Broadcast HDTV is most certainly compressed. The ATSC standards utilize MPEG-2 compression over 8VSB modulation to give a ~20 Mbps channel per transmitter, whereas cable companies can use 16VSB, 256-QAM or better modulation to give a 40+ Mbps channel. Couple that with the fact that most broadcasters transmit multiple streams (subchannels like 9-1, 9-2, 9-3, etc) which each take up some of that 20 Mbps, and OTA HD broadcasts get ridiculously compressed.
Satellite providers are just as bad, trying to send HD streams over a satellite infrastructure that was built for SD. You might remember the lawsuit against DirecTV a while back about s downscaling their HD content in order to get the data to fit in their uplink streams.
disclaimer: I work at a PBS TV station, so I've heard the complaints of the broadcast engineers themselves about having to destroy the quality of their HD streams to fit all the extra crap in.
Also, once you've seen uncompressed HD coming out of a studio camera, no other HD source will look as good ever again.
Boy... it's gone this long without anyone saying anything. 2.45GHz is not the resonant frequency of water molecules, 2.45GHz is just within the absorption band of water, which is extremely wide, and was chosen because it's cheaper to make magnetrons for 2.45GHz than other frequency ranges, 2.45GHz magnetrons are physically smaller than lower frequency magentrons, and most importantly that 2.45GHz is right smack in the middle of the 2.4-2.5GHz unlicensed ISM band, so spurious emissions won't be that big of a problem. I believe that the actual resonant frequency of the hydrogen-oxygen bond in a water molecule is somewhere around 10GHz.
However, I'm sure that the carbon-carbon bonds in hydrocarbons and the overall hydrocarbon polymers in plastics have significantly lower resonance frequencies due to their higher masses and larger physical sizes. One interesting problem, probably why they use over 1200 different frequencies, is that if a particular frequency is the fundamental resonant frequency of most of the molecules of a substance, then all of the energy will be absorbed by the molecules at the surface, which would slow the process down. I wonder if they run through a sequence of freqs or if they just run them all at once.
Promoting critical thinking and debate is exactly the idea of this decision. As it says in TFA, they didn't ban the film, they made it mandatory for teachers to present an opposing view. How do you expect to teach students critical thinking and media analysis by only presenting one view?
Furthermore, I would say that critical thinking and media analysis are key components of the educational system. Speaking from my educational background, (as a high school senior in Shoreline, WA) every social studies class I've had starts out with some sort of media analysis. English classes too. In my composition classes, pretty much all we do is analyze authors' opinions with respect to other authors' opinions.
Homer: The villain should be a dog!
Mel: A dog? But then no one will know what's going on!
Homer: They will if you give him shifty eyes. Then they'll suspect the dog!
If you've got a laptop with a decent sound card (if you're posting on/. you ought to) and install the trial version of this on it. It's a kick-ass real time spectrum analyzer, oscilloscope, tone, and noise generator. Show the cops the spectrum analysis to prove the presence of the device. It's kinda like the dB meter idea, but more freeer [sic]. Plus, if the cops still don't believe you, just generate a little white noise or like a 4 kHz tone and blast it back at him;) It's a 30 day free trial of the program that becomes an infinite day free trial with a little regedit majjic...
Interesting how no one here seems to have even mentioned Netscape 8.0
Seems kinda odd, because NS8 has all the feature of Firefox, plus Site Controls that verify the legitimacy of websites before you even browse to them, and it stops you and warns you of a known malicious site. Scrolling RSS feeds, built in Webmail & Mail Client links, and it's based on Mozilla. I've never had any problems with it, and I can't make it use 180 megs of RAM with 20 tabs open, including flash apps and java loops, and https.
Slashdot Mirror
HDTV broadcast over the air is not compressed
Broadcast HDTV is most certainly compressed. The ATSC standards utilize MPEG-2 compression over 8VSB modulation to give a ~20 Mbps channel per transmitter, whereas cable companies can use 16VSB, 256-QAM or better modulation to give a 40+ Mbps channel. Couple that with the fact that most broadcasters transmit multiple streams (subchannels like 9-1, 9-2, 9-3, etc) which each take up some of that 20 Mbps, and OTA HD broadcasts get ridiculously compressed.
