when we had the house fire back in 1985?

> If we were going to be here longer, I'd have even run the wires for the 
> speakers in the walls. :-)

That works even if you sell the house, mind. :-)  I had ethernet put in the 
walls before the put the drywall up, but I definitely should have had the 
speaker wires run too.

> Looks like I can get my bulbs sub-$300, 

I think my brother pays $800 or so for his. They're extra super bright or 
some nonsense. :-)

-- 
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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>> I'm of the opinion that "full price 1080p" shouldn't be that expensive in 
>> the first place, and we should all be saving up for 4096p or something. 
>> But I guess that's next year's money draw...
>
> What's the advantage. Your *eyes* only have a limited resolution.

I think they need to increase the frame rate to 120 Hz or something first 
before making the resolution higher.  24 Hz is ridiculous.

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> You're telling me it's possible to tell the difference betwee 600dpi and 
> 1200dpi?

You can't really compare directly.  A lot of printing methods use a 
half-tone pattern to show various shades of colour, an LCD needs only 1 dot 
to show that colour.

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>  Digital TV could have benefited from using MPEG-4 instead of MPEG-2, but
> it didn't. It's a bummer.

It's ok, it's changing.  All HDTV channels are compressed with MPEG-4 (in 
the UK and Germany at least) so I suspect eventually the MPEG-2 compressed 
channels will be gone.

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>  Not to talk about contrast...

Depends on the ambient light levels whether LCD or CRT offers better 
contrast.  Certainly in office environments (that are usually well it) LCD 
has higher contrast.  In dark rooms CRT is better, but the gap is 
continually closing.

>  Also, CRTs could be looked at from about any direction and it would
> always look exactly as good. Only in the last few years LCDs are
> *approaching* that (many still have problems when viewed from above
> or below).

Indeed, it's down to the LC mode used and obviously cost.  Cheap laptop/PC 
monitors are not designed to be viewing from any angle other than 
perpendicular, but a good TV will look the same from all angles (including 
up/down) - it has been that way for many years.

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scott wrote:
>> 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.

The ones with an HD option look bettER, but still not particularly good. 
At least, the ones I've seen.

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Darren New wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
>> When do you think that day will be?
> 
> Not only is it here. It's a commodity.
> 
> http://www.netflix.com/NetflixReadyDevices

I don't follow.

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>> (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?

What do TV resolutions have to do with computers? You connect a computer 
to a monitor, not a TV.

>> 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?

What, you think just because everybody is being forced to buy widescreen 
TVs, people are going to start filming in widescreen?

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> > Because, say, games at full HD may have to cut geometry or frame rate
> > here and there to fit comfortably?
>
> What do TV resolutions have to do with computers? You connect a computer
> to a monitor, not a TV.

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

> What, you think just because everybody is being forced to buy widescreen
> TVs, people are going to start filming in widescreen?

Everyone's been filming in widescreen for almost 10 years, at least in Europe
and the US.

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Mon, 26 Apr 2010 10:25:12 +0100, Invisible wrote:

> > Question: Why aren't there any widescreen cinemas yet?

> I missed this the first time around, don't know about in MK, but over 
> here, ALL of the cinemas are widescreen.

  Are there any cinemas in existence that aren't? (Discounting perhaps
some home-made cinemas in some poor countries showing pirated movies from
VHS...)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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clipka <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:
> Am 26.04.2010 21:33, schrieb Warp:
> > Le_Forgeron<jgr### [at] freefr>  wrote:
> >> Then came out LCD... from laptop to desktop and TV, they killed the CRT.
> >> The colours drop to less numbers, but this is now an hidden information.
> >
> >    Not to talk about contrast...
> >
> >    Also, CRTs could be looked at from about any direction and it would
> > always look exactly as good. Only in the last few years LCDs are
> > *approaching* that (many still have problems when viewed from above
> > or below).
> >
> >    Then there are the dead pixels, which plagued LCDs for many, many years
> > (only relatively recently LCD vendors have started guaranteeing no dead
> > pixels).

