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Video Quality Matters Less If You Enjoy the Show
An anonymous reader writes "Rice University researchers say new studies show that if you like what you're watching, you're less likely to notice the difference in video quality of the TV show, Internet video or mobile movie clip, putting a lie to some of the more extravagant marketing claims of electronics manufacturers. 'If you're at home watching and enjoying a movie, we found that you're probably not going to notice or even concern yourself with how many pixels the video is or if the data is being compressed,' said the lead researcher. 'This strong relationship holds across a wide range of encoding levels and movie content when that content is viewed under longer and more naturalistic viewing conditions.'"
seems to favors special effects over storyline!
Eh? I beg to differ. Especially if you're having a lot of it, quality starts to matter a lot.
But of course quality of video matters less with great movies and tv shows. I greatly enjoy watching Seinfeld even while the sound nor video quality is not up to bar with todays standards. However, I don't really like to pick up an old movie or tv show if I don't know it's great. I've always done that, even while people say the quality doesn't matter so much. But it does. While I can watch a average movie with a good video quality, I wouldn't do so with old movies.
You usually hear people saying that video quality or graphics in computer games aren't important but the story is. While certainly true, it doesn't mean you couldn't have both. After all, good video or graphics quality add to the immersion.
I certainly want both great story and good video quality. Just like I want great looks and and great sex from a girl.
Yep, that's the same reason some parts of Japanese comics are drawn sketchy without making it any less nice.
`echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
Old episodes of Dr Who and Star Trek have held up very well, however Star Wars and Enterprise don't do all that well. The best example I have found of this is Primer, I saw it first on google video and bought it within a week of viewing.
We are the Borg...
And if I'm trying to watch something that's low quality, I'm less likely to enjoy it in the first place. Only if I know I like something and really want to watch it and can't easily change the quality will I put up with low quality.
Not surprising to me. I grew up watching a B/W TV and the picture quality was definitely lower. Today, I am still happy to watch those old episodes in B/W. Its definitely about content. The thought that putting a movie in HD or 3D improves the storyline or the acting amuses me.
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
I believe the metaphor would fit more in the line of:
The looks matter less if the person is damned good at sex.
(I was going to say something else but my politically correct reflex kicked in :( it really ruins things sometimes)
Same applies to web comics. The aged xkcd comic has virtually zero artwork at all (much less 'quality' artwork), yet it has one of the highest readership counts of any web comic. It's because it uses very intelligent humor (most of the time) and it targets a very large, but very specific, audience.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
I think Wii sales proved that a long time ago.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Eh.
Most of the "TV" I watch is only 70 or 150 megabytes in size (via bittorrent). As long as I'm getting to see the latest Stargate or Eureka for free, and I'm enjoying it, it doesn't matter if the quality is "only" equal to VHS.
Similarly I don't mind watching HDTV via an old analog set. It's been downgraded to DVD quality but it's still better than the old staticy signal used to be. As for games: I'd sooner play a fun game on an old Atari or Nintendo systems (like Zelda Ocarina of Time), then most of the modern HD games on my X360.
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Best. Matrix. Reference. Evar.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Your comment reminded me of this article (posted on /. here), where the author came to exactly the same conclusion.
What I find interesting is that when I fire up my NES and play Final Fantasy it looks pretty good because that's what I grew up with but when I load up some N64 games I can't believe how bad they look. It will be interesting to see what the generation that grows up with HD thinks.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
Honestly, sex is the second most overrated thing in our cultural landscape
Sounds like you're not having very good sex!
I would say that the quality of the bed (or TV, or venue) matters less if you are enjoying the sex (or move, or concert).
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
>i'm sure there is an inverse curve here where as the quality of the media approaches sensory limits, the contents of the media would
>approach irrelevancy.
We passed that threshold with audio quality a long time ago, to the point where the listening environment is far more important than the recording. I wonder what the equivalent plateau is with video. I'm not suggesting that "you will literally believe the moving image is real" any more than a concert recording will make you believe you are at a concert and not listening to your stereo in your living room. But there are plateaus where differences in media quality are lost beyond a threshold of human perception (and in the case of audio, we have passed dog perception but not bats.)
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Many years ago, I worked with a company that ran a ship's bridge simulator for training and certification purposes. Walk into a particular room in their facility and it was laid out like a ship's bridge--real radar scopes and engine controls and all that. And, as you looked through the "windows," you would see other boats and bridges and buildings and things like that.
Of course, this was probably 1990 or so. The graphics were not all that great. But they were "good enough."
