madness of 1080p

[xen]

Am I the only one who thinks HD video is something the world doesn't need? I myself have been watching low-quality anime encodes for years, and I must say I have been stunned now and then to see the real (DVD) thing. I think DVD has great quality. I know that some (many?) people use their DVD/harddisk recorder to record tv shows and movies in less than maximum quality because, well, they think the minor improvement in quality that can be had is not worth the harddisk space.

Everybody seems to be busy getting their systems ready for Full HD video. I think it is madness. The industry naturally pushes this development because they need the world to dispose of the current generation of audio/video/computing hardware, so that they can then sell the next generation to us. Another generation of devices made obsolete. And for what? It seems to give meaning to the lives of the majority of people.. err, consumers. Without it, their lives are empty. Now they have something to be enthusiastic about and to occupy their minds and their passtime.

I was in a computer store today. A customer was talking to a salesman, arguing that 1080p was definitely better than 1080i, and that it made a huge difference. The salesman - someone who's probably seen it all - didn't quite agree, he thought 720p was more than enough. For the customer, it is probably something to fill his meaningless life with.

Disposal of the current generation of hardware just means that huge quantities of materials are going to the landfills and - worse - the incinerators. Little of this material can be recycled. Another huge amount of materials needs to be extracted from the eart, poisonous chemicals mixed in, and sent into our homes. Keep it coming. Already 1/3 of the worlds natural resources has been used in the last century and is now sitting idly in the dumping grounds. No way we'll be able to recycle that.

And for what? My 800Mhz Duron is still plenty fast to be playing DVDs and lower quality encodes. I upgraded to 1460Mhz only because of the higher quality encodes and because Linux, of all things, was beginning to drag me down. I read somewhere that "nowadays CPU speed is more important than ever." No, it isn't. It is less important than ever because you can still do all mundane tasks with a 6-year-old system. If people would software-engineer for that, the current generation of hardware would be able to last for decades. Did you know that a 300Mhz G3 Mac is still fast enough to display OS X Exposé smoothly and have nice window shadows, provided it has enough memory? Try that with Linux Compiz. Efficiency is an art, but the Linux croud seems to think that resources are better spent designing for current/next-gen hardware. Developer-wise, yes. Earth-wise, no. Instead of providing a counter force, the caring Linux user is worse off than the caring Windows XP user. This is partly because human resources get taxed, but material resources do not in general. Our tax system is geared towards maximum material throughput with minimum human resources.

Maybe you're thinking that your Dual Core FullHD system will last you for decades. I'm sure the industry will find a solution for that. At least systems are beginning to become a bit power efficient.

I'm planning to stick to my Socket A platform for a while. When higher quality encodes start hitting the torrent sites that I can't handle, I'll just transcode them. I don't need to buy into the Blueray hype either because I can trust to good ol' pirates to provide me with another distribution channel. The only issue is when IDE harddisks will no longer be available, and when Windows XP will become legacy. SATA controllers are a nightmare. I'm beginning to run short of expansion slots, too . mATX mainboards will become another reason for quick disposal of systems in say 6 years time, for lack of expandibility. It will get me a cheap hardware upgrade .

It seems video consumption has become the focal point of our existence. How sad. There used to be a time when our prime identity was that of the farmer, or the carpenter, or the painter, or a judge, or a scientist, but these days, we seem to have become "consumers". Am I the only one here that senses how devoid of meaning and purpose and essence that is?

[jaganath]

these days, we seem to have become "consumers". Am I the only one here that senses how devoid of meaning and purpose and essence that is?

hardly. the anti-comsumerism movement is well over 100 years old:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-consumerism

[Matija]

HD video is relevant for people in the United States of Horrible TV Broadcast. NTSC is so shockingly bad that it's no wonder everyone over there is raving about HDTV, because it truly is a gigantic improvement.

I have a great Philips CRT TV which obviously runs circles around the most expensive plasma and LCD TVs, and it has some nice digital filters that improve motion and sharpness. Even regular PAL broadcast looks awesome on it.

[andyb]

As a general rule of thumb, the higher the resolution and frame rate the better.

On a high def 1080p screen, 1080 stuff looks awsome and only people with really bad eysight wont notice the difference between 1080 and inferiors resolutions.

