Won't work. Here's why, in a nutshell: There are huge numbers of sites on the net. There are not huge numbers of sets of people who will be willing to compare sites for relative merit (and there probably aren't even large numbers of such sets who can do so, even if you paid them for the results, which would be a huge cost that would not repay for most types of sites.)
Sorry. Only computers can handle a task like this. It is automation or failure.
From running at 2048 x 1536, you're really hitting the limits of what we can get analog can do well.
No, you're not. We can accurately manipulate analog signals are considerably higher rates. Of course, you can design systems that don't do it well, and no doubt you've run into those - but that doesn't mean what you saw was the inherent limits of the mode. Believe me, 256 level accuracy at 2048x1536x60 (~48 Gb/S x3 digitally, ~180 MHz x3 analog) is not anywhere near analog limits. Analog will behave very well as long as you give it well matched impedance, low-loss and low impedance connections, and adequate shielding right up almost to the 1 GHz range. After about 900 MHz, reasonably flexible and affordable cables stop working very well and that would indeed rightfully annoy Joe Consumer. But by the time we get there, we're so far beyond HD as to make the discussion meaningless. I'm talking about HD, and I have been all along.
Well, you sure told us with your lone anecdotal data point.
It proves the point; such systems are workable. That's all it is there for, to solidly discredit the ridiculous claims that are appearing in this thread about noise, resolution and so forth at HD. However, presuming mine is the only such system is really kind of dim. I bought everything off the shelf. You can reasonably assume I am not the only consumer to have done so. Or do you think I'm really the only guy with a high end component system?
Computer display data starts out in the digital domain
We're talking about HD media here, not computers per se. And I really don't care if the content came from a renderer or a camera, or if it went digital or stayed analog. The POINT is it HAS to be analog at the last stage, and so analog to the monitor is a perfectly reasonable way to go. It puts the D/a at the signal origin, instead of in the display device, that's all.
An LCD panel requires digital signals to generate an image.
No, for the Nth time, they do not. I wish you would have the courtesy to read the thread instead of forcing me to repeat myself over and over. LCDs take ANALOG drive at the LCD cell level. ANALOG. All systems take analog at the final leg. Plasma, CRT, point emission systems. All ANALOG. There is no 24-bit input to individual triplets inside an LCD, or 8-bit to individual cells, or any other common panel display. There are ANALOG lines that set the crystal to the state it needs to be in until its next refresh. ANALOG.
There's NO GOOD REASON to convert that signal from digital to analog to digital in between -- there WILL be degradation, however slight.
All LCD panels that take a digital input have to convert that signal to analog, because analog is what they use. That is a "GOOD REASON." Finally, with 24-bit RGB (8-bit per channel) you don't have to worry about degradation at all. Truly. It isn't a problem. And I don't want to get into the number of bits you actually need to see a quality image with someone who doesn't even know how LCD's work.
First, its 1920x1080. You lost most of your credibility there.
(X.Y = Y.X) Scientists tend to place the Y axis first; that's all you saw there. Don't get too worked up about it. Same display.
Second...
Look, the last leg is analog anyway. It has to be. There are no digital display elements, unless I *really* missed something going by. They are all linear. So your arguments about D/a costs are moot. One is there anyway. It has to be. With component, it is at the drive end. With digital, it is in the monitor. But it's always somewhere.
Third, it is easier to engineer around the potential consumer problems with digital signals than it is to engineer around the potential problems with analog signals. How many consumers are going to bundle their AC power line right next to their signal lines? How about the noise generator that is your stereo system (lots of EMI there)? This stuff screws up every analog signal I've ever worked with. No significant effect on digital signals.
You're exaggerating the problem many times over. Signals like this belong in good shielded cables, and should terminate properly and with low impedance. Everyone who is running a half-decent component system already has these, as do I. Getting RFI to cross a well designed cable and connector set isn't the cakewalk you imagine it to be. My AC lines are right next to my signal lines. As are various game controller cables for the older systems. I'm a ham operator, my home is subject to kilowatts of RF from 10 meters to 160 meters, there are power cords all over the place in my entertainment system, not to mention signal cords, a computer sitting right there on top of the projector (about 3 inches away vertically) and my display is immaculate. My sweetheart happily watches hi-def content while I bounce SSB signals all over the world, and the many components in my system all work without a single peep or glitch, much less display artifacting. My Denon receiver ignores the whole thing as if it wasn't happening. Yes, you can argue that I know a lot more about how to avoid RFI than the average consumer, but then again, I didn't have to do anything to make all this work, so my knowledge isn't pivotal. The bottom line is you are exaggerating the problem in the first place, and ignoring the fact that the signal is analog at the end of its journey no matter what.
I'll grant that it is easier for manufacturers to encrypt a digital signal. It doesn't really matter though, because most people don't care. They just want a system that works out of the box, and that system will be digital.
They don't know they should care; very few people even understand copyright. And even fairly technical people such as those here on slashdot show a marked level of misinformation about how these systems actually work. Several people in this thread have outright claimed that LCD's are completely digital, which is flat out wrong, for instance; you yourself have made some very wrong assertions, which I have corrected for you.
It very much reminds me of the hysteria that pervades the audio world. Very few people actually know what is going on, but 100% confident opinions are almost universal. I'm an EE, a ham, and a scientist; while I don't claim to be up on the latest and greatest all the time, especially these last few years, I do know how things actually work, both on a practical level and in theory. You really should allow me some credibility.
First off most HD signals are digital at some point so you never going get back that lost info. EX: HD-DVD, HD-CABLE, 3D Video Cards etc.
That's fine. However, on the last leg - which is all I'm arguing for - the signal has to go to analog (with current technology) anyway, and so I am arguing for that last leg to be that way. Component is fine, as long as no one intentionally fouls it up. If you have a salient objection to that, by all means, present it. I'm all eyes.
Second analog signals don't have any point of reference so they are not accurate beyond the first few bits of info.
There is no technical trick involved in providing a good point of reference. Note that currently, we're looking at about 8 bits anyway, which is far, far below the ability of analog to hit cleanly. Analog can do 12 bits easily without any particular loss of accuracy. So while technically you are correct, the juncture at which your observations become relevant is not yet here. Furthermore, since the final leg (at the LCD or plasma cell, or at the electron gun, or at the pyramid emitter) has to be analog anyway with current technology, you'd better hope we can find a point of reference.:)
Third analog get's more expensive the more accurate you go. So you can do 3MP but displays are soon going to be 20 times that at which point analog is a lost cause.
Well, if you really believe that is the case, you'd better hope for a new display technology, hadn't you? I mean, since ALL of today's display technologies resolve to analog drive at the screen, you're kind of hammered unless someone comes up with a truly digital display element (that can be squished into 30mp displays, no less.) In the meantime, 30 mp displays aren't all that close yet, and for todays full HD, which is just 1080x1920 (2MP), component is just fine, as is analog in general.
Finally the higher your signal rate the more interference degrades signal quality. With digital you have a base floor of "good enough" but analog can degrade though the floor. What's the point of a 10k/7k display if it looks like 1080i?
