Posted by Richard Crowley on 12/30/96 11:36

"Wondering_1" wrote ...
> To shoot and edit and create, digital is great, but as an end consumer
> product, I have to say, I'm disappointed.
>
> lately, as I wander through all the best Buy and Circuit City and Sears
> stores and look at the 42" Plasma or LCD or DLP monitors, each pre-viewing
> the latest hollywood blockbuster, I begin to cringe as I take a close look
> at the images on these screens.
>
> Compression artifacts, giant square pixels that dance around, strobe-like
> shimmering static backgrounds, all makes me long for the days of analog.

You seem to be assuming that all "digital" means "heavily compressed".
If you are talking about the lowest-common-denominator, end-user
distribution of HD/widescreen, you're likely right. Because the actual
data requires such a huge bandwidth, it seems unlikely that we poor
consumers will have to go the the neighborhood digitally-equipped
theatre to see HD video that isn't horribly compressed.

OTOH, note that DV and its variants (mini-DV, DVCAM,
DVCpro25, Digital8, etc.) are rated slightly *above* BetacamSP
which was considered "broadcast quality" for many years.

Ref: http://www.adamwilt.com/DV-FAQ-tech.html
"How good are the DV formats compared to other formats?"

Even SD video on most of the direct-broadcast satellite services
contains a lot of visible artifacts of JPEG compression as the
sattelite providers try to cram more channels into their limited
bandwidth.

This is also happening with the satellite radio services. People are
complaining about the low quality of the audio as they cram more
and more channels into the constrained bandwidth.

This is an economic and competitive issue, not really a technical one.
These quality tradeoffs are made consciously by the providers and
we are getting what they think we want. They are likely right as most
of the general public seems to be just fine with it.

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