I watch quite a lot of 720p stuff and it blows DVD away in the same way that DVD blows VHS/broadcast TV away.

In a week or two, I will be going round to a friends house to watch "Band of Brothers" in 1080, on his 37" 1080p TV/computer screen I cant wait.


Andy

[autoboy]

When you blow the image up to 60 inches and sit 11 feet away then 1080p really does make a huge difference. 720p is pretty close but slightly softer. On my 40inch 1080p TV from 13 feet away DVD looks pretty good. But on the 60 1080p is clearly a better experience. To each his own I guess.

[frostedflakes]

It is definitely a big improvement, I don't know how a person could argue that. You can make an argument that standard definition is good enough for you, and to some extent I'd tend to agree with you on this, but saying that there's no difference is just plain wrong. Something to keep in mind is that vectorized graphics (like anime) are going to upscale much better than real-life images, and especially when you're stretching the imagine out over a large screen (40"+) standard def can really start to look like crap.

Also something to keep in mind is that most of the people tossing their SDTV and picking up an HD set are probably the same people who are always upgrading their computer every year to play the latest game or buying useless gadgets, and are probably not representative of the entire population. I'd tend to think most consumers are waiting until their SDTV kicks the bucket before they bother getting an HDTV. The majority of people probably either don't know or don't care about HD, at least not yet.

[jessekopelman]

I myself have been watching low-quality anime encodes for years, and I must say I have been stunned now and then to see the real (DVD) thing.

You would have the exact same experience if you went from DVD to HD on a large TV. What's the issue? DVD was much higher resolution than VHS. 1080p is much higher resolution than DVD. Progress. You sound like those people who said there was no need for trains, because horses were fast enough for anyone's needs. I am sure before that people said that there was no need for horses, just use your feet.

Now, your point about consumerism is far more trenchant, but that argument is undermined by the time spent downloading, transcoding, and watching the anime. There is certainly a case to be made that people spend too much time consuming media, but what format that media is in is hardly relevant. I think your real point is that you are cheap and would rather spend time supporting your obsolete hardware than money replacing it. That is fine, but is hardly some noble endeavor.

[Pauli]

Consumerism creates jobs and stimulates economic and creative growth and causes an increase in productivity. Yes, this does put increased demands on the environment with waste disposal and whatnot, but these issues can and should be addressed as well (also opportunities for economic creativity).

Those "good old days" you would like to return to are stagnant and lead to perpetual high unemployment and economic depression. People, in general, have a much higher standard of living in the information age than even as recent as 30 years ago.

As for the video topic:
For those with PAL broadcasts, like yourself, HD video isn't so much of an upgrade. For us in the States, with the horrible NTSC standard, it is huge. We absolutely NEED better higher quality video broadcasts. So why not standardize on something that is higher quality than standard DVD when it is very feasible? Simply put, video standards of the past can be substantially improved at reasonable cost with current and developing technologies. There is no reason NOT to improve video standards -- the time has arrived and I welcome it with open arms.

[tehcrazybob]

You find DVD to be such high quality because you're used to such useless rips. For those of us who have become accustomed to DVD quality, the transition to high definition is just as shocking.

However, most people have never actually seen full DVD quality, because in order to do so you need a TV capable of Enhanced Definition (EDTV), and those only existed for a year or so before they were replaced with HDTV. An EDTV has the same 480 lines of vertical resolution as NTSC, but is capable of progressive scan and a much greater horizontal resolution, giving it the same aspect ratio as HDTV and allowing DVD's to be displayed at native resolution. When you show a DVD on a standard definition TV, you either zoom in and lose the edges of the picture, or zoom out and only use half of your vertical resolution - either way, you're not getting the full quality of the DVD.

So most people would be suited surprisingly well with either an EDTV or an HDTV and the equipment to upscale their DVD's. However, even then, you'll eventually become accustomed to the DVD and want even more.

Besides all that, higher resolution makes a big difference at higher screen sizes. On anything smaller than a 27" TV, you won't see a benefit to anything higher than DVD resolution. But as the TV gets bigger, the extra resolution becomes apparent; at an average viewing distance a 42" TV really benefits from 1080.

One final note, on the guy in the store debating between 1080i/p and 720p: 720p is better than 1080i. Even though LCD displays can't actually interlace, having an interlaced signal still drops the available resolution below what's available with 720p.