Satellite providers are just as bad, trying to send HD streams over a satellite infrastructure that was built for SD. You might remember the lawsuit against DirecTV a while back about s downscaling their HD content in order to get the data to fit in their uplink streams.
disclaimer: I work at a PBS TV station, so I've heard the complaints of the broadcast engineers themselves about having to destroy the quality of their HD streams to fit all the extra crap in.
Also, once you've seen uncompressed HD coming out of a studio camera, no other HD source will look as good ever again.
see:
ATSC Standards
HDTV in the US
"HD Lite," the practice of downscaling HD transmissions
We would have seen it earlier, but... you know... the servers were hammered.
Boy... it's gone this long without anyone saying anything.
2.45GHz is not the resonant frequency of water molecules, 2.45GHz is just within the absorption band of water, which is extremely wide, and was chosen because it's cheaper to make magnetrons for 2.45GHz than other frequency ranges, 2.45GHz magnetrons are physically smaller than lower frequency magentrons, and most importantly that 2.45GHz is right smack in the middle of the 2.4-2.5GHz unlicensed ISM band, so spurious emissions won't be that big of a problem. I believe that the actual resonant frequency of the hydrogen-oxygen bond in a water molecule is somewhere around 10GHz.
However, I'm sure that the carbon-carbon bonds in hydrocarbons and the overall hydrocarbon polymers in plastics have significantly lower resonance frequencies due to their higher masses and larger physical sizes. One interesting problem, probably why they use over 1200 different frequencies, is that if a particular frequency is the fundamental resonant frequency of most of the molecules of a substance, then all of the energy will be absorbed by the molecules at the surface, which would slow the process down. I wonder if they run through a sequence of freqs or if they just run them all at once.
What the hell is a gigawatt!?
Promoting critical thinking and debate is exactly the idea of this decision. As it says in TFA, they didn't ban the film, they made it mandatory for teachers to present an opposing view. How do you expect to teach students critical thinking and media analysis by only presenting one view?
Furthermore, I would say that critical thinking and media analysis are key components of the educational system. Speaking from my educational background, (as a high school senior in Shoreline, WA) every social studies class I've had starts out with some sort of media analysis. English classes too. In my composition classes, pretty much all we do is analyze authors' opinions with respect to other authors' opinions.
So it's basically an Ionic Breeze for your computer?
Homer: The villain should be a dog!
Mel: A dog? But then no one will know what's going on!
Homer: They will if you give him shifty eyes. Then they'll suspect the dog!
Is that "Tomato/Tomato" or "Tomato/Tomato"?
"We're whalers on the moon, we carry a harpoon, but there ain't no whales so we tell tall tales and sing our whaling tune!"i es_Has_Landed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Episode_Two:_The_Ser
It's funny, laugh!
Ha Ha Ha
Like that.
If you've got a laptop with a decent sound card (if you're posting on /. you ought to) and install the trial version of this on it. It's a kick-ass real time spectrum analyzer, oscilloscope, tone, and noise generator. Show the cops the spectrum analysis to prove the presence of the device. It's kinda like the dB meter idea, but more freeer [sic]. Plus, if the cops still don't believe you, just generate a little white noise or like a 4 kHz tone and blast it back at him ;) It's a 30 day free trial of the program that becomes an infinite day free trial with a little regedit majjic...
I've been treating myself with my Violet Ray Machine "Violet Ray Machine" for a while now. I guess they figured out a new way to increase secretions.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of those...
I think your "E" and "R" keys are on backwards ;)
Interesting how no one here seems to have even mentioned Netscape 8.0 Seems kinda odd, because NS8 has all the feature of Firefox, plus Site Controls that verify the legitimacy of websites before you even browse to them, and it stops you and warns you of a known malicious site. Scrolling RSS feeds, built in Webmail & Mail Client links, and it's based on Mozilla. I've never had any problems with it, and I can't make it use 180 megs of RAM with 20 tabs open, including flash apps and java loops, and https.