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One experience with noise
On Mon, 19 Dec 2005 23:02:09 +0000, Paul Johnson
wrote: Richard Clark wrote: On Thu, 15 Dec 2005 09:02:17 +0000, Paul Johnson wrote: (If I was poor enough, my idiot government would buy this stuff for me, but instead, I believe I will be taxed to buy it for someone else.) Show me where I can sign up for a free TV from the government... Newsflash (it took less than a week to come true): "Under a deal negotiated by Republicans in the House and Senate, up to $1.5 billion would be available to help some people buy converter boxes to keep their old, analog-signal televisions working when the transition [to digital TV] is finished." Welcome to the GOP welfare state. There's a big difference between a cheap part from Radio Shack and a television... On a pro-rata basis, it is 30,000,000 cheap parts. As Rummie tells our troops, you gotta work with whatcha got! If you want a TV, contribute to the DeLay defense fund (but you are still kissing your tax money good-bye). |
One experience with noise
On Thu, 15 Dec 2005 09:02:17 +0000, Paul Johnson
wrote: Wes Stewart wrote: Furthermore, my wife and rarely watch anything live (except for local news), but use two DVRs for time shifting and commercial elimination. So with my system, if I can get a picture at all, I would need three STBs (set top boxes) that are programmable or a couple of new digital recorders and a new TV set. Odds are you'll need the STB for each PVR, not TV. PVR's are basically a VCR with a computer instead of a video slot, same limitations apply with the signal you feed it. The video coming out of the PVR isn't going to change magically overnight, though. (If I was poor enough, my idiot government would buy this stuff for me, but instead, I believe I will be taxed to buy it for someone else.) Show me where I can sign up for a free TV from the government... Actually, I think that you already know that the gummit is talking about furnishing STBs to poor folk and you're just being argumentative. From this source: http://www.todaysengineer.org/2005/Dec/spectrum.asp "The Senate DTV bill, passed on 3 November, calls for a 7 April 2009 analog shutoff, and would use up to $3 billion of the $10 billion expected from the analog spectrum auction to subsidize most of the cost for converter boxes" After the governmental "handling charge" the $3B will eat up $6B of the "windfall." And after a natural disaster cable TV systems will be working about as well as cell phones have. While the old analog TV and radio will keep chugging along. http://www.nab.org/Newsroom/PressRel.../WSJ101504.asp 4:3 aspect was a technical limitation that really should have died long before my birth, much less now. Good riddance. What "technical limitation"? Aspect ratios are arbitrary. Most were set based on film sizes, not some CCD. Some of the finest images ever produced are on 4 x 5 or 8 x 10 film negatives, often displayed with vertical orientation, as are many of the masters' paintings; so much for 16:9 horizonatal. |
One experience with noise
Wes,
You got that right. Perhaps you are even too kind to cable service. After Hurricane Charley hit us head on last year we saw the following outages. Ordinary phone: 4 days (mostly underground) Electric power: 7 days (extensive pole replacement and rewiring) Cell phones: about 2 weeks (temporary towers brought in) Cable service: one month (cable runs on same poles as electric service) There was no flooding from Charley, but the winds were quite a bit stronger than Katrina and Rita. As soon as we got a temporary generator running we were able to watch regular over-the-air analog TV. 73, Gene W4SZ Wes Stewart wrote: [big snip] And after a natural disaster cable TV systems will be working about as well as cell phones have. While the old analog TV and radio will keep chugging along. |
One experience with noise
"Wes Stewart" wrote in message