[yamahaSHO]

I've got two 720p televisions (40" and 32") and there is a HUGE difference in clarity between these and my old 27" SDTV. On the 40" I have an Xbox 360 and a HTPC that plays both BD and HD DVD and also a tuner card that accepts analog and digital.

The 32" TV just has a HTPC attached and I use it for everything.

I have many DVD's that I have been upconverting on the HTPC and even that upconverted picture doesn't even come close to the BD/HD DVD disks I have.

It's almost hard to read anything on my buddies 32" (4:3) SDTV when playing Xbox, but on both of my TV's they are VERY clear.

I just talked my dad into buying a new Sony 52", 120Hz TV for his second house as I am building an HTPC for him. The picture there is way better than my TV's for the fact that 120Hz TV's do MUCH better with panning movment and medium speed moving objects. Resolution isn't as much of an issue at the respective distances we sit.

I wouldn't buy anything other than 1080p/720p as I use my TV's as for HTPC usage. Flicking text is annoying.


Either way, technology is always improving... 1080/720 is just hitting the mainstream hard. That has already been supassed, but we probably won't see it for some time. I used to never watch TV/Movies etc.... But now with my HDTV's, HTPC's, HD gaming systems, I find myself using the TV all the time. I'll watch movies just to the beautiful picture.

[Moogles]

I don't even know how to respond to this...

What are you so bitter about? Your computing needs are minimal so everyone who wants a little more and enjoys technology is a mindless brainwashed consumer drone?

You want progress to stop right at the point where it serves your needs perfectly. Your current computer does everything you want it to (play DVDs and movie rips) so the whole industry should just shut itself down? How smallminded, selfish and cheap -- all under the guise of being an aware eco-consumer. What a joke.

Using uATX motherboards as an example of a throw-away product is absurd. Current uATX motherboards have high quality sound, network and video built in. There's no reason to assume you'll have to replace a uATX before a regular ATX motherboard at all. uATX is an industry scam to get people to buy more motherboards because they'll run out of expansion slots? Have you lost your mind?

Your socket A dinosaur with cheap, inefficient PSU and power guzzling CPU isn't doing the enviroment any favours either. Not to mention the fact that it's probably on 24/7 downloading content.

The world doesn't need 1080P video content, but what it needs even less are hypocritical pseudo-enviromentalists who hide their unwillingness to spend money on (current!) technology in layers of flawed rhetoric.

[derekva]

Well, speaking as someone who owns both a 43" 720P (Pioneer plasma) and a 46" 1080P (Sharp LCD) television, different technologies asided, the image quality on the Sharp is much cleaner than on the Pioneer. The Pioneer has better color saturation because of plasma's inherent superiority over LCD in this regard, but watching a high-quality DVD transfer (e.g. Ratatoullie) on an upconverting DVD player or a QAM HD broadcast is a great experience on either TV (albeit superior on the 1080P).

And to whoever mentioned it before...yes...NTSC is a suckfest of pain in whatever format.

-D

[xen]

Nice feedback.

Yeah I knew I'm not the only one, but spending time researching upgrade options make me feel like I am.

There is some truth in what you (Moogles et. al) are saying. I am cheap in that I don't allow myself the things I would like to have, and perhaps that is where my bitterness comes from... And I rationalize my sense of unworthiness by saying that it is bad for the environment. Don't get me wrong, I care hugely about the environment, but I also use it to cover my lack of self worth , or maybe it even causes it. This makes it hard to make a realistic choice, because these hidden intentions influence my thinking and decisions.

I am not so cheap as to not want to invest in quality hardware though. I wouldn't think twice about buying the Antec P180 if I liked its size, and my PSU is a Tagan, while not very efficient, not very cheap either. Also, I'm not downloading 24/7 or even 8/7. The people I know that do, usually have dozens of DVDs or albums that they still need to watch or listen to, but they don't have the time for it. Still they keep it coming .

It is however the question if energy efficiency in the home weighs up against the environmental cost of procuding and disposing of new and old hardware. It is said that for every container of trash leaving your home, 70 containers of trash leave the factories that were byproducts of the production of your one piece of trash. This means that end-user disposal has a minimal impact compared to production. The energy used for driving your computer is also minimal compared to the cost of heating your home and your water, your fridge and your washing machine. And half of the year, your computer even helps warming your home. Every kWh you save with your more efficient PSU will need to be drawn from natural gas (where I live). The story is different in the server park of course. Airconditioning server parks uses loads of energy.

