Archive for February 4, 2008

HDTV and YouTube

February 4, 2008 at 2:23 am · Filed under technology, thought

If you just looked at HDTVs trend, one would conclude that people want bigger screens, sharper pictures, and more vivid colors, and are willing to pay a significant amount of money for them.

If you just looked at YouTube, one would conclude people don’t care a bit about any of it. They’re happy to watch blurry, low-resolution video in a small box. I don’t even hear people complaining about the video quality on You Tube, yet they probably would complain about a lackluster HDTV.

There are many reasons for this contrast in expectations, but I wonder if there is any one predominant reason. Is it lowered expectations for watching videos on a computer? The length of YouTube videos–i.e. we will put up with anything for five minutes? The price, free vs. a thousand dollars or more for an HDTV? Genetic wiring that only makes a small percent of the population really care about video quality? A generational difference (e.g. younger people have better eyes are are in the habit of watching online video)?

My guess is that the combination of cost (free) and convenience (instant viewing) is more than enough to compensate for low video quality for most people. Less important are the other issues, such as length. Length is an issue for me, but I know many people happy to watch 22-minute You Tube-quality TV shows one after another.

If I am overlooking something, chime in.

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Sarah Silverman: “I’m…”

February 4, 2008 at 1:54 am · Filed under Internet video, celebrity

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Well, That Was Worth 11 Hours

February 4, 2008 at 1:22 am · Filed under announcement, design

Okay, it wasn’t, but I had nothing better to do.

I finally finished transferring my blog from Blogger to Wordpress and fixing all of the obvious bugs. Now I can do everything I could already do at Blogger. Yay!

Let me know what you think, especially if there is a bug or a feature you’d like to see. I’m going to give this a try for a few days and decide whether to sick with it permanently then.

Oh, and check out the mini-blog on the right. It may end up getting updated more than the main blog.

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