> Stick to CRTs if you like - I do prefer to have room enough on my desk 
> for /two/ displays with 24" @16:9 and 19" @4:3 size (effective image 
> diagonal, not nominal tube size), both presenting their image perfectly 
> flat and undistorted, with perfectly sharp pixels, no analog signal 
> distortion or beam focus problems, no "pumping" effect with brightness 
> changes, no moiree effects with the X11 login screen, less dust 
> accumulating on the display, less eye strain from flicker - and no risk 
> of my desk collapsing under the displays' sheer weight.

> It's all a question of priorities. Yours may vary.

  You missed the point completely, and misunderstood what I was talking about
really badly.

  The subject was not about "what's better, CRT or LCD?" No, the subject was
about "every time a new technology comes up, it always seems like a huge
step backwards, until it catches up".

  I was simply listing reasons why LCD was a step backwards compared to CRT,
until it catches up.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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And lo On Mon, 26 Apr 2010 22:01:41 +0200, andrel <byt### [at] gmailcom>  
did spake thusly:

> On 26-4-2010 14:49, Warp wrote:
>> Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>>>>> Question: Why aren't there any widescreen cinemas yet?
>>>> At risk of entirely misunderstanding the question, all cinemas have  
>>>> shown all
>>>> films in 16:9 or wider for almost a hundred years.
>>
>>> Really?
>>
>>> Huh, well, you learn something every day. The picture always looked  
>>> fairly square to me...
>>    I'm beginning to suspect that this is not Andrew, and instead some  
>> troll
>> is posting using his nickname.
>>    If even TV is not square (it's 4:3), how in the world could you ever
>> think that movies are square? I don't get it.
>>    The narrowest aspect ratio used in movies for the past 20+ years has
>> usually been 1.85:1. The most common aspect ratios for big movies today
>> is 2.25:1 and even 2.35:1 (that's well over twice as wide as tall).
>>
> a few days ago I heard a talk that might provide an explanation. Someone  
> set up an experiment with 180 degrees view and figured out how wide they  
> perceived it. You get a camel distribution with one hump at 180 and  
> another, larger! one at 90. Experiment was reproducable per person.
>
> Hard to believe but apparently true. Something fishy in our brain. Jan  
> Koenderink, who was giving the talk, is trying to figure out why.

Perhaps something similar to line perception where we overestimate acute  
angles and underestimate obtuse ones.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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And lo On Tue, 27 Apr 2010 07:24:29 +0200, Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom>  
did spake thusly:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> If we were going to be here longer, I'd have even run the wires for the  
>> speakers in the walls. :-)
>
> That works even if you sell the house, mind. :-)  I had ethernet put in  
> the walls before the put the drywall up, but I definitely should have  
> had the speaker wires run too.

Ethernet speakers?

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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And lo On Mon, 26 Apr 2010 17:54:42 +0200, Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> did  
spake thusly:

> 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.)

I use it via a wireless link on my PS3 and I agree that at certain times  
it's quite choppy. Quality is worse than normal broadcast, but it's hardly  
abysmal. For those outside the UK it's comparable to the 4OD channel at  
youtube http://www.youtube.com/user/channel4 where the maximum seems to be  
480p

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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> abysmal. For those outside the UK it's comparable to the 4OD channel at 
> youtube http://www.youtube.com/user/channel4 where the maximum seems to be 
> 480p

That seems comparable to normal digital SDTV.

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"Phil Cook v2" <phi### [at] nospamrocainfreeservecouk> a écrit dans le message 
de news: op.vbtop7c1mn4jds@phils...
>
> Ethernet speakers?
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EtherSound
But not a cheap solution

Marc

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> scott 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.

> Indeed. A 10:1 improvement in compression is easily attainable without 
> noticable loss compared to DVD compression anyway.

  10 times smaller than MPEG-2 with the same visual quality? Now that,
I think, would be quite hard.