My issue with 1080p is really more an issue with our way of life at large. There is nothing wrong with progress or allowing yourself the pleasures of life and technology, but at the same time, we're on a train that's heading linea recta for a ravine. By becoming more energy efficient we can slow down the train, but I see no sign of us changing tracks yet. Meanwhile, the developing nations are putting more coal on the fire, effectively nullifying our efforts. We need to start working the points if we are to make it through the next century intact.

My point is more along the lines of:
- we are in a type of economy that mandates that it keeps growing indefinitely, and also that it keeps accelerating its growth indefinitely. This cannot be ever conciled with a sustainable way of life. The Earth is a limited phenomenon.
- arguments of consumerism being good for the welfare of people only make sense if you commit already to an economy that needs to keep growing in order to stay healthy, an economy of ruthless competition and ruthless efficiency, an economy that will commit suicide eventually. Thus, the argument must be flawed.
- higher efficiency is never going to solve our environmental problems or our societal problems. Higher efficiency puts ever higher strain on all agents in the economy, and is like a pyramid of weight crushing down those at the bottom. The one at the very bottom, the one most suffering, is the Earth. The more efficient the economy becomes, the bigger the gap between the rich and the poor. The lower working class people in the big cities of the richest country on Earth are *not* living pleasant lives.

Designing for sustainability must mean that every part of the life cycle of production is geared towards recoverability of resources. That will make production vastly more expensive, so it is clear that this will not happen until either
- we completely run out of resources
- governments impose taxes on newly extracted material resources instead of human resources
- we make a radical shift away from thinking only with our heads (and wallets) towards thinking with our hearts, which would completely revamp our economy since competition would no longer be solely based on the value interchanged between and aqcuired by trading partners.

So, thanks for the feedback. Given the economy we're in, going for 1080p seems the most natural thing to do. Progress is part of every healthy society. It is natural that technology matures and new generations of products get produced. What is unhealthy is not the advancement, but the bigger system that makes faster advancement cause faster destruction. In a heart-centered economy, advancement would be completely natural and completely environmentally friendly. That it is not now cannot be attributed to advancement in itself.

It looks like I'm going to be buying myself a nice new system .

Edit: Btw:

I was not implying that mATX is an industry scam trying to make products obsolete faster, only that it would have that effect.

[ntavlas]

Even before xen replied I was mot thinking the author cheap as I had the same doubts...
I would get rid of my ancient socket a platform no matter the cost. The problem is that for each improvement in quality, there is hardly half an improvement in power/manufacture efficiency.
We need increasingly more resources for a minor achievement... and given our modern society and know-how we could do better. We sacrifice a lot in order to achieve a little more and I think this is the point being made..

[xen]

Yes well.. if NTSC is so bad then I can imagine, but really, I never ever heard anyone in my vicinity ever mention that we needed something better than DVD. VHS was another story, the limitations of VHS were very perceptible. So basically, for us Europeans, getting better quality video just wasn't any kind of priority, which means it is just a waste of precious resources considering all the other kinds of issues that are very much more so a priority. This doesn't mean the advancement is bad, it just means it is a bit inappropriate considering the playing field. All the same, it is true that for the majority HD content is not a priority, just for people that need a new TV or computer, so it is not that big an issue, but you also hear messages about people that are buying LCD/Plasma displays "because the neighbours also have one" and getting into debt problems because of it. And if you're a reader of 'interior design' magazines it is clear that you can only feel good about yourself if you have a large spacious house with a wall mounted 50" plasma panel . Social pressure will take care of the parts advertizements can't handle.

Perhaps it becomes an issue when you get a 60" screen, but then, don't sit so close! :p. Yes and I've been to the stores and I've seen a HD video on a €2500 TV and yes it looked fantastic. It was almost as if I was looking through a crystal clear window and I could see the real life people there on a real life beach. But this is not a question of desirability, but of appropriateness, given the question of where we want to spend our resources, and how much it strains the Earth. You can bet the REAL cost of producing all this new hardware is not reflected in the price because the cost to nature, which is a cost we ourselves will have to deal with in the future, is not taken into account. If this TV was twice the price, would you still be buying it? Thinking with your heart means taking this into account, somehow. As an individual, there is little you can do, but if enough people start caring about it, you can be sure ways will be created of paying that cost.

