who picked the number of lines?

So who picked 720 and 1080 for number of lines?

I'd rather have had a wider choice of formats like for 16:9 these:
1024 x 576
1280 x 720
1536 x 864
1792 x 1008
2048 x 1152 -- if only one to be chosen, choose this one
2304 x 1296
2560 x 1440

If Bob wants to stop the digital transition and switch everything over to
COFDM, then I think we should fix this, too :-)

--
|---------------------------------------/----------------------------------|
| Phil Howard KA9WGN (ka9wgn.ham.org) / Do not send to the address below |
| first name lower case at ipal.net / |
|------------------------------------/-------------------------------------|

Damn good question!

SONY and NHK, based on reams of data, settled on 1920 x 1080p back in the
80s. Before plasma displays, yoke costs pushed CRTs to interlaced
scanning. The world knew how to build 1280x1024 displays. What we have,
IMHO, is a market & mnfr cost collection of solutions.

Another provocative question might be: why 16:9 ?

One may suggest that theater construction and camera/film costs pushed that
side of the market to do specials in 2.35:1 and std stuff at 1.85:1. SONY's
muscle, demos at NAB and so forth brought us 16:9 (1.77:1), a shade under
Hollywood's 1.85:1.

Still further questions might be: what is the best upconvert
algorithum-to-final spatial resolution combination. How does one get 480i
to look halfway decent on a 1080 screen, for instance. Simple line doubling
doesn't do it. IMHO, the 1080 DVD player war, the mere existance of, is
driven by up conversion artifacts which become more noticable as screen
sizes increase. Whatever!

SMPTE offers an excellent set of digital television, softcover, large format
books on these subjects.



wrote in message
...
So who picked 720 and 1080 for number of lines?

I'd rather have had a wider choice of formats like for 16:9 these:
1024 x 576
1280 x 720
1536 x 864
1792 x 1008
2048 x 1152 -- if only one to be chosen, choose this one
2304 x 1296
2560 x 1440

If Bob wants to stop the digital transition and switch everything over to
COFDM, then I think we should fix this, too :-)

--
|---------------------------------------/----------------------------------|
| Phil Howard KA9WGN (ka9wgn.ham.org) / Do not send to the address below
|
| first name lower case at ipal.net /
|
|------------------------------------/-------------------------------------|

WGD wrote:
Damn good question!

SONY and NHK, based on reams of data, settled on 1920 x 1080p back in the
80s. Before plasma displays, yoke costs pushed CRTs to interlaced
scanning. The world knew how to build 1280x1024 displays. What we have,
IMHO, is a market & mnfr cost collection of solutions.

Seems like a reasonable analysis. I think the BBC also weighed in on
resolution at about the same time.

Another provocative question might be: why 16:9 ?

One may suggest that theater construction and camera/film costs pushed that
side of the market to do specials in 2.35:1 and std stuff at 1.85:1. SONY's
muscle, demos at NAB and so forth brought us 16:9 (1.77:1), a shade under
Hollywood's 1.85:1.

That's easy. 16:9 is very near the geometric mean of 4:3 and 2.40:1.
That means that a 16:9 aspect ratio display will use ~75% of the screen
for both 4:3 and 2.40:1. 1.85:1 will typically fill a 16:9 display due
to overscan, but the number of lines lost is pretty small.

Still further questions might be: what is the best upconvert
algorithum-to-final spatial resolution combination. How does one get 480i
to look halfway decent on a 1080 screen, for instance. Simple line doubling
doesn't do it. IMHO, the 1080 DVD player war, the mere existance of, is
driven by up conversion artifacts which become more noticable as screen
sizes increase. Whatever!

The best algorithm depends on a lot of things including arithmetic
precision and processor speed. There are a lot of variables that have to
be specified before the quality of the scaling can be determined. Which
things do you want to be better at, correct color or outline shape? Are
you willing to put up with artifacts to make text clear and sharp?

Matthew

--
I'm a consultant. If you want an opinion I'll sell you one.
Which one do you want?

Mr. Martin:

GOOD points. Thank You for taking the time to read and reply. Had not
thought about the meld of 16:9 and other ASRs.