  Maybe if the MPEG-2 had been created with a crappy software (thus
requiring plenty of bitrate) and then you used really aggressive H.264
encoding settings (something like requiring 24 hours of encoding time
for each hour of video or such), perhaps. But under normal circumstances
10:1 feels a bit excessive.

  Could you take a 1.5-hour 4GB DVD-quality MPEG-2 and make a 400MB H.264
from it with the same resolution and without visible loss of quality?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 4/27/2010 3:02 AM, Invisible wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> Invisible wrote:
>>> When do you think that day will be?
>>
>> Not only is it here. It's a commodity.
>>
>> http://www.netflix.com/NetflixReadyDevices
>
> I don't follow.

Whats not to follow? They stream movies directly from the internet 
(albeit at SD resolutions ..)

-- 
~Mike

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>>>> When do you think that day will be?
>>>
>>> Not only is it here. It's a commodity.
>>>
>>> http://www.netflix.com/NetflixReadyDevices
>>
>> I don't follow.
> 
> Whats not to follow? They stream movies directly from the internet 
> (albeit at SD resolutions ..)

Presumably this only actually works if you have a suitably fast Internet 
connection though?

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>>>> When do you think that day will be?
>>>
>>> Not only is it here. It's a commodity.
>>>
>>> http://www.netflix.com/NetflixReadyDevices
>>
>> I don't follow.
> 
> Whats not to follow? They stream movies directly from the internet 
> (albeit at SD resolutions ..)

Of course there is the SlingBox too:

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

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scott wrote:

> Of course there is the SlingBox too:
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slingbox

Again, that's all very nice. But unless you have insane levels of 
bandwidth available, it's not going to work.

There's nothing theoretically difficult about sending video data over 
the Internet. The problem is the bandwidth.

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On Tue, 27 Apr 2010 17:18:21 +0200, Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>
> There's nothing theoretically difficult about sending video data over  
> the Internet. The problem is the bandwidth.

You seem to be missing the fact that a lot of people have had the  
necessary bandwidth for years.



-- 
FE

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>> There's nothing theoretically difficult about sending video data over 
>> the Internet. The problem is the bandwidth.
> 
> You seem to be missing the fact that a lot of people have had the 
> necessary bandwidth for years.

Hmm, interesting. Where I live, most people have between 2 Mbit/sec and 
8 Mbit/sec. (I gather that until ADSL2 is deployed, you can't exceed 8 
Mbit/sec...)

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Phil Cook v2 wrote:
> Ethernet speakers?

Does a Media Center Extender count? ;-)

Seriously, I don't have ethernet *everywhere*. I couldn't do surround-sound 
speakers over ethernet. Wireless maybe, but not ethernet.

I told them to put an ethernet wire from the closet to each phone jack. I 
should have said from the closet to each cable TV box as well.

-- 
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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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> scott 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.
> 
>> Indeed. A 10:1 improvement in compression is easily attainable without 
>> noticable loss compared to DVD compression anyway.
> 
>   10 times smaller than MPEG-2 with the same visual quality? Now that,
> I think, would be quite hard.

Hmm. Rethinking, 6:1 or so. Basically, you can fit a DVD onto a CD without 
really comprimising the signal.  And remember that when they make DVDs, they 
don't necessarily squeeze it as small as possible. They squeeze it as much 
as necessary to make it fit on the disk, even if they could compress it more.

I misthought. It's more like 6:1. I was confusing Blu->DVD instead of 
DVD->CD or something.

-- 
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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Invisible wrote:
>>>>> When do you think that day will be?
>>>>
>>>> Not only is it here. It's a commodity.
>>>>
>>>> http://www.netflix.com/NetflixReadyDevices
>>>
>>> I don't follow.
>>
>> Whats not to follow? They stream movies directly from the internet 
>> (albeit at SD resolutions ..)
> 
> Presumably this only actually works if you have a suitably fast Internet 
> connection though?

No, it works great over dial-up too. You should try it.