... On Thu, 15 Dec 2005 09:02:17 +0000, Paul Johnson wrote: And after a natural disaster cable TV systems will be working about as well as cell phones have. Only as long as the emergency broadcast system is kept alive. There's no particular reason the funding for it couldn't be shut off/expanded to include cable/switch only to cable/whatever. In fact, one could argue that during a natural disaster cable TV could actually be more reliable in that its infrastructure is somewhat more protected than a huge antenna ever could be. (I seem to recall from Hurricane Katrina that some of the first phone calls getting out -- barring folks with satellite phones -- were VOIP calls over wired Internet connections.) 4:3 aspect was a technical limitation that really should have died long before my birth, much less now. Good riddance. What "technical limitation"? Aspect ratios are arbitrary. Not true. In the 'early days' of TV, the glass for CRTs couldn't be blown into such arbitrary aspect ratios; hence 4:3 was chosen as a reasonably compromise between producibility and "well, at least it's not square...!" :-) Presumably 16:9 is a closer match to human vision than 4:3, and for viewing a movie it would seem to make sense to try to match that since you're trying to encompass the viewer. ---Joel |
One experience with noise
On Tue, 20 Dec 2005 18:12:55 -0800, "Joel Kolstad"
wrote: 4:3 aspect was a technical limitation that really should have died long before my birth, much less now. Good riddance. What "technical limitation"? Aspect ratios are arbitrary. Not true. In the 'early days' of TV, the glass for CRTs couldn't be blown into such arbitrary aspect ratios; hence 4:3 was chosen as a reasonably compromise between producibility and "well, at least it's not square...!" :-) Presumably 16:9 is a closer match to human vision than 4:3, and for viewing a movie it would seem to make sense to try to match that since you're trying to encompass the viewer. Hi Joel, In the early days? I've worked on some of the oldest sets known (albeit post WWII) that had Round tubes pointing up into a mirror for viewing - early rear projection ;-) I also worked on a lot of round tubes that were masked rectangular. The mask matched the transmitted signal which was, of necessity and technical law, rectangular. If glass blowing technology dominated the aspect ratio, we would still be groaning about having to watch through portholes. The aspect ratio is called the "Academy Ratio" and it matched the Hollywood product (hence the Academy as in Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the moniker for the Academy awards -AKA Oscar- organization). When TV began to dominate the market, Hollywood ventured into other aspect ratios (which made no more sense than the first, and cost a gazillion times more to fabricate lenses). 73's Richard Clark, KB7QHC |
One experience with noise
On Sat, 10 Dec 2005 08:06:58 -0700, Wes Stewart
wrote: On Tue, 06 Dec 2005 23:28:15 GMT, Owen Duffy wrote: Don't you have digital television? Best thing since sliced bread. I don't know if you can receive analog television beyond the digital coverage ranges, but you probably wouldn't want to watch it. Digital TV makes weak signals most watchable, DVD quality at weak signals. I use it and I am only 4km from the transmitter, but that is another situation where it works a treat, ghost free pictures close to the tranmitter in the presence of local reflections (hills, water towers etc). I suppose you have the Coded Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (COFDM) standard there. Yes. I saw STBs in the supermarket this morning for A$69 or about US$55. Owen -- |
One experience with noise
The aspect ratio is called the "Academy Ratio" and it matched the
Hollywood product (hence the Academy as in Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,......................................... Lately, I've been using my puter to watch TV more than my actual TV. Better pix, and I can putz around on the puter while I watch all the talking heads, etc... :/ I'm using a ATI 9800 AIW card that has a phillips tuner in it. It will shift the view for many aspect ratios. The usual 4:3, but also 16:9, 1.85:1 and 2.35:1 in letterbox or widescreen. Which do I usually use? The standard 4:3... :/ I generally prefer it, and if a movie comes on in letterbox, it will show that way even if I stay 4:3. I run my desktop at 1600x1200 res on a 21 inch monitor. The TV is much smoother than any regular TV as you don't really see the pixels too much if you are up close. A regular TV will look like a maze of dots if you hover up close. This thing, you can hardly notice the pixels at all . If you sit back, with it full screen, it's like a baby movie screen. With the 1600 desktop, if I window the TV as "large", it still only covers slightly less than 1/4 of the screen. :/ At that setting, it's nearly like a moving photograph. :) Kinda like psuedo HDTV...Not quite the same, but it's semi close as far as perceived quality. This TV/vid card is nifty cuz it also lets me record video. So my puter is like a digi VCR. If I see something , say like that sea plane blowing up and crashing into the water, :(, I can reach over and record it...Yep. I did manage to record that actual crash video..:( You can see the explosion, and the fireball definitely following the detached wing as it fell to the water. The rest of the plane just zipped on down to the water.. It all happened so fast, there was no chance for them to try anything. Kinda looked like the prop sheared off into the wing..?? I guess they will know after they look at it. MK |
