links for 2008-01-18

• Don’t believe the low bit-rate ‘HD’ lie | George Ou | ZDNet.com
  George Ou points out that "HD" download services from Apple and Microsoft are nothing of the sort, delivering quality that's actually below DVD. He's not wrong.
  (tags: HD downloads video apple microsoft tv)

Comments

[Gavin]

Ah yes, but we've been here before (more than once). Remember RealAudio v2.0 being referred to as "(near) FM quality"? - that was when it was "jumping" from 12Kbps to 20Kbps...

HD is the new emperor's new marketing format.

I'm amazed if anyone even understands the TV's, never mind the downloads.

And actually "HD" currently goes all the way up to 880Mbps (HDCAM SR) and I know a fair number of production-end people working the D5 format (323Mbps).

Following Moore's utilisation corollary - we'll always fill our hard drives, even if they contain more atoms than the known universe.

Ultimately, most consumers simply don't care for most content-types - it's access they want.

[Ian Betteridge]

It's very true that access is important, but I think with video people are more likely to be able to spot the difference than with audio. Certainly, watching "Blade Runner" on Blu-Ray was a revelation for me, compared to DVD.