[sea2stars]

This is all a very circuitous and rambling argument; not very well thought out, and backed up with a statement like, "I don't need to buy into the Blueray hype either because I can trust to good ol' pirates to provide me with another distribution channel" doesn't help.

I'm sure everyone here realizes the implications of their actions in regards to the environment. Until the government starts mandating sweeping change, not likely anytime soon, it's up to the individual. And yes, an individual can do a great deal.

Do your research before you ramble, look into all options, and help to educate friends and family.

[jessekopelman]

One final note, on the guy in the store debating between 1080i/p and 720p: 720p is better than 1080i. Even though LCD displays can't actually interlace, having an interlaced signal still drops the available resolution below what's available with 720p.

This is just not true. For 1080i, each frame is 540 X 1920, or 1,036,800 total pixels. For 720p, each frame is 720 X 1280, or 921,600 total pixels. 1080i is clearly higher resolution than 720p. Now 720p may well generally look better, but that is more to do with how many TVs handle the interlacing and the fact that your eyes are not good enough to resolve the difference in information content on anything smaller than a truly behemoth screen. Given all the processing that most TVs do to the image before displaying it, resolution is an overblown concern for all but the largest screens (say > 50"). But isn't that always the way with male-centric gear marketing? Highest HP, highest acoustic wattage, most MHz, most pixels . . .

[tehcrazybob]

This is just not true. For 1080i, each frame is 540 X 1920, or 1,036,800 total pixels. For 720p, each frame is 720 X 1280, or 921,600 total pixels. 1080i is clearly higher resolution than 720p. Now 720p may well generally look better, but that is more to do with how many TVs handle the interlacing and the fact that your eyes are not good enough to resolve the difference in information content on anything smaller than a truly behemoth screen.

You're right, of course. I was thinking only of vertical resolution when I typed that. As you noted, it should say that 720p looks better than 1080i, rather than that it has higher resolution.

[qviri]

My point is more along the lines of:
- we are in a type of economy that mandates that it keeps growing indefinitely, and also that it keeps accelerating its growth indefinitely. This cannot be ever conciled with a sustainable way of life. The Earth is a limited phenomenon.

You are assuming mankind is bound to Earth. Consider it has been barely 50 years since the first artificial satellite was put in the orbit.


I don't own a TV.

[xen]

You are assuming mankind is bound to Earth. Consider it has been barely 50 years since the first artificial satellite was put in the orbit.

I don't own a TV.

I don't own a TV either.

True, but counting on the scientific/technological means of colonizing other planets is hardly a foolproof way of reaching a sustainable way of life. Unless the energy and financial means to do massive space travel is suddenly available in unlimited quantitities, you can be sure our species will eat up the entire earth and then face massive crisis. We are not the first society on earth to run out of resources. The Romans, for instance, ran out of wood after clearing all the forests and replacing them with olive orchards. The story of Noah may very well refer to floods that were the result of the clearing of hillsides - I am just stipulating. I think it is arrogant to assume that somehow our technological superiority will save us all and that it justifies our cruel treatment of our brethren on Earth. We are not so technically superior to be able to force nature to submit to our rules, it is nature that will humble us, in due time. We are not something that rises above nature, we are contained within.

It is more likely that the Earth will end up something like the vision of Jaqcues Attila, former advisor to Mitterand: war between the rich and the poor, and separation of the technocratic upper class, living in walled cities, from the poor that wander the earth looking for food.

It is also just over 50 years since the maximization of consumption was put forth as the ultimate goal of society, and you can see what massive destruction we have accomplished in that time. I don't think we have another 50 years of stable continued existance as we are now.

This is all a very circuitous and rambling argument; not very well thought out, and backed up with a statement like, "I don't need to buy into the Blueray hype either because I can trust to good ol' pirates to provide me with another distribution channel" doesn't help.

I'm sure everyone here realizes the implications of their actions in regards to the environment. Until the government starts mandating sweeping change, not likely anytime soon, it's up to the individual. And yes, an individual can do a great deal.

Do your research before you ramble, look into all options, and help to educate friends and family.

