[LINK] Weekend Magazine - The Future of Australian Television - Taxation, Licensing, Advertising or Criminalization?

[David Boxall]

On Mon, 16 Nov 2009 at 20:42:38 +1030 Steven Clark wrote:
> Tom Koltai wrote:
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: David Boxall 
>>>
>>> On Sat, 14 Nov 2009 at 14:18:59 +1100 Tom Koltai wrote:
>>>     
>>>> ...
>>>> Standard Definition TV picture @ 400 MB per hour.
>>>>       
>>> In my experience, H.264 video encoded at much less than 1800 
>>> kilobytes/sec (with AAC audio at 160 kilobytes/sec: a little 
>>> less than 1 gigabyte/hour) yields poor quality. Perceptions differ, of 
>>> course, but adopting too low a standard risks alienating the market.
>>>     
>> Actually David, the market (most file sharing users) still prefer the
>> lower SD resolution versions.
>>   
> this would most likely be because (a) HD/widescreen is still relatively 
> new, but probably more importantly (b) smaller files are quicker to DL 
> *and* take smaller chunks out of data quotas.
>
> we pay-per-volume for access to the internet. if the HD file is several 
> times larger than the SD version, and i just want to see the episode, 
> why would i bother with the larger file?
>
> though just because people 'prefer' SD now, that's not a good reason to 
> lock that in for the future. [no one will ever need more than 640Kb ...]
> ...
On Tue, 17 Nov 2009 at 03:37:47 +1100 andrew clarke wrote:
> On Mon 2009-11-16 20:42:38 UTC+1030, Steven Clark (steven.clark at internode.on.net) wrote:
> ...
> There's also the issue of many devices (older desktop PCs, low power
> notebooks or other portable devices) being unsuitable for playing HD
> content reliably, ie. without audio stuttering or dropped video frames.
As others have gone to the trouble of responding, I'll add my bit.

To me, the issue isn't one of definition (HD vs SD), but of quality. SD 
encoded at a high bitrate can look better than HD encoded at a low one. 
SD being less data than HD to begin with, and the higher bitrate 
requiring less compression to achieve, decompression takes less effort, 
so lower-power devices can handle it (given the necessary storage, etc).

It depends on the market. Given the quality of video that Tom advocates, 
I'll take a book.
 
-- 
David Boxall                         | ignorance more frequently
                                     | begets confidence than does
http://david.boxall.id.au            | knowledge
                                     | --Charles Darwin (introduction
                                     |  to 'The Descent of Man' 1871)