Well, what's the point of worrying about a 10k/7k display when we can't even get the manufacturers to create working 1080/1920 displays, since they're afraid we'll pirate the content? By the way, the data rate for a 24 bit 30 MP display stream at 60 hz is 43.2 Gb/S. Good luck with that in the near term.:)
To recap, what I am saying is that we already have component; component works just fine for the current max HD; unless it is intentionally disabled by the manufacturers - which I consider to be a despicable act. Excellent or even perfect arguments about digital being superior to analog notwithstanding, the entire issue is moot until or unless someone comes up with an actual digital display element, which so far, no one has. Every commercial screen display technology is analog at the display end, and so we know we have to go analog for the last leg of the trip no matter what we do elsewhere.
if a display is digital, ie. each pixel has a specific number of bits which dictate how to display that pixel surely that's better than having an analogue signal which kinda just approximates.
Not inherently, no. One critical question is simply, which one can get more detail, repeatably and dependably, to the target pixel. Since the target pixel is not digital - it is analog - then, just as you say, extra conversions are best avoided. Which actually puts the benefit in the analog domain, because if the signal coming to the monitor is digital, it's going to have to convert it to analog in order to drive the LCD cells. If the signal is analog in the first place, then a cleaner (and much simpler) process can be used, for instance one might design it to use a low noise buffer amplifier and nothing much else. If, on the other hand, the signal is digital, then the monitor has to contain a D to A converter in order to provide the LCD pixel with the signal it needs to control its opacity. An extra step, you see?
Also, it is not analog that is an approximation of a digital signal, generally speaking; it is the digital signal that approximates the analog signal. A good, quiet analog signal can exceed the ability of consumer grade digital systems to reproduce. For instance, if one has 8 bits available for the discrete green signal, that is 256 levels. However, the green may contain detail hundreds of times finer than that (and in fact, in nature, this is the case.) So again, a good, quiet analog signal isn't anything to sneer at. Digital's benefits lie in other areas than resolution. Digital offers error recovery. It also (generally) has the ability to resist externally applied noise (analog has to be kept pristine; digital can suffer some abuse and remain undamaged.) Digital is mucho easy to process as compared to analog. All this is fine, and I'd be reasonably quiet about it if these were the benefits, and that was all there is to it. But that's not the case. With this comes all manner of arbitrary restrictions - and none of them are justifiable, in my view.
Also having huge numbers of analogue to digital conversions just introduces artefacts which is just plain bad.
You're actually making an argument for analog signals. Generally speaking, you can get away with a few conversions, though, if they are done well. And modern gear does do them well.
So perhaps you need to move out of the dark ages and start whinging that they can't fucking decide to just invent one standard, but the issue is that 10 years ago when DVI was being worked out they didn't think about displays with 3932160 pixels (2560x1560) and beyond which is where we are at today.
Aside from ignoring your tone, which I forgive, I will simply point out that analog RGB (or luma/chroma component) is fully capable of doing 2560x1560 and well beyond, too - even at modern refresh rates, say 72 hz or so.
Plus it's a whole cost benefit thing as if they design an adapter that will do displays which will exist in 20 years time the cost of the adapter now is prohibitive that no one uses it.
Yes. Again, you make my point. Component is here today, and there is nothing wrong with it that isn't artificially imposed by manufacturers doing things like refusing to enable full HD over a component output. And do you know why they will not do this? It isn't anything to do with resolution. It isn't anything to do with noise, or AD or DA conversions. It isn't anything to do with obsolescence, or expense, or color depth, or future-proofing. No, it is because these signals are very difficult to copy protect. So they don't like them. Digital signals, on the other hand, offer tons of opportunities to implement DRM in ways that beggar the imagination. That's why component is giving
I stared into her deep, dark eyes. assume the superposition, she whispered.
Ok, I told her, but don't look at me until I tell you I've already come, OK?
Last time, I didn't get to finish.
Really? You mean pixels on an LCD aren't signaled in a (more or less) similar way as cells in a RAM chip? I'm no electrical engineer, but I would have assumed...
There are two issues that relate directly to your concern. One is addressing; in order to pick a ram location or a screen pixel, a signal needs to be sent to the particular location that says "hey you, and not any other." Displays and RAM can be similar in this regard, though it is more likely that a simpler scheme of sequential counters is used to drive the selections, as the signal is dependably progressive. This is always done digitally, as far as I know. This step, however, does not process the actual video levels, it routes them to a particular display location.
The other issue is the brightness of the cell triplets, and that is, in the end, an analog issue within the LCD cells. Several approaches are possible; none of the really easy ones would have a DA converter at every cell, though, which would make the access arrangement essentially similar to a multi-bit ram chip (though still analog internally, there's no way out of that.) So typically three analog signals (RGB) are routed via analog gates to neighboring LCD cells and these are either selected via a simple sequential X:Y matrix along rows and columns, or via a more complex full addressing scheme. The three signals are used to tell the LCD cell triplet how opaque (or transparent) the crystals should be until they receive their next regular update. The light behind the cells of a relatively constant brightness passes through the three cells in a ratio determined by the opacity/transparency of those cells, and the resulting color is determined in additive color space: red plus green = yellow, and so forth as it reaches your eyes, which are very good general purpose color adders. If you look very closely, you can see the triplets. You may need a loupe; on modern LCDs, they're amazingly small.
Here's a model of one way to connect all this stuff together. Run RGB analog and power signals to all the triplets on the screen, just one after another. Run a single X-select line for each column of the display; run a single Y-select line for each row of the display. Now, if you think about this, you'll realize that if one X line is turned on, and one Y line is turned on, there will be only one triplet that has BOTH the X and Y lines turned on. That triplet has just enough circuitry to open a "gate" and take in the RGB information, storing it temporarily and using it to drive the liquid crystals appropriately. Now all it takes to make that work as a display is to sequence the X and Y lines across the display in an orderly fashion. You can even rotate the display by simply switching the X with the Y lines, or switching the drives and "next row/column" outputs of the counters that sequence them, more likely. The first requirement for this general approach is that the LCD triplet store the RGB value, and the related LCD opacity/transparency, until it is next accessed - about a 60th of a second would not be unusual. The second is that the triplet needs to be able to change fairly quickly when it is told to, or the display will appear to "blur" as the picture sends information that conveys motion, but the triplets hold on to previous brightness settings for too long, resulting in motion blur. The third is the more accurately the levels convert to opacity, the more color gradations can be achieved. Finally, and this has always been the achilles heel of LCDs, how much light can be blocked in the most opaque state and how much light gets through in the most transparent state determines the ultimate contrast ratio. There are plenty of other issues - operating temperature range and its effect on response time and depth, cell density, alternate color addition schemes, response to physical pressure on the LCD cells, power consumption - but they're not critical to understanding how the general approach works.