Rambling helps me become aware of my thoughts, feelings and intentions, and to sort things out. I'm not looking for data, I'm looking for feedback and ways of thinking. It is clear that I'm very confused about the matter, because my intentions are not clear and I have to reconcile wanting to enjoy electronics with the fact that the production of electronics is a huge burden to the environment and as an individual you can only choose between bad and slightly less bad. So the only choice you can make that is environmentally sane is to use second hand equipment. Also, to repair stuff if it's broken instead of replacing it, even though it is more expensive, etc.

So what is your stance on the issue? What choices do you make? Do you buy a new computer case if you would like to have one, if the old one is still perfectly functional? Do you buy a new computer if it provides for a better experience, but you don't really need it for your productivity? Do you go for pleasure trips in your car? Why?

And how is saying no to blueray as a means to prevent the becoming obsolete of DVD players, in principle a useless stance to take? If that stance were carried more widely, it could perhaps keep DVD discs available longer in the stores. Also note that, High Definition increases the cost of producing video, making it much harder for independant film makers to produce material fit for distribution.

[sea2stars]

Save and reuse what ever you can, fix what you can, donate or sell what you don't need and recycle what's beyond redemption.

My 4 year old laptop is starting to slowly fall apart, but there's a bevy of parts on ebay. My TV's about 9 years old, and yes I'll probably upgrade and sell the old unit. The last three cases I bought were an Antec Solo, ended up being $5 and is still in its box, a humidor and the latest was a flatware chest. My oldest system is currently residing at my mother-in-laws, being used as a web client. I just sold a Celeron system on ebay, and once I get my laptop back in shape I'll probably toss that on ebay too. If I start getting side work again I'll probably start building a new rendering system; have been working on the laptop.

Bluray. In the US downloading pirated content is frowned upon, and isn't a great argument for not getting Bluray.

And exactly how does producing for HD increase the cost of production? Again, do your research. It's significantly cheaper for an independent film maker to go digital compared to using film; even more so if the camera is rented.

[autoboy]

I hate these stupid hippie arguments about how resources are getting depleted, how the earth is warming, and how the consumerism economy is the enemy. Get a life people. As one resource gets more expensive to extract, another with take its place. Such is technology and free markets. Look what all this misplaced hype is getting us. It is giving us higher food prices, increased famine, overhyped non sustainable worthless technology, and hydrogen cars that generate one gallon of liquid water every 30 miles. WTF? Unless you are splitting that hydrogen from water (another valuable resource that humans can't live without) and not from traditional hydrocarbons, then you just released 1 gallon of one of the most potent green house gases known to man! As for the earth warming from man made causes, even if it is which is far from proven, a little warmth might warm those frigid personalities of yours.

As for 1080i video, it is actually a full 1920x1080 resolution split into two fields and thus actually contains the full 1920x1080 resolution if properly deinterlaced. Most TVs, and especially the 720p models, simply throw one field away and interpolated the information in between the lines and this is where the misconception that 1080i is actually just 1920 x 540. However, if deinterlaced properly, 1080i at 60 fields per second can contain a full 1080p film at 24 frames per second, as well as the full 1080i/60 resolution of video. 1080i is actually an excellent container to deliver both full 1080p24 as seen in most movies and many TV shows, as well as 1080i60 which is used for filming things like live shows, reality TV, and sports. The quality of those 1080i broadcasts can be fantastic with the right equipment doing the processing. The HQV Reon chip in my Onkyo 875 receiver does an excellent job with 1080i and it looks much better than 720p on my 60" 1080p TV.

Read this for an understanding of resolutions.

[jaganath]

I hate these stupid hippie arguments about how resources are getting depleted

yeah, $100 oil just happened by itself. also multi year high prices for copper, platinum, gold and other commodities. no, resources can never get scarce, it's impossible.

Look what all this misplaced hype is getting us. It is giving us higher food prices

biofuels are a very, very small part of higher food prices. mostly it's because 2 billion+ people in Asia want to improve their diets to reflect their increasing wealth.

and hydrogen cars that generate one gallon of liquid water every 30 miles.

there are no hydrogen cars for sale today and there will not be for the forseeable future. hybrids, however, are extremely useful and available at your local Toyota dealership.

