Hello, Dan Grimes wrote: > "It's also possible to use non-linear quantization to advantage." > This refers to floating point, no? Or are there new forms of > non-linear quantization being used? Like I once said to Prin: "at the end of the day any non-linear transfer function, like a gamma function, is just a quantisation table". We were talking about Digital Cinema, where they convert the linear-light signal to the gamma domain with a pure power law with an exponent of 1/2.6, and then encode to 12-bits (X',Y',Z'). This function makes the quantization steps approximately equally visible (or rather: invisible). But under which conditions of eye adaptation ? It also allocates a lot of codes to intensities that may never occur in the particular scene, or to parts of the image that the eye can not adapt to (like a dark window in a bright wall). I think that you would get better results with an adaptive scale of lower precision, i.e. a compression-type encoding. Bert Manfredi: > Jeroen said that with linear coding, our eyes want at least 14 bits of > resolution. If the bits are weighted differently, we can do fine with 8 > bits. Actually, my 14-bits example was the linear-light equivalent of a 10-bits gamma-domain signal. In order to get away with only 8-bits we would need to have a sufficiently high level of analog noise... It makes no sense to quantize a noisy signal any more accurate than the level of its noise. As the signals get cleaner, and our eyes get more chance to adapt temporally and spatially to the scene (larger viewing angles !), then we will need more bits. About the original subject, sampling frequency: anti-aliasing is needed in order to be able to represent a signal at arbitrary positions (i.e. in any possible phase). That alone already gives you the infinite variety of positioning of edges. If not, then you'll see jitter and moving jaggies on (slow) moving edges, and that is precisely aliasing. I see a lot of that every day ! A decent anti-aliasing filter (or anti-imaging, for that matter) with a mild roll-off needs some space for its transition band. Typically this lies between 1/3 and 1/2 of the sample frequency, therefore the usable bandwidth is only 1/3 and not 1/2. Nyquist was an optimist. In audio steeper filters can be used, because we do not perceive ringing at 20 kHz very well and also the energy that would kick the filters into such ringing is mostly absent. So for audio it is not too hard to approach 45% of the sample rate (20 kHz / 44 kHz). Not so in video: any edge will be surrounded by ringing. And low-ringing filters are necessarily not steep. I find it ridiculous that some people put on-off-on-off patterns (i.e. the Nyquist frequency) on test disks, and then other people expect that this frequency should pass unattenuated through the entire system. This frequency can be represented only in two phases (i.e. 0 and 180 degrees), therefore it can not move... It is much safer to suppress it entirely than to pass it ! Best, -- Jeroen +------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | From: Jeroen H. Stessen | Phone: ++31.40.27.40246 | | Deptmt.: Philips Applied Technologies | Mobex: ++31.40.27.99650 | | Digital Systems & Technologies | Mobile: ++31.6.4468.0021 | | Address: High Tech Campus 5 - room 5.025 | Skype: Jeroen.Stessen | | 5656 AE Eindhoven - Nederland | VoIP: Jeroen.Stessen.at.Philips | | Website: http://www.apptech.philips.com/ | E-mail: Jeroen.Stessen@xxxxxxxxxxx | +------------------------------------------+------------------------------------+