And, YES, artifacts vs clean text. I recall working with SONY and 1125
Productions in NYC ~ static display of text was very important. How the
vibrating strings on a double bass looked was something else, i.e. not as
important.

Wayne



"Matthew L. Martin" wrote in message
...
WGD wrote:
Damn good question!

SONY and NHK, based on reams of data, settled on 1920 x 1080p back in
the 80s. Before plasma displays, yoke costs pushed CRTs to interlaced
scanning. The world knew how to build 1280x1024 displays. What we have,
IMHO, is a market & mnfr cost collection of solutions.

Seems like a reasonable analysis. I think the BBC also weighed in on
resolution at about the same time.

Another provocative question might be: why 16:9 ?

One may suggest that theater construction and camera/film costs pushed
that side of the market to do specials in 2.35:1 and std stuff at 1.85:1.
SONY's muscle, demos at NAB and so forth brought us 16:9 (1.77:1), a
shade under Hollywood's 1.85:1.

That's easy. 16:9 is very near the geometric mean of 4:3 and 2.40:1. That
means that a 16:9 aspect ratio display will use ~75% of the screen for
both 4:3 and 2.40:1. 1.85:1 will typically fill a 16:9 display due to
overscan, but the number of lines lost is pretty small.

Still further questions might be: what is the best upconvert
algorithum-to-final spatial resolution combination. How does one get
480i to look halfway decent on a 1080 screen, for instance. Simple line
doubling doesn't do it. IMHO, the 1080 DVD player war, the mere
existance of, is driven by up conversion artifacts which become more
noticable as screen sizes increase. Whatever!

The best algorithm depends on a lot of things including arithmetic
precision and processor speed. There are a lot of variables that have to
be specified before the quality of the scaling can be determined. Which
things do you want to be better at, correct color or outline shape? Are
you willing to put up with artifacts to make text clear and sharp?

Matthew

--
I'm a consultant. If you want an opinion I'll sell you one.
Which one do you want?

On Wed, 18 Jul 2007 20:02:23 GMT WGD wrote:

| Another provocative question might be: why 16:9 ?
|
| One may suggest that theater construction and camera/film costs pushed that
| side of the market to do specials in 2.35:1 and std stuff at 1.85:1. SONY's
| muscle, demos at NAB and so forth brought us 16:9 (1.77:1), a shade under
| Hollywood's 1.85:1.

Yes, another good question. I might have been inclined to choose a rather
simple 2:1 had I been doing it.


| Still further questions might be: what is the best upconvert
| algorithum-to-final spatial resolution combination. How does one get 480i
| to look halfway decent on a 1080 screen, for instance. Simple line doubling
| doesn't do it. IMHO, the 1080 DVD player war, the mere existance of, is
| driven by up conversion artifacts which become more noticable as screen
| sizes increase. Whatever!

Supposedly the art of scaling works rather well now. I have not seen any
artifacts on any pictures in the stores, even when the same thing is on
both 720 and 1080 line sets.

IMHO, the best way to do this is to have a zoom in/out button (pair) that
at least goes from fitting the whole picture inside the screen to filling
the whole screen, with a few steps in between. And that's without any
aspect distortion. Some people actually do like aspect distortion, at
least to fill the screen _and_ lose no parts of the picture. They can
have a wide/narrow button (pair).

Given such controls, one could just choose the screen aspect ratio they
prefer the most. Are those 2.35:1 movies actually coming with a geometry
of 2530x1080 (probably p24)? If not, they should be. Then if someone
wanted to actually manufacture a native/direct display at 2530x1080 for
the movie buffs, they could. ATSC over the air could not transmit it,
but the motion picture industry is wary of unencrypted OTA anyway and
would just as soon use BR-DVD for their content.

--
|---------------------------------------/----------------------------------|
| Phil Howard KA9WGN (ka9wgn.ham.org) / Do not send to the address below |
| first name lower case at ipal.net / |
|------------------------------------/-------------------------------------|

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 00:15:39 GMT WGD wrote:

| And, YES, artifacts vs clean text. I recall working with SONY and 1125
| Productions in NYC ~ static display of text was very important. How the
| vibrating strings on a double bass looked was something else, i.e. not as
| important.

