Xref: utzoo sci.electronics:10647 comp.std.internat:620 rec.video:11154 comp.graphics:10422 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!bas+ From: bas+@andrew.cmu.edu (Bruce Sherwood) Newsgroups: sci.electronics,comp.std.internat,rec.video,comp.graphics Subject: Re: I don't need HDTV! Message-ID: Date: 16 Mar 90 22:40:54 GMT Organization: Center for Design of Educational Computing, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Lines: 20 At the risk of stating the obvious: Some of this discussion of HDTV implies that there will always be a need for another generation of standards with even higher resolution. That isn't necessarily the case. The human eye has limited resolution, and higher resolution than that in the picture is literally useless, if you are talking in terms of a "typical" screen size viewed from a "typical" viewing distance. Similarly, there must be an upper limit on useful fidelity in color discrimination, beyond which the human eye just can't see any improvement. The analogy with audio is that a CD with frequency response out to 10 MHz would not sound better than one with frequency response out to 20 KHz, because the human ear can't hear the higher frequencies. What we want in electronic products is high fidelity for both eye and ear, but no more than that. Unfortunately today's television and computers are typically well below this threshold. Bruce Sherwood