How about we stop pretending that analog RGB looks good
How about we stop pretending it doesn't? Especially, as in your case, when there is no basis for such an assertion. I have full HD over component. My system looks beautiful. Ergo, analog doesn't give you a poor image, there's nothing inherent in it that prevents a good picture.
As a public service, let me remind you that high-bandwidth analog signals are problematic. It doesn't take much for noise, crosstalk, or other issues to show up on an analog monitor at high resolutions.
Please. My cables hang slack in the basement, hooked over projecting screws, run about 30 feet, and they are fine. Why? Because it doesn't take much (as in, proper termination, decent coax, low-loss connectors) to run high bandwidth analog just about any distance you like. Claims to the contrary are nonsense. Can you screw up such a run? Sure. Just try it using audio cables. But for that matter, try running a multi GB/s digital signal through an audio cable and watch what happens. I mean, aside from hosing every RF receiver in your home. Yes, we're in a zone where the cables need to be right. This is no different from a digital copper run. Optical is something else entirely. But of course, you can run analog optically as well.:)
Try connecting your monitor to your desktop with a 20 foot DVI cable - then try doing the same thing with an analog RGB cable.
Oh, please. Such marketing-inspired tripe. You picked the wrong person to try and push over what you thought was a hypothetical.
I have a 17 foot (204 inch) display driven exclusively by component from the receiver, though I also feed it analog from a Mac via a VGA input - that's the media librarian using Delicious Library. It looks absolutely fabulous either way. You can see every glorious pixel in HD, up close. The projector has about 30 feet of cable on it, not counting the various lengths of cable the component HD input sources (XBox360, HDDVD, Blueray, PS3, Satellite) feed to the receiver and the switches; there are no problems with ringing or artifacts whatsoever. The cables go down through the floor, along for quite a distance, and back up at, and through, the projector's pedestal. Of course I don't use radio shack RCA cables to do this, I use a triple run of coax and I have it properly terminated, but this is no big deal and the technology can be built into any simple cable without adding significant cost as compared to, for instance, a many-pinned multi-pin connector.
The manufacturers have been feeding you bullshit so long you think it is true. Well, it's not, and I can prove it.
Are there advantages or unique uses to/for digital transport? Certainly. But is digital transport in any way required to view for instance, full HD at 1080x1920 at 60fps in high quality? No. Absolutely, resoundingly, factually, no.
Analog is the reason my cable signal looks like shit.
No, shitty equipment and/or shitty standards and/or shitty service is why your cable looks like shit. Cable can look butter smooth. The fact that yours doesn't isn't a reflection on technology, it is a reflection on what consumers will put up with because they're badly misinformed about what is reasonable and possible.
Try using a crappy KVM. Most screw up resolutions greater than 1600x1200.
Listen to yourself. "Try using a crappy..." Why would I do that? Really, why? When I need one, I use one that is adequate to my needs. Nothing screws up at all. I switch between linux servers using a KVM and the results are pixel-perfect. It's 100% analog. Using crappy equipment will certainly get you crappy results, but why would you think this has any bearing whatsoever upon the inherent capabilities or limitations of the underlying technology? Talk about backwards reasoning!
...newer displays (i.e., LCD and everything else that's not CRT) are inherently digital.
Really? So you maintain that the liquid crystal in an LCD cell responds in digital - discrete - steps of brightness. The crystal is standing in the cell on a 64- or 256-step ratchet, waiting to pivot, driven by six or eight bits of control, is it? This must be that "new nano physics" I've heard about.:)
No, the fact is that LCD display cells are purely analog in mechanism; apply an analog voltage or current, and they rotate/organize one way or another, letting a different amount of light pass through. It is an inherently linear process. They are rigid in X:Y location but getting the signal to the right place at the right time doesn't in any way require the conversion of the signal from analog to digital at any point. Plasma and the new point-emission technologies are similar; brightness and color are an entirely analog function for all of them; there's very little that is digital about the response curve of a glowing gas that you would want to use in a display application, believe me.
So the end product is analog, and the start product, at least if we're filming human beings, is analog. AA or ADA or A[D[AD]...]A. Never DAD. Sometimes - as in computer generated material - DA.
I call things as I see them. If you have an objection to an assertion I made, by all means, state it and I will respond. If you have a leg to stand on, then perhaps you will emerge from the discussion stronger and better off, and I will not. Hopping on here, engaging in name-calling, and running off isn't going to do anything for your position, whatever it is.
Certainly. But that isn't the same thing at all as saying "science started with philosophy." Your first hint is that science is not similar to philosophy. Science is a concrete method - not a question, not a conundrum, not an appeal to hope, the divine, or an abstraction. So consider methods. Many highly functional methods were in use in Bacon's time. Simple, one step methods like aim your arrow at the target if you're inclined to hit it, and using explosives to blow up people you didn't care for (Guy Fawkes, 1605); complex methods like building castles and learning how to sword fight. So people were already well aware of practical methodologies that led to desirable end results.
Certainly, philosophy was everywhere, the playtoy of the nobles. But if you examine what philosophy does (nothing, basically) and contrast that with what practical methods do, I think it is highly unlikely that any part of philosophy gave rise to the flipping 'round of induction and deduction; and we know that Bacon himself, of repute in those days as a philosopher, disdained the unfocused idea-thrashing that is the hallmark of philosophers and other players at guessing games. He said "There are and can be only two ways (inductive and deductive methods) of searching into and discovering truth. The one (deductive) flies from the senses and the particulars to the most general axioms and from these (principles); the truth it takes as fore settled and immovable proceeds to judgment and to the discovery of middle axioms and this way is now in fashion. The other (inductive) derives axioms from the senses and particulars rising by a gradual and unbroken assent, that it arrives at the most general axiom last of all. This is the true way."
Read that carefully. The deductive method he is talking about is the religionist's and philosopher's way; he is, in one short statement, saying that "taking the truth as fore-settled" isn't how one should proceed. The inductive method is the root of the scientific method and you will note the reality-based influences ("derives axioms from the senses") that drive the method, rather than the presumption of truth of the answer before one even starts looking at the question. He is actually quite lucky he survived making that remark at all, given the power of the church at that time.
Then we can consider what he said about alchemy: "If a man were to look closely into the works of the alchemists or magicians, he would be in doubt whether he should laugh over them or weep" Think about that. "The works", or in other words, how they proceed about their business. Their methods. Bacon goes on to say: "for the alchemist nurses eternal hope. And when the experiment fails, he lays the blame on some error of his own, feeling that he has insufficiently failed to understand the words of his art or his authors or in his manipulations, he has made some slip of a scruple in weight or a moment in time where upon he repeats his trials to infinity." Here, note the wry mention of "eternal hope"; Bacon is outright skewering the alchemist's methodology for relying on the ideas of the mind, rather than the evidence of the senses.
In short, Bacon was looking at methods first, foremost, and with great care. He was identifying methods that worked, methods that didn't work, and he turned deduction on its head for its failure to work when pressed into service. He was doing the exact opposite of indulging in philosophy; he was rejecting abstracts in favor of the concrete evidence that the world would lay out if prodded. If you like, we could say that he was excising philosophy from the pursuit of reality.
