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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Robert O who wrote (62163)	3/19/2002 12:06:07 PM
From: runes	Respond to of 70976

OT Robert O. - First comment - something is not right with your MPEG1 file. MPEG 1 is a precisely defined format that requires something like 50 MByte for 5 minutes. Uncompressed VHS would run about 1.5 GByte for 5 min. (Compression ratio about 30:1). MPEG2 does not have a fixed compression rate but, in general, it tends to run larger than MPEG1 with the benefit of improved quality (double the information in about the same filesize). DVD is also MPEG2 compression but runs about 4 times the information so you end up with about 150 MByte for 5 minutes (and resolution that well exceeds the capability of your standard 4:3 TV). ...What you are quoting - 5 min/GByte sounds like uncompressed (AVI or similar) video. Your filesize is slightly smaller but that may be that your screen resolution is lower (TV screen is about 480 X 640?). Second comment - image quality. I mentioned in my previous post about the need for steady cam. This is because motion (spatial + temporal shifts) are the achilles heel of MPEG compression. It is fairly robust when you have objects moving in a static field. But when the entire field moves because of zoom motion or an unsteady hand, you either have to accept artifacts like you are seeing or increase the encoding bit rate (= larger file sizes). BUT - BACK TO THE MAIN THRUST OF YOUR COMMENTS ...Yes there is a need for a another generation of memory storage - which is on the way. DVD will do 2 1/2 hours of storage at twice the quallity of the current TV - it's just too damn expensive at the moment ($500 for burner, $10/disk). Hardisks have already busted the price curve with Fry's selling an 80 GB hard disk for $90. But hard disks still need to transition to UDMA 133 and beyond. Processors are now up to real time video capable speeds. ANother generation will provide the breathing space to work on the computer while crunching video. DRAM - This is actually the laggard. Even if you allow a 10X improvement in prioce/bit you are still talking about $100/5 GByte vs <$10/5 GByte for DVD (optical media storage). Expect DVD prices to drop down to $2 - $3 as volume increases. Net result - you are not going to see DRAM (/SRAM/FLASH) modules replacing physical media storage. But you will see a number of new load and go devices ala MP3 player - vidi players, compact digi cams and the like.