🚀 go-pugleaf

toddpw@tybalt.caltech.edu (Todd P. Whitesel) writes:
> square pixels would be nice for computer graphics.

	I think the thing to realize here is that there is very little in
common between broadcast TV and computer graphics.  First off, you have to
worry about bandwidth.  With 1024 x 1024 x 24 bit graphics at 72 Hz, you're
talking about 75 million pixels per second.  It may be fine to talk about
100 MHz video bandwidth on each of three coax cables in a lab, but how are
you going to transmit that over the air?  One of the absolute limits of
broadcasting is that bandwidth is a finite resouce.  Unless you can change
the gravitational constant of the universe by "just doing it", you have to
live with that fact.

	Secondly, with interactive computer graphics, the ratio of sources
to displays is about 1:1.  With broadcast TV, there are many, many more
recievers than there are sources of material to watch.  Using square pixels
may make life easier for the ray tracer folks, but that's just tough on
them.  Is there any fundemental reason why you can't do ray tracing with
rectangular pixels?  If using rectangular pixels saves broadcast bandwidth,
or makes it easier to build a reciever, it's A Good Thing.
--
Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu -OR- {att,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy
"My karma ran over my dogma"