[opendtv] Re: Aereo startup tries to thwart additional lawsuits
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 11 May 2013 10:07:41 -0400
On May 10, 2013, at 10:09 AM, Gary Blievernicht <garybliev@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> In my house, about ten miles north of the Capitol building of the State of
> Michigan, I have one wired internet provider available, Frontier, and I have
> to pay them the mid range price ($32/month) for 3Mb service, to actually get
> the 1.7Mb service delivered. On a good day.
>
> With my very large directional antenna (not a coat hanger) I get excellent
> O-T-A HD reception from Lansing and Flint markets. The quality of the O-T-A
> far exceed stream quality, even when I make a DVD recording in standard
> definition. (no buffering)
Yes, Bert does have blinders on with respect to the limitations of the Internet
(today) as it relates to delivering TV programming to the masses. If you want
HIGH QUALITY, packaged media is still the best game in town, for one simple
reason:
Compressionists take the time to deliver the best picture quality possible
given the reality of limited bit budgets.
The quality for the MVPDs varies, but is generally decent.
The quality for broadcasts also varies, based on several factors:
1. The number of programs in the multiplex;
2. The complexity of the material being encoded (e.g. talking heads versus high
action sports)
3. The quality of the real time encoders they use. Note that with real time
encoding it is not possible to deal with problematic sequences.
It is also important to note that most real time encoders employ pre-filtering
to deal with these problem sequences. As a result, the actual delivered
resolution is variable. Apparently, consumers are less concerned about the
video being soft at times than they are about it being riddled with artifacts.
All of that being said, there is another reality:
Quality does not matter that much to most viewers - the ability to access
something they want to watch is typically far more important. Thus, while most
OTT services deliver lower quality, the viewer is willing to sacrifice quality
for convenience and choice. And the quality requirements for most second
screens is lower for several reasons:
1. Small screens (but resolution is improving);
2. Quality versus bitrate when paying for the bits;
3. Good enough to get the job done.
I see all kinds of artifacts when I am watching videos on my iPad. But blocking
artifacts when I am watching a short news clip with talking heads is a
reasonable tradeoff.
Alas, the members of this list may be the worst people to be worried about
video quality, as maintaining and delivering high video quality has been part
of our careers for decades.
I still remember going to NAB in the early '90s and walking up to watch various
demos of compressed video - in many cases both the person doing the demo, and
people in the audience would recognize me and ask me to point out the defects
in the pictures…
Regards
Craig
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