I don’t often weigh in here, but I’ll break that rule just for now. Craig,
your opinions on interlace and broadcast television are WELL known, and
frequently cited.
When I was helping one of those dreaded broadcast networks decide on an HDTV
format, they made a few observations. Some were right. Some were wrong.
“In the future, all displays will be progressive.” On this they were correct.
CRTs ruled the day for broadcasters, and flat-panel displays were in their
infancy. In those days, tests were still being done on multi-scanning CRT
displays that were never imported into North America. When I asked the
‘experts’ back then, “Why not do 1920x1080p?” they answered, “Too many pixels.”
(An echo of Joseph II’s “Too many notes” comment to Mozart in Amadeus.)
“Future displays are not likely to be greater resolution than 1280x720.” On
this, they were wrong. As noted earlier, flat-panel displays were just being
developed. They were probably just 640x480 then. “HD” came later. Who would
have believed that a 4k display would be almost a commodity now?
“720p’60’ is better for sports.” My opinion is that this, too, is wrong. At
the time, “Super Slo-mo” replay devices were already doing 90 frames per second
(in 525i!) and that did make a difference. To me, there is no advantage of a
blurry 1280x720 frame over a blurry 1920x1080 field. For sports, you need more
frames, and camera/replay devices today have that covered nicely.
You may finally get your wish to leave interlace behind as broadcasters produce
1080p or better. In the move to UHD, there probably isn’t a need to bring
1080i along with it.
Now, if we could only get rid of 1/1001 frame rates. That’s another legacy
that still defies all efforts to remove it.
Regards,
Ken Hunold
From: opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of
Craig Birkmaier
Sent: Saturday, March 21, 2020 11:08
To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [opendtv] Re: YouTube, Amazon Prime forgo streaming quality to relieve
European networks
Several interesting tidBITS here...
We have heard for years how much better Internet service is in Europe; but much
of that chatter is based on price. When prices are artificially lowered by
government edict, investment in the infrastructure may suffer, as appears to be
the case in many areas of Europe.
And it seems that the definition of Standard Definition Television (SDTV) has
evolved well beyond what it was in the last century.
This info is from a Wikipedia article on 480P:
Standard definition has always been a 4:3 aspect ratio with a pixel resolution
of 640 × 480 pixels.
In
PAL<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__en.wikipedia.org_wiki_PAL&d=DwMFaQ&c=lI8Zb6TzM3d1tX4iEu7bpg&r=NAxhwDCO_WwVyfXOSt1Otg&m=Q8fbf6TYyBSgnyyNIURzybgP7Z3kgTRRGCMhbRoLPWY&s=IaEELSN51gCF7qc_tRoYpzmBNbP2-eHjRa0SyHUveBk&e=>
regions such as
Europe<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__en.wikipedia.org_wiki_Europe&d=DwMFaQ&c=lI8Zb6TzM3d1tX4iEu7bpg&r=NAxhwDCO_WwVyfXOSt1Otg&m=Q8fbf6TYyBSgnyyNIURzybgP7Z3kgTRRGCMhbRoLPWY&s=azmc1PiRDg6Iwmx88qZ5BkEsBIxqnQ37uSek8NBecIM&e=>
and
Australia<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__en.wikipedia.org_wiki_Australia&d=DwMFaQ&c=lI8Zb6TzM3d1tX4iEu7bpg&r=NAxhwDCO_WwVyfXOSt1Otg&m=Q8fbf6TYyBSgnyyNIURzybgP7Z3kgTRRGCMhbRoLPWY&s=RLhw-34s4r9ROa6aglTRA-cS7LrOg2NpXWc6pxCmmJs&e=>,
the vertical resolution is 576 pixels, and the frame-rate has been reduced to
25 fps.
Clearly this IS NOT what Netflix, et al, are delivering in Europe now. What is
being delivered is 576P derived from high definition masters. On screens 32” or
below this is almost imperceptible from HDTV at normal viewing distances. And
most HDTV displays upconvert this to their native resolution with excellent
quality.
Sadly, the legacy of interlace is still with us, and Europe, as broadcasters
persist in using the 1080i family of HDTV formats...
It’s way past time to eliminate this legacy...
IMHO, both interlace AND Broadcast TV.
Regards
Craig
On Mar 21, 2020, at 12:55 AM, Monty Solomon
<monty@xxxxxxxxxx<mailto:monty@xxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-youtube-exclusive-idUSKBN2170OP
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