In the end, saying that philosophy birthed science feels inappropriate. They are separate domains, and the one has very little to do with the other. Yet because science is a method, and useful, working methods abounded in Bacon's day, we can reasonably presume that he was looking for such a me
In the software (or computer science) side of the story, it's far easier to deal with digital (i.e. discrete) signals than analogue
Conversion to digital is trivial. So is conversion back. End of problem. Or more to the point, there never *was* a problem.
Besides, all the visual data is digital in the first place in these situations
Yes, I've noticed the sun bouncing bits off me towards the camera quite often. And when the sun isn't out, what would we do without our digital floodlights, merrily emitting photons in phalanxes of powers of two! And everyone knows our eyes are completely digital. After all, there are two of them.;)
so all this DAD conversion nonsense is just that: nonsense.
Yes, especially since we're talking about ADA, not DAD. No one - least of all me - was disputing that a digital buffer or stream isn't easier to fool with arbitrarily or to simply adjust. It is. That is why DRM is so tightly tied to digital signal transport. My entire point is that as there is no need for digital transport, why use it? You're just enabling things like DRM - there are no other advantages, and there are many disadvantages. If you need a digital signal to process for any particular reason, you can make one. It's just that simple. Our perception doesn't exceed the ability of an inexpensive analog signal to satisfy. There is no need on the consumer's side to go to digital streams between television and movie player, and numerous reasons why not, particularly expense and Digital Rights Manumission.
If philosophy came before science, then science must be the philosophy of a philosopher.
These are entirely disjoint domains, and one has nothing to do with the other. One is a highly constrained method designed to produce tangible, highly correlated results, the other is utterly unconstrained speculation subject to no design whatsoever.
Even if scientific observation was given an infinite amount of time and manpower it would still not be able to answer the why. That is philosophies job and it does it well.
Philosophy does not answer "the why" at all. I'll give you that it has supported many attempts at trying to come up with such an answer, but (a) it has not been established that "why" is even a valid question, (b) no such "answer" from philosophy has provided any benefit or tangible result or testable prediction with regard to "why", and (c) in the meantime, science continues to bite off more and more of nature with regards to "how" because "how" is a valid question.
I really don't understand why people always pit Philosophy versus Science like they are enemies of ancient times. They are both parts of a whole solution to understanding the world.
No, they really aren't. Science gives us a path to understand the world, the universe, etc. in the fashion of actual truths or close (and testable) approximations thereof. Philosophy gives us a path to nothing. Those who can understand - and do not fear - reality cleave to science; those who cannot, to philosophy. Philosophy is considerably closer to religion than it is to science, and carries about the same significance (that is, only that which it manages to convince its followers to parrot.)
How about just analog RGB and quit pretending we need digital connections at all?
You want high bandwidth? Analog RGB can do it. You want deep color? Analog RGB can do it. You want to avoid DRM? Analog RGB is perfect for that. You want easy to record? Analog RGB -> Analog recording media *or* digital(ized) media. You want easy to connect? Analog RGB. You want easy to switch between signal sources? Analog RGB. You want easy to buffer and redistribute? Analog RGB. You want auto-mode detection? We fool engineers have been sneaking digital mode data into sync signals for decades. You want easy to process? Convert to digital, process, convert back. Trivial, inexpensive, uses off-the-shelf hardware. All the benefits, none of the disadvantages (cough DRM cough hack expensive cables hack choke expensive connectors choke.) You want easy, reasonable compression? Luma and two chroma channels. Oh wait - that's one of the methods called "component" and we've already got it. And we're replacing it because... well, it isn't because of lack of resolution or depth... oh yeah. DRM. It isn't good for DRM.
On the other hand, you want to give the media companies control over what you can do? Well then by all means support some lame-ass digital standard. They love that shite. And when you get all googly-eyed over HDMI and other all-digital transports.... they love you man, they love you.
As a public service, let me remind you that both your eyes and your ears are analog, and both your eyes and your ears have very limited dynamic range from the smallest to the largest signal they can resolve at the same time. These are hints worth noting and they have very important implications when it comes to the requirements of perception and fidelity.
I am not sure if you are an educator yourself, so you might have to talk to someone who is so that they can explain to you the need to foster a "productive learning environment."
As it turns out, I have taught electronics in both a high school environment and a corporate environment; I have also taught martial arts for just over thirty years. In no case have I found it necessary to limit the conversation, subject matter, asides, tangents, humor, sensuality, socializing, profanity or other non-course related material by content - only by volume. Furthermore, it is my opinion that such an open and non-repressive environment causes knowledge to both stick sooner and last longer than an environment where the subject matter is all there is in a droning, narrow, and annoying trip down mental paths with the fewest possible number of indirect and/or unrelated situations. When I say limit by volume, I am saying that it is appropriate and reasonable to say "ok, that's enough of that for now, let us now further explore [subject matter]" because the job is to guide the student down the path such that they understand where they came from, where they got to, and how they got there - not to deny that the trip is part of normal life. And yes, as it turns out, I'm a very successful instructor as measured by the on-completion quality of the students.
Most of the stuff that kids want to look at on the internet has absolutely nothing to do with what the teachers are teaching in class.
I would in no way dispute this assertion. However, I do not think this is a bad thing. Quite the contrary. We're not maniacal single-focus machines. Most of us, anyway. Trying to tighten the environmental screws down so that we have to act like we are single-foxus machines has not been demonstrated to actually be the right way to go; it is just an assumption, one that is obviously convenient for those who would censor, limit, restrict and otherwise control - rather than encourage learning. Really good instruction is analogous to a guide on a journey - not a guard on a cell.
Following that train of logic, gangsters, guns and drugs are out there in the real world too. Maybe we should take security guards out of schools and let the kids do lines on their desks and then shoot eat other at lunch.
Oh, we should definitely take security guards out of school. Schools are a mess, all right, but security guards aren't a solution, they're just more mess. Our schools (speaking as a USA-ian) are just awful. That's a whole new thread. Upon which I have volumes to say. You sure you want to go there?
So, Science is the philosophy of the philosopher who was right ?
Funny, but wrong. Science is not philosophy. Science is a very high quality method of proceeding towards a well established mundane goal, that of building a reality-based model of nature. In a very real sense, science is a method that allows us to create, collect, and correlate knowledge that works. Science is a method.
Philosophy is abstract and limitless argument or pontification, with no requirement that either the subject matter or the conclusion(s), if any, be based in reality at all, no established methodology, no need to be right or wrong, no requirement for integration with other results, and no requirement for an end work product at all. Philosophy is not a method.
Not really. Science was invented because philosophy and its bastard child, alchemy, wasn't working. Philosophy still doesn't work very well, despite the additional time it has had since Sir Francis Bacon whacked science into shape. It's a playground for abstractions without homes in nature. Sometimes we get a small tidbit or two out of it, but mostly it is simply a domain of divisive and socially-landlocked bickering. In the meantime, look at the computer on your desk. And your wrist, if you have a modern watch. That's the result of science. Not philosophy. Science actually works. That is what makes it - and math, if you like to define math as "other" than science, as many do - stand out above all other pursuits.
