Re: Anybody's machine working most of time?

Dana Cline - MVP wrote:

In a similar vein, consider the advances in audio components. When I was
young, the big thing was "transistor radios", although many of us still had
tube radios. Then there were the "cheap Japanese knockoffs". My ears could
definitely tell the difference. As time marched on, I could still tell the
difference between a $500 audio system and a $5,000 audio system. And if my
ears couldn't tell the difference, I could _see_ the difference on an
oscilloscope. I had a boss in 1981 that spent weeks and thousands of dollars
tweaking his stereo system to make the audio as perfect as he could. There
then came a point, oh, call it 5 or 15 years ago, that I could no longer
tell the difference between a $500 system and a $5,000 system, even with a
scope.

Similarly with video. In 1975, Sony had the best picture tubes. Line them up
beside all other manufacturers TVs and the difference was obvious. I sold
TVs in a Best Products store then (similar to today's Circuit City or Best
Buy). When a guy came in and said "I want a 23 inch TV", I'd show him the
lineup and he'd automatically spend the extra bux for a Sony. It was really
no contest. Today, the picture on most TVs, even the cheap ones, has reached
the point of "best possible". Or had, until plasmas, DLPs, and LCDs came
along.

Media Centers are still in the early stages of this curve. For some of us,
they're just not yet good enough. For others of us, they are. They will
continue to get better. Once the US shifts to digital-only TV (end of 2006
unless Congress resets the date again), the quality will rapidly improve.
And especially once the display portion gets better (I'm still waiting for
that 1-inch thick 84-inch diagonal OLED flat panel), then there will no
longer be a discernable difference between the $500 tv and the $5,000 tv.


However, the nature of the problem is completely different from the
areas of evolutionary improvement that you discuss.

The primary reason that no MCE system has (or will have) component
or RGB (or SCART) inputs is fear that people will use them to create
high quality copies of copyrighted works.  "Fair use" used to provide
ample justification for high quality consumer recording, but the DMCA
has shifted the balance of power significantly toward media distributors
and away from media consumers.

Time will tell whether the US has the political will to correct
this corporate distortion of the intent of copyright law.

Once media enters the digital domain, only the A/D and D/A components
and the actual pickup and display tranducers are in the analog domain
and subject to incremental improvement.  The entire digital processing
chain is _digital_ and therefore either works at the required rate or
doesn't.  (Of course, some algorithms are better than others, but that
is mathematics.)

There remains a large sector of virtually every market which holds
the conviction that "if it costs more, it's worth more".  This very
corrosive attitude damages primarily those who can afford it, so it
is self-limiting in a Darwinian sense.  ;-)

-michael

Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/
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