[mythtv-users] High end, state of the art Myth Frontend

[Joseph Fry]

>> Theoretically,
>> compressing a 1080p/60 video would use twice the bandwidth of
>> compressing a 1080i/60 video at the same level of quality.
>
> The comparison is between compressing a 1080p60 video using MPEG2
> bitrate x, and compressing the same video first by throwing out half
> the pixels and then using MPEG2 at the same bitrate.
>
> Your statement is that it will look better if you only feed half the
> information into the MPEG2 algorithm.
>
> If this is true, MPEG2 is completely braindead.

Did you read the rest of my statement?

I understand what your saying, it seems crazy that MPEG2 cannot simply
discard the same amount of information as interlacing does and end up
with the same or better quality.. but it's true... MPEG 2 cannot,
within ATSC allowed specifications, compress a video as effectively as
the combination of interlacing then compression.

No one is saying that MPEG 2 cannot do better under any circumstances,
but broadcasters have to conform to a standard that was set when
realtime encoding and decoding of MPEG2 using cheaply manufactured
chips limited what they could do.

Essentially, compressing a 1080p/60 video into the bandwidth allowed
to a channel under ATSC, would have required hardware in televisions
that simply didn't exist at the time the specification was drafted.
Which is why they updated the standard in 2008 to add methods of
compressing the video further to allow 1080p/60.