Building a working brain from silicon circuits depends on one profound assumption: consciousness is a function of only newtonian physics
There's nothing "profound" about it. Physics is the only system that has ever been demonstrated to have validity in our experience. Superstition is not a viable platform for launching alternatives, or at least, it is no more valid than religion or any other series of completely unsupported ideas from mythology. Physics, on the other hand, actually works. There is every reason to think that the domains of cognition, consciousness, intelligence, reason and so forth will be found in precisely the same place everything else has been found in. Nature. Chemicals, electricity, quantum interactions -- meat.
No matter how appealing it might be to think these things are some kind of special manifestation of non-physical reality, we have absolutely no reason to presume this is even slightly likely to be the case. Why? Because nothing else has ever been demonstrated to fit that definition; even the existence of such a domain is unsupported, much less the classification of real-world events into it.
However, some scientists believe that consciousness is not newtonian
Some scientists believe the earth is about 6000 years old. Some don't. Some scientists believe global warming is human caused. Some don't. Etc. Ergo, some of them are wrong. Scientists are people, and on an individual basis, they make wrong assumptions with devastating regularity, especially when superstition is involved. You don't want to be pointing at scientists to justify an outlook like this; you want to be pointing at systems that have been resolved within nature (all of them), and compare those with systems resolved outside of nature (zero.) As nature has provided precisely one kind of evidence, 100% consistently, for every event and system we have found, without ever faltering, there is no reason at present to think that this is about to change because the systems being considered are inside our heads.
Slashdot Mirror
Won't work. Here's why, in a nutshell: There are huge numbers of sites on the net. There are not huge numbers of sets of people who will be willing to compare sites for relative merit (and there probably aren't even large numbers of such sets who can do so, even if you paid them for the results, which would be a huge cost that would not repay for most types of sites.)
Sorry. Only computers can handle a task like this. It is automation or failure.
No, you're not. We can accurately manipulate analog signals are considerably higher rates. Of course, you can design systems that don't do it well, and no doubt you've run into those - but that doesn't mean what you saw was the inherent limits of the mode. Believe me, 256 level accuracy at 2048x1536x60 (~48 Gb/S x3 digitally, ~180 MHz x3 analog) is not anywhere near analog limits. Analog will behave very well as long as you give it well matched impedance, low-loss and low impedance connections, and adequate shielding right up almost to the 1 GHz range. After about 900 MHz, reasonably flexible and affordable cables stop working very well and that would indeed rightfully annoy Joe Consumer. But by the time we get there, we're so far beyond HD as to make the discussion meaningless. I'm talking about HD, and I have been all along.
It proves the point; such systems are workable. That's all it is there for, to solidly discredit the ridiculous claims that are appearing in this thread about noise, resolution and so forth at HD. However, presuming mine is the only such system is really kind of dim. I bought everything off the shelf. You can reasonably assume I am not the only consumer to have done so. Or do you think I'm really the only guy with a high end component system?
We're talking about HD media here, not computers per se. And I really don't care if the content came from a renderer or a camera, or if it went digital or stayed analog. The POINT is it HAS to be analog at the last stage, and so analog to the monitor is a perfectly reasonable way to go. It puts the D/a at the signal origin, instead of in the display device, that's all.
No, for the Nth time, they do not. I wish you would have the courtesy to read the thread instead of forcing me to repeat myself over and over. LCDs take ANALOG drive at the LCD cell level. ANALOG. All systems take analog at the final leg. Plasma, CRT, point emission systems. All ANALOG. There is no 24-bit input to individual triplets inside an LCD, or 8-bit to individual cells, or any other common panel display. There are ANALOG lines that set the crystal to the state it needs to be in until its next refresh. ANALOG.
All LCD panels that take a digital input have to convert that signal to analog, because analog is what they use. That is a "GOOD REASON." Finally, with 24-bit RGB (8-bit per channel) you don't have to worry about degradation at all. Truly. It isn't a problem. And I don't want to get into the number of bits you actually need to see a quality image with someone who doesn't even know how LCD's work.
(X.Y = Y.X) Scientists tend to place the Y axis first; that's all you saw there. Don't get too worked up about it. Same display.
Look, the last leg is analog anyway. It has to be. There are no digital display elements, unless I *really* missed something going by. They are all linear. So your arguments about D/a costs are moot. One is there anyway. It has to be. With component, it is at the drive end. With digital, it is in the monitor. But it's always somewhere.
You're exaggerating the problem many times over. Signals like this belong in good shielded cables, and should terminate properly and with low impedance. Everyone who is running a half-decent component system already has these, as do I. Getting RFI to cross a well designed cable and connector set isn't the cakewalk you imagine it to be. My AC lines are right next to my signal lines. As are various game controller cables for the older systems. I'm a ham operator, my home is subject to kilowatts of RF from 10 meters to 160 meters, there are power cords all over the place in my entertainment system, not to mention signal cords, a computer sitting right there on top of the projector (about 3 inches away vertically) and my display is immaculate. My sweetheart happily watches hi-def content while I bounce SSB signals all over the world, and the many components in my system all work without a single peep or glitch, much less display artifacting. My Denon receiver ignores the whole thing as if it wasn't happening. Yes, you can argue that I know a lot more about how to avoid RFI than the average consumer, but then again, I didn't have to do anything to make all this work, so my knowledge isn't pivotal. The bottom line is you are exaggerating the problem in the first place, and ignoring the fact that the signal is analog at the end of its journey no matter what.
They don't know they should care; very few people even understand copyright. And even fairly technical people such as those here on slashdot show a marked level of misinformation about how these systems actually work. Several people in this thread have outright claimed that LCD's are completely digital, which is flat out wrong, for instance; you yourself have made some very wrong assertions, which I have corrected for you.
It very much reminds me of the hysteria that pervades the audio world. Very few people actually know what is going on, but 100% confident opinions are almost universal. I'm an EE, a ham, and a scientist; while I don't claim to be up on the latest and greatest all the time, especially these last few years, I do know how things actually work, both on a practical level and in theory. You really should allow me some credibility.
That's fine. However, on the last leg - which is all I'm arguing for - the signal has to go to analog (with current technology) anyway, and so I am arguing for that last leg to be that way. Component is fine, as long as no one intentionally fouls it up. If you have a salient objection to that, by all means, present it. I'm all eyes.
There is no technical trick involved in providing a good point of reference. Note that currently, we're looking at about 8 bits anyway, which is far, far below the ability of analog to hit cleanly. Analog can do 12 bits easily without any particular loss of accuracy. So while technically you are correct, the juncture at which your observations become relevant is not yet here. Furthermore, since the final leg (at the LCD or plasma cell, or at the electron gun, or at the pyramid emitter) has to be analog anyway with current technology, you'd better hope we can find a point of reference. :)
Well, if you really believe that is the case, you'd better hope for a new display technology, hadn't you? I mean, since ALL of today's display technologies resolve to analog drive at the screen, you're kind of hammered unless someone comes up with a truly digital display element (that can be squished into 30mp displays, no less.) In the meantime, 30 mp displays aren't all that close yet, and for todays full HD, which is just 1080x1920 (2MP), component is just fine, as is analog in general.