One experience with noise
On Tue, 20 Dec 2005 18:12:55 -0800, "Joel Kolstad"
wrote: "Wes Stewart" wrote in message .. . On Thu, 15 Dec 2005 09:02:17 +0000, Paul Johnson wrote: And after a natural disaster cable TV systems will be working about as well as cell phones have. Only as long as the emergency broadcast system is kept alive. EBS is -not- necessary for local stations to stay on the air using emergency power with small crews providing emergency information to local residents http://www.tvtechnology.com/features..._katrina.shtml There's no particular reason the funding for it couldn't be shut off/expanded to include cable/switch only to cable/whatever. In fact, one could argue that during a natural disaster cable TV could actually be more reliable in that its infrastructure is somewhat more protected than a huge antenna ever could be. (I seem to recall from Hurricane Katrina that some of the first phone calls getting out -- barring folks with satellite phones -- were VOIP calls over wired Internet connections.) 4:3 aspect was a technical limitation that really should have died long before my birth, much less now. Good riddance. What "technical limitation"? Aspect ratios are arbitrary. Not true. In the 'early days' of TV, the glass for CRTs couldn't be blown into such arbitrary aspect ratios; hence 4:3 was chosen as a reasonably compromise between producibility and "well, at least it's not square...!" :-) Presumably 16:9 is a closer match to human vision than 4:3, and for viewing a movie it would seem to make sense to try to match that since you're trying to encompass the viewer. Richard Clark has answered this very nicely. However, I restate my case, aspect ratios are arbitrary. Once again a (compromise) "standard" is being set by what Hollywood is using. See: http://www.dvdaust.com/aspect.htm |
One experience with noise
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One experience with noise
On Tue, 20 Dec 2005 18:26:08 -0800, Richard Clark
wrote: When TV began to dominate the market, Hollywood ventured into other aspect ratios (which made no more sense than the first, and cost a gazillion times more to fabricate lenses). Hi All, To further illustrate the migration through the various aspect ratios, the Academy ratio was simply that of the standard 35mm film exposure. When the film is held vertically, you can see a succession of exposed images in the correct (normal to viewing) way. The image diagonal is roughly 50mm, and this is considered a "normal" lens size (by which multiples are called either telephoto 2X, 3X, or wide 0.7X, or very wide angle 0.56X). There was also the 70mm Hollywood product which was simply a double sized strip of film (first offered in the 1930 production of King Vidor's "Billy the Kid"). It was still in the standard Academy ratio. The Academy ratio of 4:3 is usually normalized to 1.33:1 for comparison to other ratios. When the wider (but not taller) formats were offered, things got really weird. Cinerama needed three cameras (and three projectors) to lace together the complete image of roughly 2.6:1. Super Panavision requires only one projector for this ratio. Cinemascope replaced Cinerama with a 2.66:1 ratio, but only lasted to 1967. It accomplished this on the standard 35mm film by squeezing the image to fit the wide the of the film (this required Anamorphic lenses for exposing and projection). With all the processes out there, I've forgotten the one that twisted the image 90 degrees to fit it on to the film strip in its wide format. Panavision had a blighted start and wandered the field from 2.75:1 to 2.2:1. In fact when we come to the digital formats, Panavision only offered one as recently as 1999 - and, of course, the lens prices went through the stratosphere. When you think of it, the Academy ratio still rules the digital photography marketplace. How many 2.66:1 Kodaks have you seen? Anyone find a 2.75:1 Nikon? Maybe. 73's Richard Clark, KB7QHC, and projectionist |
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