-- 
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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Bill Pragnell escreveu:
> Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>>> Because, say, games at full HD may have to cut geometry or frame rate
>>> here and there to fit comfortably?
>> What do TV resolutions have to do with computers? You connect a computer
>> to a monitor, not a TV.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_console

LOL

seems like Andrew still got some 30 years ahead to fully get to grips 
with the real world...

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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Invisible escreveu:
>>> (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?
> 
> What do TV resolutions have to do with computers? You connect a computer 
> to a monitor, not a TV.

besides game consoles, many people for the past few years have been 
connecting computers to their large screen FullHD TVs.  Because, you 
know, it's usually more pleasing seeing images at a large screen from 
the comfort of your sofa (yeah, with a wireless keyboard) rather than 
sitting a few inches away from a much smaller screen.

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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Darren New escreveu:
> Invisible wrote:
>>>>>> When do you think that day will be?
>>>>>
>>>>> Not only is it here. It's a commodity.
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.netflix.com/NetflixReadyDevices
>>>>
>>>> I don't follow.
>>>
>>> Whats not to follow? They stream movies directly from the internet 
>>> (albeit at SD resolutions ..)
>>
>> Presumably this only actually works if you have a suitably fast 
>> Internet connection though?
> 
> No, it works great over dial-up too. You should try it.

BTW, don't you guys find it funny that ADSL is "dial-up" too?  Twas not 
long ago that I used to dial-up at 56Kbps and looked forward to having a 
"cable modem" connection, but today I "dial-up" over the phone line and 
have 10Mbps connections... ^-^

technology advances at a far too ridiculous pace to try to categorize 
with silly terminology... :P

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> a écrit dans le message de news: 
4bd705be$1@news.povray.org...
> Hmm, interesting. Where I live, most people have between 2 Mbit/sec and 8 
> Mbit/sec. (I gather that until ADSL2 is deployed, you can't exceed 8 
> Mbit/sec...)

http://www.bb4mk.org/ (assuming you live there)

G.

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nemesis wrote:
> BTW, don't you guys find it funny that ADSL is "dial-up" too? 

Not really. It's built into the line card, so you're not actually dialing 
anything. You're just using the same wires you would be dialing on.

Indeed, the two hardest parts of making ADSL work is dealing with rings and 
dealing with dialing.

-- 
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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Darren New escreveu:
> nemesis wrote:
>> BTW, don't you guys find it funny that ADSL is "dial-up" too? 
> 
> Not really. It's built into the line card, so you're not actually 
> dialing anything. You're just using the same wires you would be dialing on.

really?  I used to connect without a line filter in my other telephone 
across the room and, thus, if you happened to pick up the nearby phone 
while it was connecting, you would listen to a bit of that "folkloric" 
well-known old-modem dialing-up tune.

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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Invisible escreveu:
> scott wrote:
>>> 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.
> 
> The ones with an HD option look bettER, but still not particularly good. 
> At least, the ones I've seen.

http://vimeo.com/9078364

youtube sucks...

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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nemesis wrote:
> really? 

Really. I worked across the hall from the guys inventing it.

The signals from ADSL are about 1% the strength of the signals from voice. 
There's no connection there other than you to the line card. That's why you 
can still talk on the phone when you have ADSL.

(Now, without appropriate filters, maybe nowadays you can hear the ADSL. And 
it's doing things vaguely modem-like. But only over the wire. By the time it 
gets to the switch, it's on a separate path already.)

-- 
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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Invisible wrote:

> 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...

Government regulators, for whom being safe is generally more important 
than being right, had a major role in the determination of the standard. 
  The standard had to allow for broadcast within a strictly-defined 
frequency band, and this limit was chosen based on technology that is 
now ready for deployment to your local museum, because these decisions 
were made years ago.

If I am remembering things correctly, there was even some insistence 
that the signal be displayable by sets designed for the old broadcast 
standard.  If that sounds thinking-impaired, well, that's the FCC for you.