Well, what's the point of worrying about a 10k/7k display when we can't even get the manufacturers to create working 1080/1920 displays, since they're afraid we'll pirate the content? By the way, the data rate for a 24 bit 30 MP display stream at 60 hz is 43.2 Gb/S. Good luck with that in the near term. :)
To recap, what I am saying is that we already have component; component works just fine for the current max HD; unless it is intentionally disabled by the manufacturers - which I consider to be a despicable act. Excellent or even perfect arguments about digital being superior to analog notwithstanding, the entire issue is moot until or unless someone comes up with an actual digital display element, which so far, no one has. Every commercial screen display technology is analog at the display end, and so we know we have to go analog for the last leg of the trip no matter what we do elsewhere.
None taken.
Not inherently, no. One critical question is simply, which one can get more detail, repeatably and dependably, to the target pixel. Since the target pixel is not digital - it is analog - then, just as you say, extra conversions are best avoided. Which actually puts the benefit in the analog domain, because if the signal coming to the monitor is digital, it's going to have to convert it to analog in order to drive the LCD cells. If the signal is analog in the first place, then a cleaner (and much simpler) process can be used, for instance one might design it to use a low noise buffer amplifier and nothing much else. If, on the other hand, the signal is digital, then the monitor has to contain a D to A converter in order to provide the LCD pixel with the signal it needs to control its opacity. An extra step, you see?
Also, it is not analog that is an approximation of a digital signal, generally speaking; it is the digital signal that approximates the analog signal. A good, quiet analog signal can exceed the ability of consumer grade digital systems to reproduce. For instance, if one has 8 bits available for the discrete green signal, that is 256 levels. However, the green may contain detail hundreds of times finer than that (and in fact, in nature, this is the case.) So again, a good, quiet analog signal isn't anything to sneer at. Digital's benefits lie in other areas than resolution. Digital offers error recovery. It also (generally) has the ability to resist externally applied noise (analog has to be kept pristine; digital can suffer some abuse and remain undamaged.) Digital is mucho easy to process as compared to analog. All this is fine, and I'd be reasonably quiet about it if these were the benefits, and that was all there is to it. But that's not the case. With this comes all manner of arbitrary restrictions - and none of them are justifiable, in my view.
You're actually making an argument for analog signals. Generally speaking, you can get away with a few conversions, though, if they are done well. And modern gear does do them well.
Aside from ignoring your tone, which I forgive, I will simply point out that analog RGB (or luma/chroma component) is fully capable of doing 2560x1560 and well beyond, too - even at modern refresh rates, say 72 hz or so.
Yes. Again, you make my point. Component is here today, and there is nothing wrong with it that isn't artificially imposed by manufacturers doing things like refusing to enable full HD over a component output. And do you know why they will not do this? It isn't anything to do with resolution. It isn't anything to do with noise, or AD or DA conversions. It isn't anything to do with obsolescence, or expense, or color depth, or future-proofing. No, it is because these signals are very difficult to copy protect. So they don't like them. Digital signals, on the other hand, offer tons of opportunities to implement DRM in ways that beggar the imagination. That's why component is giving
For most guys, the 4th dimension is getting laid. Time is just the really annoying and overabundant packing material that separates such events.
Kudos for the obscure T. Lehrer quote. :)
My favorite is "sliding down the razor blade of life."
I stared into her deep, dark eyes.
assume the superposition, she whispered.
Ok, I told her, but don't look at me until I tell you I've already come, OK?
Last time, I didn't get to finish.
There are two issues that relate directly to your concern. One is addressing; in order to pick a ram location or a screen pixel, a signal needs to be sent to the particular location that says "hey you, and not any other." Displays and RAM can be similar in this regard, though it is more likely that a simpler scheme of sequential counters is used to drive the selections, as the signal is dependably progressive. This is always done digitally, as far as I know. This step, however, does not process the actual video levels, it routes them to a particular display location.
The other issue is the brightness of the cell triplets, and that is, in the end, an analog issue within the LCD cells. Several approaches are possible; none of the really easy ones would have a DA converter at every cell, though, which would make the access arrangement essentially similar to a multi-bit ram chip (though still analog internally, there's no way out of that.) So typically three analog signals (RGB) are routed via analog gates to neighboring LCD cells and these are either selected via a simple sequential X:Y matrix along rows and columns, or via a more complex full addressing scheme. The three signals are used to tell the LCD cell triplet how opaque (or transparent) the crystals should be until they receive their next regular update. The light behind the cells of a relatively constant brightness passes through the three cells in a ratio determined by the opacity/transparency of those cells, and the resulting color is determined in additive color space: red plus green = yellow, and so forth as it reaches your eyes, which are very good general purpose color adders. If you look very closely, you can see the triplets. You may need a loupe; on modern LCDs, they're amazingly small.
Here's a model of one way to connect all this stuff together. Run RGB analog and power signals to all the triplets on the screen, just one after another. Run a single X-select line for each column of the display; run a single Y-select line for each row of the display. Now, if you think about this, you'll realize that if one X line is turned on, and one Y line is turned on, there will be only one triplet that has BOTH the X and Y lines turned on. That triplet has just enough circuitry to open a "gate" and take in the RGB information, storing it temporarily and using it to drive the liquid crystals appropriately. Now all it takes to make that work as a display is to sequence the X and Y lines across the display in an orderly fashion. You can even rotate the display by simply switching the X with the Y lines, or switching the drives and "next row/column" outputs of the counters that sequence them, more likely. The first requirement for this general approach is that the LCD triplet store the RGB value, and the related LCD opacity/transparency, until it is next accessed - about a 60th of a second would not be unusual. The second is that the triplet needs to be able to change fairly quickly when it is told to, or the display will appear to "blur" as the picture sends information that conveys motion, but the triplets hold on to previous brightness settings for too long, resulting in motion blur. The third is the more accurately the levels convert to opacity, the more color gradations can be achieved. Finally, and this has always been the achilles heel of LCDs, how much light can be blocked in the most opaque state and how much light gets through in the most transparent state determines the ultimate contrast ratio. There are plenty of other issues - operating temperature range and its effect on response time and depth, cell density, alternate color addition schemes, response to physical pressure on the LCD cells, power consumption - but they're not critical to understanding how the general approach works.
I keep saying "opaque/transparent"
How about we stop pretending it doesn't? Especially, as in your case, when there is no basis for such an assertion. I have full HD over component. My system looks beautiful. Ergo, analog doesn't give you a poor image, there's nothing inherent in it that prevents a good picture.
