Recent Article about the Media Lab...

Barry Shein

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Jun 10, 1989, 8:57:01 PM6/10/89

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There was a little spot about the Media Lab the other day in the
Boston Globe. Someone they interviewed there claimed that at any
distance over 9 feet people couldn't distinguish between HDTV and the
current standard. He couldn't understand how $500M of research into
HDTV could have failed to notice this.

Interesting.

-Barry Shein

Software Tool & Die, Purveyors to the Trade
1330 Beacon Street, Brookline, MA 02146, (617) 739-0202

Steven Grimm

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Jun 11, 1989, 1:43:09 AM6/11/89

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In article <890611005...@bu-cs.BU.EDU> b...@BU-CS.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) writes:
>...at any distance over 9 feet people couldn't distinguish between HDTV and
>the current standard.

That's really dependent on screen size. If people have wall-sized HDTVs,
which seems to me to be HDTV's goal (a theater screen in your home), then
the difference would DEFINITELY be noticeable. Try looking at a 60"
projection TV from 9 feet away and you'll see what I mean.

However, I think HDTV is a waste of time if we can't decide on a world
standard. It makes sense for everyone to settle on a standard at some
point, so if it takes HDTV to do that, I guess it's worthwhile. Better
$500mil on HDTV than on Smurf action figures. :)

---
These are my opinions, which you can probably ignore if you want to.
Steven Grimm Moderator, comp.{sources,binaries}.atari.st
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Peter da Silva

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Jun 11, 1989, 11:26:44 AM6/11/89

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In article <890611005...@bu-cs.BU.EDU>, b...@BU-CS.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) writes:
> There was a little spot about the Media Lab the other day in the
> Boston Globe. Someone they interviewed there claimed that at any
> distance over 9 feet people couldn't distinguish between HDTV and the
> current standard. He couldn't understand how $500M of research into
> HDTV could have failed to notice this.

This assumes a fairly standard size TV screen. This is going to be true of
any technology thanks to the limited resolution of the human eye.

However it's likely to make a significant difference to wide-screen TV.

(not to mention cheap hi-res monitors for us nerds)
--
Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation.

Business: uunet.uu.net!ficc!peter, pe...@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180.
Personal: ...!texbell!sugar!peter, pe...@sugar.hackercorp.com.

Joe Buck

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Jun 11, 1989, 2:55:50 PM6/11/89

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In article <79...@saturn.ucsc.edu> kor...@ssyx.ucsc.edu (Steven Grimm) writes:
>However, I think HDTV is a waste of time if we can't decide on a world
>standard. It makes sense for everyone to settle on a standard at some
>point, so if it takes HDTV to do that, I guess it's worthwhile. Better
>$500mil on HDTV than on Smurf action figures. :)

Maybe so, but there are many political reasons that this won't happen.
In particular, there seems to be a move on to create a US HDTV industry
and hold the Japanese off as long as possible, which means the
standards process will be used to this end (to keep out any foreign
HDTV "standards" that are developed first). Also, there is the issue
of backward compatibility with existing US TV sets; the FCC has
already announced that any HDTV system finally adopted must work with
old sets (in the way color broadcasts work with B&W sets).

--
-- Joe Buck jb...@epimass.epi.com, uunet!epimass.epi.com!jbuck

Bruce Klopfenstein

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Jun 11, 1989, 10:21:28 PM6/11/89

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From article <890611005...@bu-cs.BU.EDU>, by b...@BU-CS.BU.EDU (Barry Shein):

>
> There was a little spot about the Media Lab the other day in the
> Boston Globe. Someone they interviewed there claimed that at any
> distance over 9 feet people couldn't distinguish between HDTV and the
> current standard. He couldn't understand how $500M of research into
> HDTV could have failed to notice this.
>
> Interesting.

In case my previous response was lost, please note that this research
is very self-serving for MIT. As I recall, they are working on an
NTSC-compatible system using limited bandwidth. It is in MIT's interest
to show that viewers don't want 1125 line HDTV (or can't tell the
difference.) I think this is a very impotant point.

Bruce Klopfenstein

Tony Lai

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Jun 12, 1989, 2:21:09 PM6/12/89

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In article <890611005...@bu-cs.BU.EDU> b...@BU-CS.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) writes:
>

>There was a little spot about the Media Lab the other day in the
>Boston Globe. Someone they interviewed there claimed that at any
>distance over 9 feet people couldn't distinguish between HDTV and the
>current standard. He couldn't understand how $500M of research into
>HDTV could have failed to notice this.

What size monitor are they using? The recommended distance for watching
HDTV is between 3 and 4 times the picture height. The recommended distance
for NTSC is between 6 and 7 times the picture height. With a 20" monitor,
a distance of 9 feet is 9 times the picture height, so such a result isn't
unexpected.

The Media Lab is a bunch of Nazi, er, NTSC apologists. If NTSC were
imposed on us by a foreign country, we would consider it an act of war.
At least I would.

Obligatory smiley faces: :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)
--
Tony Lai