[autoboy]

yeah, $100 oil just happened by itself. also multi year high prices for copper, platinum, gold and other commodities. no, resources can never get scarce, it's impossible.

Umm, I already addressed that in my prior post:

As one resource gets more expensive to extract, another with take its place.

there are no hydrogen cars for sale today and there will not be for the forseeable future. hybrids, however, are extremely useful and available at your local Toyota dealership.

Then my Motortrend magazine must be wrong cause the Honda fcx clarity hydrogen car is coming Summer 2008 and it looks pretty close to production ready

biofuels are a very, very small part of higher food prices. mostly it's because 2 billion+ people in Asia want to improve their diets to reflect their increasing wealth.

...and the increase in popularity of less land efficient organic food by yuppy soccer moms shopping at whole foods. There are a lot of factors that are coming together to increase food, fuel, water, and other basic needs mostly as a result of the conflicting ideas of people with a conscience for the environment. I too care for the environment much more than you may think, however, I am a realist and I really can't stand the crap that shoots out of the mouths of most of these "environmentalists" working to try and fix the problem with fanciful schemes designed more to line their pockets with sucker investor's cash than actually save the environment.

[xen]

Bluray. In the US downloading pirated content is frowned upon, and isn't a great argument for not getting Bluray.

Pirated content is frowned upon everywhere, but that doesn't mean I hold the same opinion. Pirating is not the argument for not getting Bluray, it is the escape route. The argument is not wanting to make obsolete at least one piece of equipment in most homes in the countries of the West.

And exactly how does producing for HD increase the cost of production? Again, do your research. It's significantly cheaper for an independent film maker to go digital compared to using film; even more so if the camera is rented.

You're right, I thought I had read something of the kind. I can't remember what it was then.

As one resource gets more expensive to extract, another with take its place.

Right. We will replace a finite supply of 'ancient sunlight' with...what? Of course hydrogen is no solution, because it is not an energy source (not on this planet). It could be a carrier though, but it needs a source, and the only potential source somewhere in the next century or beyond is nuclear fusion, unless that mysterious 'zero point energy' suddenly comes to life. As I said, it is the height of arrogance to assume that 'science' will bail us out, and will continue to do so indefinitely, and because of that, we don't need to look at the fundamental problems.

...and the increase in popularity of less land efficient organic food by yuppy soccer moms shopping at whole foods. There are a lot of factors that are coming together to increase food, fuel, water, and other basic needs mostly as a result of the conflicting ideas of people with a conscience for the environment.

Oh yes, practicing sustainable agriculture is a real bad thing. You are prioritizing food supply now over food supply in the future, how shortsighted. Sacrificing the health of the ecosystem as a means to solve present problems only sustains the bigger problem and projects it into the future. That can never be a sane solution. Furthermore, worldwide population growth tends to follow the availability of food: produce more food and you will get more people, which will prompt you to produce even more food, which will get you more people, and so on. Sacrificing forest land for more farmland and using 'rape' methods of production to achieve higher efficiency is not going to end this spiral. It is clear that the spiral will just continue and that every environmental risk will be just ignored in order to produce more and more and more. An awareness of limits to growth would create the right atmosphere for conscious decisions in the fields of population growth, economy, industry and so on. As long as we think there are no limits to growth, nothing will change. It's about awareness.

Further, organic food presently takes up about 2.5% of the total food market (figure 2006), so its influence is minimal compared to the 33% of America's maize harvest going to biofuels in 2008.

Also, a meat-based diet requires 7 times more land than a plant-based diet and meat production contributes greatly to environmental problems such as global warming, deforestation and acid rain. source. Pointing your finger at organic farming is a bit misplaced.

At least the awareness is shifting slowly. Even though it may produce unwanted results in the short term, it is better than no shift at all. And I wonder what kind of solutions of sustainability you have in mind.

[jessekopelman]

As for 1080i video, it is actually a full 1920x1080 resolution split into two fields and thus actually contains the full 1920x1080 resolution if properly deinterlaced. Most TVs, and especially the 720p models, simply throw one field away and interpolated the information in between the lines and this is where the misconception that 1080i is actually just 1920 x 540.