Please. My cables hang slack in the basement, hooked over projecting screws, run about 30 feet, and they are fine. Why? Because it doesn't take much (as in, proper termination, decent coax, low-loss connectors) to run high bandwidth analog just about any distance you like. Claims to the contrary are nonsense. Can you screw up such a run? Sure. Just try it using audio cables. But for that matter, try running a multi GB/s digital signal through an audio cable and watch what happens. I mean, aside from hosing every RF receiver in your home. Yes, we're in a zone where the cables need to be right. This is no different from a digital copper run. Optical is something else entirely. But of course, you can run analog optically as well. :)
Oh, please. Such marketing-inspired tripe. You picked the wrong person to try and push over what you thought was a hypothetical.
I have a 17 foot (204 inch) display driven exclusively by component from the receiver, though I also feed it analog from a Mac via a VGA input - that's the media librarian using Delicious Library. It looks absolutely fabulous either way. You can see every glorious pixel in HD, up close. The projector has about 30 feet of cable on it, not counting the various lengths of cable the component HD input sources (XBox360, HDDVD, Blueray, PS3, Satellite) feed to the receiver and the switches; there are no problems with ringing or artifacts whatsoever. The cables go down through the floor, along for quite a distance, and back up at, and through, the projector's pedestal. Of course I don't use radio shack RCA cables to do this, I use a triple run of coax and I have it properly terminated, but this is no big deal and the technology can be built into any simple cable without adding significant cost as compared to, for instance, a many-pinned multi-pin connector.
The manufacturers have been feeding you bullshit so long you think it is true. Well, it's not, and I can prove it.
Are there advantages or unique uses to/for digital transport? Certainly. But is digital transport in any way required to view for instance, full HD at 1080x1920 at 60fps in high quality? No. Absolutely, resoundingly, factually, no.
No, shitty equipment and/or shitty standards and/or shitty service is why your cable looks like shit. Cable can look butter smooth. The fact that yours doesn't isn't a reflection on technology, it is a reflection on what consumers will put up with because they're badly misinformed about what is reasonable and possible.
Listen to yourself. "Try using a crappy..." Why would I do that? Really, why? When I need one, I use one that is adequate to my needs. Nothing screws up at all. I switch between linux servers using a KVM and the results are pixel-perfect. It's 100% analog. Using crappy equipment will certainly get you crappy results, but why would you think this has any bearing whatsoever upon the inherent capabilities or limitations of the underlying technology? Talk about backwards reasoning!
Really? So you maintain that the liquid crystal in an LCD cell responds in digital - discrete - steps of brightness. The crystal is standing in the cell on a 64- or 256-step ratchet, waiting to pivot, driven by six or eight bits of control, is it? This must be that "new nano physics" I've heard about. :)
No, the fact is that LCD display cells are purely analog in mechanism; apply an analog voltage or current, and they rotate/organize one way or another, letting a different amount of light pass through. It is an inherently linear process. They are rigid in X:Y location but getting the signal to the right place at the right time doesn't in any way require the conversion of the signal from analog to digital at any point. Plasma and the new point-emission technologies are similar; brightness and color are an entirely analog function for all of them; there's very little that is digital about the response curve of a glowing gas that you would want to use in a display application, believe me.
So the end product is analog, and the start product, at least if we're filming human beings, is analog. AA or ADA or A[D[AD]...]A. Never DAD. Sometimes - as in computer generated material - DA.
I call things as I see them. If you have an objection to an assertion I made, by all means, state it and I will respond. If you have a leg to stand on, then perhaps you will emerge from the discussion stronger and better off, and I will not. Hopping on here, engaging in name-calling, and running off isn't going to do anything for your position, whatever it is.
Certainly. But that isn't the same thing at all as saying "science started with philosophy." Your first hint is that science is not similar to philosophy. Science is a concrete method - not a question, not a conundrum, not an appeal to hope, the divine, or an abstraction. So consider methods. Many highly functional methods were in use in Bacon's time. Simple, one step methods like aim your arrow at the target if you're inclined to hit it, and using explosives to blow up people you didn't care for (Guy Fawkes, 1605); complex methods like building castles and learning how to sword fight. So people were already well aware of practical methodologies that led to desirable end results.
Certainly, philosophy was everywhere, the playtoy of the nobles. But if you examine what philosophy does (nothing, basically) and contrast that with what practical methods do, I think it is highly unlikely that any part of philosophy gave rise to the flipping 'round of induction and deduction; and we know that Bacon himself, of repute in those days as a philosopher, disdained the unfocused idea-thrashing that is the hallmark of philosophers and other players at guessing games. He said "There are and can be only two ways (inductive and deductive methods) of searching into and discovering truth. The one (deductive) flies from the senses and the particulars to the most general axioms and from these (principles); the truth it takes as fore settled and immovable proceeds to judgment and to the discovery of middle axioms and this way is now in fashion. The other (inductive) derives axioms from the senses and particulars rising by a gradual and unbroken assent, that it arrives at the most general axiom last of all. This is the true way."
Read that carefully. The deductive method he is talking about is the religionist's and philosopher's way; he is, in one short statement, saying that "taking the truth as fore-settled" isn't how one should proceed. The inductive method is the root of the scientific method and you will note the reality-based influences ("derives axioms from the senses") that drive the method, rather than the presumption of truth of the answer before one even starts looking at the question. He is actually quite lucky he survived making that remark at all, given the power of the church at that time.
Then we can consider what he said about alchemy: "If a man were to look closely into the works of the alchemists or magicians, he would be in doubt whether he should laugh over them or weep" Think about that. "The works", or in other words, how they proceed about their business. Their methods. Bacon goes on to say: "for the alchemist nurses eternal hope. And when the experiment fails, he lays the blame on some error of his own, feeling that he has insufficiently failed to understand the words of his art or his authors or in his manipulations, he has made some slip of a scruple in weight or a moment in time where upon he repeats his trials to infinity." Here, note the wry mention of "eternal hope"; Bacon is outright skewering the alchemist's methodology for relying on the ideas of the mind, rather than the evidence of the senses.
In short, Bacon was looking at methods first, foremost, and with great care. He was identifying methods that worked, methods that didn't work, and he turned deduction on its head for its failure to work when pressed into service. He was doing the exact opposite of indulging in philosophy; he was rejecting abstracts in favor of the concrete evidence that the world would lay out if prodded. If you like, we could say that he was excising philosophy from the pursuit of reality.
In the end, saying that philosophy birthed science feels inappropriate. They are separate domains, and the one has very little to do with the other. Yet because science is a method, and useful, working methods abounded in Bacon's day, we can reasonably presume that he was looking for such a me
Conversion to digital is trivial. So is conversion back. End of problem. Or more to the point, there never *was* a problem.
