I read on the a BBC News Technology article that the iPlayer was going to be
reengineered to be Mac-compatible, which is something both I AND my
Mac-loving housemate are VERY keen to see in action!
I also watch stuff on my 17" LCD PC screen, which runs natively at 720p
(1280x720) and I can really see the difference... I'm watching some Stargate
SG-1 encodes as I write this up, the video bitrate is ~1mbps and I can still
see the artefacts. I'm used to good quality analogue TV (which today STILL
outperforms DTT imo!) and DSAT-level bitrates for TV, and I can only
tolerate Internet-level bitrates for a while before they start to wind me
up. My Dad is the same as me, but I also note that my 15-year-old sister
watches LOADS of YouTube and MySpace videos, and she has a big 16:9 monitor
on her computer (I want one like it!)
Do you think it's a generation gap thing? Or, like that recent article I
read on DigitalSpy about the results of the DAB quality survey, people who
don't vocalise their concern about lowering quality just don't fully
understand what a good quality stream should look / sound like? Admittedly
this is maybe bordering on digital snobbery ("What? Sub-4mbps bitrates in
this video file? OUTRAGEOUS! JEEVES - GET THE BBC TRUST ON THE LINE
IMMEDIATELY" etc...) but I do believe that a lot of people maybe can
subconsciously detect that a stream or broadcast isn't great quality, but as
they have no obvious benchmark to go against, or have no real grasp of the
potential quality that can be achieved using even the present incumbent
formats, they don't voice their concern or complaint about it?
Thinking out loud here...
> -----Original Message-----
> From: James Cox [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: 19 April 2007 02:10
> To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk
> Subject: Re: [backstage] BBC Archive trial
>
>
> On 19 Apr 2007, at 01:48, Christopher Woods wrote:
>
> > I bet your siblings don't watch downloaded media on a big, high-
> > quality television set. YouTube and even broadband-bitrate
> streaming
> > formats just look shockingly bad on a TV screen - the old
> interlaced
> > sets of yore, whose method of display helped to mask the encoding
> > artefacts to a degree, are increasingly relegated to bedrooms and
> > lofts, with big, flatscreen LCD and plasma sets taking
> centre stage -
> > and they don't hide _anything_ in the source image. Even
> when I hook
> > up my laptop via DVI to my parents'
> > modest
> > 22" Samsung LCD (720p, HD Ready) in the kitchen, and sit a few feet
> > away, things like BBC News streams look pretty ugly.
> >
> > Freeview looks even worse, especially on HD-ready flatscreens - but
> > that's another bugbear of mine. If the BBC _REALLY_ cared about
> > quality, they'd encode to H264 (or my favourite at the
> moment, x264) -
> > full-blown H.
> > 264/AVC
> > as used for BBC HD would be overkill because you need a BEAST of a
> > machine to even play big resolutions back without it falling into a
> > complete heap, but whilst x264 would be great for any HD
> content (we
> > can only
> > hope!) x264
> > can also give comparable quality to any of the ASP codecs
> like xvid or
> > divx and bring in slightly smaller filesizes.
> >
> > And, as there's things like the CCCP codec pack and freely
> available
> > filters, the BBC could create a simple codec bundle - the
> BBC Playback
> > Pack, which contained the filters, splitters and codecs
> necessary and
> > maybe an automated update mechanism which would run whilst you were
> > watching a BBC video to check for updates or additional codecs down
> > the line. And, as a bonus, the more skilled PC users could
> keep their
> > own codec installs if they already had them set up
> perfectly, and then
> > just be able to view the high-quality content without
> having to have
> > the BBC pack installed.
> >
> > It'd be a crying shame - and a missed opportunity - if the
> BBC don't
> > think of doing something like this and encoding with an AVC
> codec, at
> > least for any HD content that's planned to be offered
> eventually via
> > the platform.
> >
> > </2p>
> >
> Well here's the kicker: they are all using their computers,
> which have a resolution at least as high as the new flashy
> flat screen TVs.
> So yeah, they see the artifacts... and don't care that much.
> (that said - free to students is obviously much more valuable
> than great quality... )
>
> I agree- I don't think this is any harder than trying to push
> it via real. I accept it's early days, but this is vital if
> the BBC wants to get this right - picking good quality codecs
> and running with them.
>
> that said, don't forget - the source material for stuff like
> jeeves and wooster et al isn't that great to begin with -- so
> there's only so much you can do.
>
> I can't wait to see if i have been accepted- really looking
> forward to being able to call up the great content that
> exists -- as and when. And hoping very much that it doesn't
> go the way of 4OD: Windows only!
>
> - James
>
> -
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