This is not quite correct. The US standard is for HDTV to be encoded at 60 Hz. 720p is recorded at 60 fps and as such each cycle is encoded as 720 X 1280 pixels of information. 1080i is recorded at 30 fps and, to encode it at 60 Hz, each recorded frame is broken into two 540 X 1920 encoded frames. While it is certainly true that the final result of a deinterlaced 1080i stream is a series of sixty 1080 X 1920 images per second, each of those only effectively contains 540 X 1920 pixels of recorded information. Exactly how these 540 X 1920 pixel subframes are built into 1080 X 1920 pixel images (aka deinterlacing) determines to a large degree how nice the image looks and a poor job here is how some higher resolution screens will look worse than lower resolution screens. To correctly compare 720p to 1080i we have to go by how much information is actually displayed per cycle. Using that basis, the correct comparison uses 540 X 1920 pixels -- which is, again, still more information than 720 X 1280 pixels.

However, this is all completely moot when we are comparing a 720p TV to a 1080i TV, as both will likely be displaying source signals that were encoded in either 1080i (60Hz) or 1080p (24Hz, 30Hz, other). As to which TV will look better is completely a function of whether the screen is large enough for the viewer to resolve the resolution difference and how good the video processing is in each set. For smaller screens, the best 720p set will look as good as the best 1080i set, but this will never be the case for larger screens. Happily, sets capable of displaying only 1080i as their final format seems to be quickly vanishing from the scene, anyway.

[autoboy]

Sorry, 1080i is two fields per frame making frames a full 1920 x 1080. On static scenes there is no loss of resolution because fields are simply added together. This gives you the full resolution of 2M pixels and the incredible detail that comes with 1080. When a scene is moving, there is a loss of temporal resolution and the success of this depends on the deinterlacer.

Also, you are confused about fields vs frames. 1080i is shot at 60 fields per second with each field making 1/2 of a frame. 1080i is sometimes referred to as 1080i30 if you are talking about frames per second or 1080i60 if you are talking about fields per second. ATSC, the US standard is 1080i60 indicating that there are 60 fields per second which makes for 30 frames per second.

Did you read the article? It is rather good at explaining this.

[drees]

I hate these stupid hippie arguments about how resources are getting depleted, how the earth is warming, and how the consumerism economy is the enemy. Get a life people. As one resource gets more expensive to extract, another with take its place. Such is technology and free markets.

You do realize that the biggest problem with the current market, is that it is not a free market?

A true free market would account for all costs of a transaction, however, the cost of pollution to produce a good is very rarely accounted for in any significant manner.

Corn is heavily subsidized, which is the only reason it is the favored crop in the USA to produce ethanol.

Oil is heavily subsidized, look at all the money spent stabilizing the middle east which is currently approaching half a trillion dollars on the Iraq war alone, not to mention the loss of life, almost 4,000 U.S. soldiers kills and 60,000+ wounded. Not to mention Iraqi casualties.

And now, with the latest housing market troubles, the government is again stepping in with a fat tax rebate check (borrowing money that we don't have) and is dropping interest rates to encourage more spending of money that we really don't have.

Back to the environmental costs of computer upgrades, currently the energy costs of producing computer generally far outweighs the energy spent actually operating the computer according to the studies I've read, so it's best to use existing equipment rather than buy new equipment. If if you must buy new equipment, try to get your old equipment onto the used market if it's functional, or at least properly recycle/dispose of it if not.

[drees]

Then my Motortrend magazine must be wrong cause the Honda fcx clarity hydrogen car is coming Summer 2008 and it looks pretty close to production ready

Did Motortrend mention how much the FCX costs? Oh yeah, that's right, you can't actually buy the car, they are only leasing it, for a cost of $600/month for 36 months. Gotta give Honda props for subsidizing a zero-emissions car, even though all a fuel-cell really does is function as an in-efficient battery.

The immediate future will see more gas-electric hybrids, a couple years from now will see plug-in hybrids hit production which enable us to do the majority of our travel under electric power, with a small engine for long trips. Once plug-ins start hitting the road, you will see more quick charge stations popping up which will make pure electric cars more convenient and practical.

Fuel-cell vehicles will have their place, but realistically, we won't be seeing them sold in any significant numbers for at least 15 years and likely somewhere between 20-30.

[autoboy]

Current battery, and even planned future batteries, are a terrible solution to electricity storage in a car. There will be no successful battery exchange systems despite Israel trying it on a grand scale.