Yes, I've noticed the sun bouncing bits off me towards the camera quite often. And when the sun isn't out, what would we do without our digital floodlights, merrily emitting photons in phalanxes of powers of two! And everyone knows our eyes are completely digital. After all, there are two of them. ;)
Yes, especially since we're talking about ADA, not DAD. No one - least of all me - was disputing that a digital buffer or stream isn't easier to fool with arbitrarily or to simply adjust. It is. That is why DRM is so tightly tied to digital signal transport. My entire point is that as there is no need for digital transport, why use it? You're just enabling things like DRM - there are no other advantages, and there are many disadvantages. If you need a digital signal to process for any particular reason, you can make one. It's just that simple. Our perception doesn't exceed the ability of an inexpensive analog signal to satisfy. There is no need on the consumer's side to go to digital streams between television and movie player, and numerous reasons why not, particularly expense and Digital Rights Manumission.
These are entirely disjoint domains, and one has nothing to do with the other. One is a highly constrained method designed to produce tangible, highly correlated results, the other is utterly unconstrained speculation subject to no design whatsoever.
Well, that's a convincing argument, isn't it?
That is certainly your privilege. I am also a scientist — and I would.
Oh, my mind is open enough. It is my gullibility that isn't up for grabs.
Philosophy does not answer "the why" at all. I'll give you that it has supported many attempts at trying to come up with such an answer, but (a) it has not been established that "why" is even a valid question, (b) no such "answer" from philosophy has provided any benefit or tangible result or testable prediction with regard to "why", and (c) in the meantime, science continues to bite off more and more of nature with regards to "how" because "how" is a valid question.
No, they really aren't. Science gives us a path to understand the world, the universe, etc. in the fashion of actual truths or close (and testable) approximations thereof. Philosophy gives us a path to nothing. Those who can understand - and do not fear - reality cleave to science; those who cannot, to philosophy. Philosophy is considerably closer to religion than it is to science, and carries about the same significance (that is, only that which it manages to convince its followers to parrot.)
How about just analog RGB and quit pretending we need digital connections at all?
You want high bandwidth? Analog RGB can do it. You want deep color? Analog RGB can do it. You want to avoid DRM? Analog RGB is perfect for that. You want easy to record? Analog RGB -> Analog recording media *or* digital(ized) media. You want easy to connect? Analog RGB. You want easy to switch between signal sources? Analog RGB. You want easy to buffer and redistribute? Analog RGB. You want auto-mode detection? We fool engineers have been sneaking digital mode data into sync signals for decades. You want easy to process? Convert to digital, process, convert back. Trivial, inexpensive, uses off-the-shelf hardware. All the benefits, none of the disadvantages (cough DRM cough hack expensive cables hack choke expensive connectors choke.) You want easy, reasonable compression? Luma and two chroma channels. Oh wait - that's one of the methods called "component" and we've already got it. And we're replacing it because... well, it isn't because of lack of resolution or depth... oh yeah. DRM. It isn't good for DRM.
On the other hand, you want to give the media companies control over what you can do? Well then by all means support some lame-ass digital standard. They love that shite. And when you get all googly-eyed over HDMI and other all-digital transports.... they love you man, they love you.
As a public service, let me remind you that both your eyes and your ears are analog, and both your eyes and your ears have very limited dynamic range from the smallest to the largest signal they can resolve at the same time. These are hints worth noting and they have very important implications when it comes to the requirements of perception and fidelity.
As it turns out, I have taught electronics in both a high school environment and a corporate environment; I have also taught martial arts for just over thirty years. In no case have I found it necessary to limit the conversation, subject matter, asides, tangents, humor, sensuality, socializing, profanity or other non-course related material by content - only by volume. Furthermore, it is my opinion that such an open and non-repressive environment causes knowledge to both stick sooner and last longer than an environment where the subject matter is all there is in a droning, narrow, and annoying trip down mental paths with the fewest possible number of indirect and/or unrelated situations. When I say limit by volume, I am saying that it is appropriate and reasonable to say "ok, that's enough of that for now, let us now further explore [subject matter]" because the job is to guide the student down the path such that they understand where they came from, where they got to, and how they got there - not to deny that the trip is part of normal life. And yes, as it turns out, I'm a very successful instructor as measured by the on-completion quality of the students.
I would in no way dispute this assertion. However, I do not think this is a bad thing. Quite the contrary. We're not maniacal single-focus machines. Most of us, anyway. Trying to tighten the environmental screws down so that we have to act like we are single-foxus machines has not been demonstrated to actually be the right way to go; it is just an assumption, one that is obviously convenient for those who would censor, limit, restrict and otherwise control - rather than encourage learning. Really good instruction is analogous to a guide on a journey - not a guard on a cell.
Oh, we should definitely take security guards out of school. Schools are a mess, all right, but security guards aren't a solution, they're just more mess. Our schools (speaking as a USA-ian) are just awful. That's a whole new thread. Upon which I have volumes to say. You sure you want to go there?
Funny, but wrong. Science is not philosophy. Science is a very high quality method of proceeding towards a well established mundane goal, that of building a reality-based model of nature. In a very real sense, science is a method that allows us to create, collect, and correlate knowledge that works. Science is a method.
Philosophy is abstract and limitless argument or pontification, with no requirement that either the subject matter or the conclusion(s), if any, be based in reality at all, no established methodology, no need to be right or wrong, no requirement for integration with other results, and no requirement for an end work product at all. Philosophy is not a method.
I see that now. It was late, what can I say. Duh.
Not really. Science was invented because philosophy and its bastard child, alchemy, wasn't working. Philosophy still doesn't work very well, despite the additional time it has had since Sir Francis Bacon whacked science into shape. It's a playground for abstractions without homes in nature. Sometimes we get a small tidbit or two out of it, but mostly it is simply a domain of divisive and socially-landlocked bickering. In the meantime, look at the computer on your desk. And your wrist, if you have a modern watch. That's the result of science. Not philosophy. Science actually works. That is what makes it - and math, if you like to define math as "other" than science, as many do - stand out above all other pursuits.
There's nothing "profound" about it. Physics is the only system that has ever been demonstrated to have validity in our experience. Superstition is not a viable platform for launching alternatives, or at least, it is no more valid than religion or any other series of completely unsupported ideas from mythology. Physics, on the other hand, actually works. There is every reason to think that the domains of cognition, consciousness, intelligence, reason and so forth will be found in precisely the same place everything else has been found in. Nature. Chemicals, electricity, quantum interactions -- meat.
No matter how appealing it might be to think these things are some kind of special manifestation of non-physical reality, we have absolutely no reason to presume this is even slightly likely to be the case. Why? Because nothing else has ever been demonstrated to fit that definition; even the existence of such a domain is unsupported, much less the classification of real-world events into it.
Some scientists believe the earth is about 6000 years old. Some don't. Some scientists believe global warming is human caused. Some don't. Etc. Ergo, some of them are wrong. Scientists are people, and on an individual basis, they make wrong assumptions with devastating regularity, especially when superstition is involved. You don't want to be pointing at scientists to justify an outlook like this; you want to be pointing at systems that have been resolved within nature (all of them), and compare those with systems resolved outside of nature (zero.) As nature has provided precisely one kind of evidence, 100% consistently, for every event and system we have found, without ever faltering, there is no reason at present to think that this is about to change because the systems being considered are inside our heads.