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

[Eric Sharkey]

On Wed, Sep 18, 2013 at 1:33 PM, Michael T. Dean
<mtdean at thirdcontact.com> wrote:
> Yeah, the main justification for interlaced formats (for both NTSC and ATSC)
> was bandwidth.

True.

> They had 6MHz to use.  For ATSC, that meant 19.39Mbps for
> broadcast TV.  With the MPEG-2 encoders available at the time, that meant
> good picture quality up to 720p60 or 1080p30 or 1080i60.

I think that's pretty pathetic.  Lossy compression is all about using
perceptual models to reduce the most information without significantly
reducing the amount of perceived information.

A video compression algorithm that starts with "Throw out all
information about half the pixels on alternate frames" is really
pretty lame.  It's only main selling point is in reducing the amount
of work needed to do the compression.

No one in their right mind would suggest such a system if starting from scratch.

Eric