See, they weren't necessary for training and certification. You had to be able to identify a ship in your path as being a tugboat or an ocean liner. You had to identify bridges and such. But you didn't need to see the people walking around the decks or waving to you from the pier. You didn't need to have the coloring change depending on the angle of the sun and reflections off the glass of the tugboat bridge. Not for what they were doing, which was training you to bring a cargo ship into the port of Long Beach.
But this wasn't for entertainment purposes--this was for training.
You're right that a fun game is a fun game, regardless. Great graphics won't make an unfun game fun. However, I would say that great graphics can make a fun game more fun.
Turns out (citation needed) sound continuity is more important than video. People will put up with choppy or lossy video, as long as the soundtrack remains relatively coherent. But if the sound is dropping out or breaking up, they stop watching.
Which, if you think about it, is why we put up with crappy internet videos that speed along, but get frustrated when it's constantly buffering.
A.
First time I saw Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, I forgot it wasn't in English by the end. It is amazing what your brain can do.
They're not going to give you movies that everyone will buy.
I think more important than worrying about whether or not you're shooting SD, HD, or UltraMegaSuperFineNanoHD, is worrying about how you're shooting what you're shooting.
I'm tired of the MTV syndrome, where cameras can't ever be steady, and always have to jiggle around like a 7th grader on crack in order to appear more "live" and "in the moment." What's the point of ultra-crisp resolution if you screw it up by shaking the camera so much that I can't see detail in the first place? Rather than various production companies comparing the resolution of their penises to sell movies, I'd rather they concentrate on telling a story with good, steady shooting that draws people in to the scene rather than constantly drawing attention to the fact that they're watching something recorded by a camera in a major earthquake.
"I disagree with you" does not equal "flamebait."
If you're having it, you know that it's really not that special after all. Honestly, sex is the second most overrated thing in our cultural landscape.
Sex is like oxygen. When you're not getting it, nothing else matters. When you are getting plenty of it, you don't pay attention to it.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I would say that Plants vs. Zombies is a very good example of this. While it does look good, it doesn't have wiz bang graphics, and it has no real special effects. The graphics qualities are so low, that you don't even see the difference when it was ported to the iPhone. I would guess that it could be scaled down to a 16 color 320x200 screen and still be an awsome game by today's standards.
I don't think it's necessary a troll comment. If graphics were all that mattered to a person's enjoyment, the Wii flat out would not have sold. The graphics capabilities of the PS3 and XBox 360 are superior. The fact that the Wii outsold them is a testament to the fact that gameplay does indeed matter.
But then I realized the cable was blue, so I only gave it one star. I hate blue.
Aside from Wii Play and Wii Sports Resort, we have only bought 2 games for our Wii within the past year. But my kids would play them all day long if we let them.
Just because the number of games being sold isn't huge doesn't mean that Wii's aren't getting used. It's just that there is a ton of absolute crap games, but there are still quite a few very good games.
All this is, is a way to for TV/Movie companies to justify the degradation of quality visual and sound in programming and movies. As a country (in the USA) we were forced to leave analog signal for digital, but shit, digital has some major flaws. So now we pay big $ for digital TV's for bad visual/audio quality. Because digital can be compressed, and it's expected, the results can be atrocious. When a movie like Blade Runner that looked pretty good for its time on anolog looks like garbage in digital, that just says the industry is out for cash and thinks society is too stupid to care.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
So, what you're saying is that you're a better informed 360 buyer?
I'm a fairly picky gamer, but my Wii library has about 35 games in it currently, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend nearly all of them to anybody. (My only real regret was Mad World ... what a bore.)
My suggestion to you would be to stay out of the Imagine: Babiez section. You won't have to return so many that way. If you're returning so many games, it suggests that maybe you don't actually read up on them or know what you're getting beforehand. It's not like there are many surprises in games these days; FPSes are FPSes, EA Sports games are EA Sports games, and shovelware has always been shovelware. There's really no excuse for not knowing what you're getting before you play it.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
How did we, the people of slashdot, get onto the topic of sex quality to such an indepth fashion? In a thread about perceived quality of video output resolution, streaming, and encoding, of all things? JFC.
What is wrong with you people?!
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Marriage isn't about sex. It's about a personal connection to another human being. Sex isn't that important on its own. You don't get anything out of it that your hand can't provide. I'd rather have a sexless but loving marriage than I would a parade of young, easy pussy.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Why would I need to settle? If I keep myself in good shape, I can keep having 20+ girls. Settling for something is stupid if you can have it better.
Why would getting married mean settling? If you feel you're "settling for something" then you SHOULDN'T get married. The only reason to get married is if you feel that your partner is the person you want to be with for your whole life.
You keep having your 20+ casual girls. I'll stick with my one, serious, truly intimate partner.
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