And I hope there comes to be a 1920x1080p60 rendition of
"Resonant Chamber" from "Animusic 2". That's when I will
spring for the BR-DVD and 1080p60 set.

--
|---------------------------------------/----------------------------------|
| Phil Howard KA9WGN (ka9wgn.ham.org) / Do not send to the address below |
| first name lower case at ipal.net / |
|------------------------------------/-------------------------------------|

wrote:
On Wed, 18 Jul 2007 20:02:23 GMT WGD wrote:

| Another provocative question might be: why 16:9 ?
|
| One may suggest that theater construction and camera/film costs pushed that
| side of the market to do specials in 2.35:1 and std stuff at 1.85:1. SONY's
| muscle, demos at NAB and so forth brought us 16:9 (1.77:1), a shade under
| Hollywood's 1.85:1.

Yes, another good question. I might have been inclined to choose a rather
simple 2:1 had I been doing it.

Yet another ill informed opinion. Grow up! Realize that decisions like
this one are not made to please you. They are made by very smart people
(unlike you) who are trying there very best to get the most available
from the technology available.

| Still further questions might be: what is the best upconvert
| algorithum-to-final spatial resolution combination. How does one get 480i
| to look halfway decent on a 1080 screen, for instance. Simple line doubling
| doesn't do it. IMHO, the 1080 DVD player war, the mere existance of, is
| driven by up conversion artifacts which become more noticable as screen
| sizes increase. Whatever!

Supposedly the art of scaling works rather well now. I have not seen any
artifacts on any pictures in the stores, even when the same thing is on
both 720 and 1080 line sets.

So what? Your limited experience does not define the universe of
scaling. The real world include transcoding from 4K (or above) down to
DV-25, or lower, and virtually every stop in between. There are real
battles being fought in the world of digital video that you, obviously,
have no knowledge of.

IMHO, the best way to do this is to have a zoom in/out button (pair) that
at least goes from fitting the whole picture inside the screen to filling
the whole screen, with a few steps in between.

Completely irrelevant.

And that's without any
aspect distortion.

Completely impossible.

Some people actually do like aspect distortion, at
least to fill the screen _and_ lose no parts of the picture. They can
have a wide/narrow button (pair).

Why? Why not educate them that distortion in video is as bad, or worse,
than distortion in audio. Or are you in favor of audio distortion as
well? Or, are you suggesting that distortion of video is not as
important as audio distortion?

Given such controls, one could just choose the screen aspect ratio they
prefer the most. Are those 2.35:1 movies actually coming with a geometry
of 2530x1080 (probably p24)? If not, they should be.

No, they aren't and no, they shouldn't be. They are being rendered into
4K. Soon into 8K. Your ignorance about digital video is *amazing*.

Then if someone
wanted to actually manufacture a native/direct display at 2530x1080 for
the movie buffs, they could.

That is irrelevant.

ATSC over the air could not transmit it,
but the motion picture industry is wary of unencrypted OTA anyway and
would just as soon use BR-DVD for their content.


As usual, the world would be a much better place if only you were
allowed to make all of the decisions.

Matthew

--
I'm a consultant. If you want an opinion I'll sell you one.
Which one do you want?

The chosen wide aspect ratio was proposed because it was easy to demonstrate
that it could efficiently display other common aspect ratios.

The display rate and scan lines were selected because of bandwidth
constraints, with the other considerations mentioned above thrown into the
mix.

Richard

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 09:20:26 -0400, Richard wrote:
The chosen wide aspect ratio was proposed because it was easy to demonstrate
that it could efficiently display other common aspect ratios.

The display rate and scan lines were selected because of bandwidth
constraints, with the other considerations mentioned above thrown into the
mix.

But someday soon, I'm assured, tabdamage will be too CHEAP to meter!

Dave "and on that day whitespace will be FREED" DeLaney
--
\/David DeLaney posting from "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeableBLINK
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 09:20:26 -0400, "Richard"
wrote:

The chosen wide aspect ratio was proposed because it was easy to demonstrate
that it could efficiently display other common aspect ratios.

The display rate and scan lines were selected because of bandwidth
constraints, with the other considerations mentioned above thrown into the
mix.

Other considerations mentioned WHERE?

HINT: Not everyone shares your monitor. Only the Men in Black.