Regards,
John

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On 27-4-2010 14:07, Phil Cook v2 wrote:
> And lo On Mon, 26 Apr 2010 22:01:41 +0200, andrel <byt### [at] gmailcom> 
> did spake thusly:
> 
>> On 26-4-2010 14:49, Warp wrote:
>>> Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>>>>>> Question: Why aren't there any widescreen cinemas yet?
>>>>> At risk of entirely misunderstanding the question, all cinemas have 
>>>>> shown all
>>>>> films in 16:9 or wider for almost a hundred years.
>>>
>>>> Really?
>>>
>>>> Huh, well, you learn something every day. The picture always looked 
>>>> fairly square to me...
>>>    I'm beginning to suspect that this is not Andrew, and instead some 
>>> troll
>>> is posting using his nickname.
>>>    If even TV is not square (it's 4:3), how in the world could you ever
>>> think that movies are square? I don't get it.
>>>    The narrowest aspect ratio used in movies for the past 20+ years has
>>> usually been 1.85:1. The most common aspect ratios for big movies today
>>> is 2.25:1 and even 2.35:1 (that's well over twice as wide as tall).
>>>
>> a few days ago I heard a talk that might provide an explanation. 
>> Someone set up an experiment with 180 degrees view and figured out how 
>> wide they perceived it. You get a camel distribution with one hump at 
>> 180 and another, larger! one at 90. Experiment was reproducable per 
>> person.
>>
>> Hard to believe but apparently true. Something fishy in our brain. Jan 
>> Koenderink, who was giving the talk, is trying to figure out why.
> 
> Perhaps something similar to line perception where we overestimate acute 
> angles and underestimate obtuse ones.
> 
Is that also wildly variable between people? (I wouldn't know, because I 
am only one person)

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On 04/27/10 07:57, Mike Raiford wrote:
> Whats not to follow? They stream movies directly from the internet
> (albeit at SD resolutions ..)

	Depends on how you define SD - I've seen movies through it that are
definitely beyond DVD quality.

-- 
I considered atheism but there weren't enough holidays.

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> Hmm, interesting. Where I live, most people have between 2 Mbit/sec and 8 
> Mbit/sec.

Which is plenty.

Check out the freeview bitrates:

http://dtt.me.uk/

If the average bitrate of a BBC channel is 3.2 Mbit/s (higher than most 
other channels) using MPEG2, then I'm pretty sure watching the same signal 
compressed with MPEG4 at 2 Mbit/s is going to look virtually identical.

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>> Hard to believe but apparently true. Something fishy in our brain. Jan 
>> Koenderink, who was giving the talk, is trying to figure out why.
> 
> Perhaps something similar to line perception where we overestimate acute 
> angles and underestimate obtuse ones.

My mother believes she can sing. Even though she's actually about a 
fifth to a third flat. The result sounds truly *horrible*! You'd think 
she could hear the difference, but no...

She also claims to be unable to tell the difference between major and 
minor chords, which is impressive given the vast, world-alering 
difference between the two.

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And lo On Tue, 27 Apr 2010 23:29:15 +0200, andrel <byt### [at] gmailcom>  
did spake thusly:

> On 27-4-2010 14:07, Phil Cook v2 wrote:
>> And lo On Mon, 26 Apr 2010 22:01:41 +0200, andrel  
>> <byt### [at] gmailcom> did spake thusly:
>>> Hard to believe but apparently true. Something fishy in our brain. Jan  
>>> Koenderink, who was giving the talk, is trying to figure out why.
>>  Perhaps something similar to line perception where we overestimate  
>> acute angles and underestimate obtuse ones.
>>
> Is that also wildly variable between people? (I wouldn't know, because I  
> am only one person)

Supposedly 'in-built' but it would be interesting to run those perception  
tests on the same group of people if only to dismiss it as a factor.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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On 4/27/2010 11:15 AM, Darren New wrote:

>
> Seriously, I don't have ethernet *everywhere*. I couldn't do
> surround-sound speakers over ethernet. Wireless maybe, but not ethernet.
>
> I told them to put an ethernet wire from the closet to each phone jack.
> I should have said from the closet to each cable TV box as well.
>

How times change. I remember back when I had my house built (Shame I'm 
not in that house anymore, but its all for the better) I requested a 
phone jack near the entertainment center (I did have the living room 
wired for 5.1 surround.

