🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1990Mar15.090214.9871@spectre.ccsf.caltech.edu> gbrown@tybalt.caltech.edu (Glenn C. Brown) writes:
>  I'd be perfectly happy to settle for the telivision picture tubes of today!
>It's the signal that's so horrendous!  I mean:  If you've ever seen the
>output of a laser disc player, it's awesome!  It shows what your picture tube
>can do.  It's the low signal to noise ratio of the broadcast signals that we
>receive that's horrendous!

I disagree completely.  Resolution is sickly compared to what it could
be.  Have you ever seen a high resolution screen?  Laser disks are as
good as it gets on a regular TV but the resoulution is still pitiful.
The pixels are huge and there's no signal that can possibly fix that.
Maybe I'm spoiled by looking at 1000+ line computer screens so much
(I'd like HDTV to be even higher resolution but that would *really* be
expensive).

>  I commend the FCC for requiring that the new format signals be backwards
>compatible, but I think that the standard could easily offer more than just
>backwards compatibility.

[idea deleted --billd]

How long do we have to carry around the baggage of a standard that was
designed so long ago that it can't even get the colors right most of
the time?  Color was an add-on and the implementation suffered in order
to maintain compatibility with old black and white sets.  At some point
you have to say "enough is enough".  We can do so much better now.  We
know a lot more about video signals than we did when NTSC was designed.
Also, the frame rate is annoying.  It destroys resolution when
converting 24 frame/sec film to video due to frame mixing.  I want a
standard with at least 1000 lines and a 72Hz frame rate.  Wide screen
would be nice for films and square pixels would be nice for computer
graphics.  Why suffer with the old forever?  Just because most people
won't be able to afford it is rediculous.  Most people couldn't afford
pocket calculators when they first came out (or TV's, or cars or most
other major new technologies).  We need to define a standard that is
good and is doable and which can be foreseen to become cheap with time.
It doesn't have to be cheap now.  It would be nice if it was an
international standard as well so that video tapes and laserdisks will
work anywhere.  It took CD's 5-6 years to really break into the US market.
A lot of people thought they were rediculous when they first became
available.  They were very expensive (both the players and the disks).
Now it's getting hard to find records stores that have more vinyl than
aluminum coated plastic.  It took laser video even longer (it's back
and gaining a lot of momentum right now).  HDTV will be the same story.
We have generations of people now who grew up watching TV and they are
getting more and more demanding of quality video.

--Bill