<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR><DIV><DIV>On May 16, 2006, at 10:13 AM, John Brooks wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite">On 5/16/06, <B class="gmail_sendername">Cory Papenfuss</B> <<A href="mailto:papenfuss@juneau.me.vt.edu">papenfuss@juneau.me.vt.edu</A>> wrote:<DIV><SPAN class="gmail_quote"></SPAN><BLOCKQUOTE class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> > I can dig that much. How do we figure out the signal quality, then?<BR>><BR> Simple... it's all crap. As was pointed out before, to have more<BR>than crap costs more than anyone but broadcasters can pay. They're <BR>*required* to have clean, standards-compliant signals.</BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR><BR>... so they put in the minimal amount of effort necessary to comply? Makes sense, I guess. The average consumer doesn't seem to notice- heck, I guess it took me long enough.<BR></DIV></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><BR></DIV><DIV>It wasn't that way long ago.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>CBS News had some footage of the 1968 Democratic Convention (In Chigago for those who don't remember). It was great stuff (as far as broadcasters are concerned), police cracking heads and even more obvious cases of law-breaking by those sworn to uphold it.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>CBS did not air that footage because it contained a "technical flaw". I saw the footage years later and had to look hard to see what the "flaw" was: maybe a 3% or 4% AC hum in the video, probably not noticeable to most viewers. Technical standards meant something in those days.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Of course the possibility of a fine for "out of standard" video helped this view along.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>No broadcaster would hesitate to air that footage today, and you know what changed it: CNN</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Ted Turner proved to the world that the public would accept less-than-perfect video. Nowadays "amateur video" is accepted, even solicited and paid for, by every major (and minor) network. Uncorrected slant-track VCRs are fed to air without hesitation (well nowadays not so much, but when time base correctors were $20,000 items that meant something).</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I saw a demonstration of HD TV many years ago at O'Hare Airport (when HD was almost unknown to the public). Were the people wowed by the resolution, the crispness, the fine detail? No, the comment I heard most was "wow, it's wide".</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Yuppie and Yuppette sitting on their couch are happy with VHS quality, they are not demanding anything better, to the point where the government was moved to force it on consumers at the behest of Sony et al, because quality doesn't and never will sell.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>As a group folks on this list are better than most, but picture quality is still not their primary goal.</DIV></BODY></HTML>