Now with internet-ready consoles and blue-ray players it makes perfect 
sense to have ethernet wired to the entertainment center as well. I 
wanted to wire the house for ethernet, but the builder didn't supply it, 
and wouldn't allow it. But that was no big deal. I think the next house 
I wind up in will likely be an existing home rather than a new build 
since most of the new homes are now too far out of the way for us, so it 
could be interesting to wire some extended services into an existing home.

-- 
~Mike

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Mike Raiford wrote:

> I wanted to wire the house for ethernet, but the builder didn't supply it, 
> and wouldn't allow it.

My dad wired it himself. ;-)

(As in, he literally chiselled out chunks of wall and then plastered it 
over again.)

And then we replaced the Ethernet router with a wireless one. Um... OK.

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On 4/27/2010 12:59 PM, nemesis wrote:
> Darren New escreveu:
>> nemesis wrote:
>>> BTW, don't you guys find it funny that ADSL is "dial-up" too?
>>
>> Not really. It's built into the line card, so you're not actually
>> dialing anything. You're just using the same wires you would be
>> dialing on.
>
> really? I used to connect without a line filter in my other telephone
> across the room and, thus, if you happened to pick up the nearby phone
> while it was connecting, you would listen to a bit of that "folkloric"
> well-known old-modem dialing-up tune.
>

probably hearing some artifacts from the out-of-band signaling the ADSL 
modem is doing. Which is why you need the filter ;) I remember back when 
I had ADSL forgetting a filter on a phone jack, and picking up that 
phone. It was more like I had a bad connection than anything, though.

-- 
~Mike

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On 4/27/2010 10:18 AM, Invisible wrote:
> scott wrote:
>
>> Of course there is the SlingBox too:
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slingbox
>
> Again, that's all very nice. But unless you have insane levels of
> bandwidth available, it's not going to work.
>
> There's nothing theoretically difficult about sending video data over
> the Internet. The problem is the bandwidth.


Meh, I had a 1Mbit DSL connection for a long time, and my wife could be 
watching Youtube videos of kids playing with cats, and I could watch a 
netflix film at very decent quality w/o interruption for buffering. Of 
course now, with my cable internet bandwidth is no longer an issue... ;)

-- 
~Mike

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On 4/27/2010 8:15 PM, Neeum Zawan wrote:
> On 04/27/10 07:57, Mike Raiford wrote:
>> Whats not to follow? They stream movies directly from the internet
>> (albeit at SD resolutions ..)
>
> 	Depends on how you define SD - I've seen movies through it that are
> definitely beyond DVD quality.
>

I think the resolution actually tops out somewhere around 720x480. Their 
STB only supports the SD mode, though it may be progressive scan, or it 
could be that you have a high enough bandwidth connection that you're 
getting less compression.

What I have seen does indeed rival DVD in terms of picture quality, though.

-- 
~Mike

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On 4/27/2010 11:23 AM, nemesis wrote:

>
> LOL
>
> seems like Andrew still got some 30 years ahead to fully get to grips
> with the real world...
>

Why doesn't my Atari 2600 do HD?

-- 
~Mike

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On 4/27/2010 4:12 PM, John VanSickle wrote:

> Government regulators, for whom being safe is generally more important
> than being right, had a major role in the determination of the standard.
> The standard had to allow for broadcast within a strictly-defined
> frequency band, and this limit was chosen based on technology that is
> now ready for deployment to your local museum, because these decisions
> were made years ago.
>
> If I am remembering things correctly, there was even some insistence
> that the signal be displayable by sets designed for the old broadcast
> standard. If that sounds thinking-impaired, well, that's the FCC for you.

kind of like how NTSC color was kludged on top of the existing black and 
white broadcast signal in the name of backwards compatibility?

-- 
~Mike

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