Comments on: Does HD On a PC Screen Matter?

By: Retazos de la web del 2007-11-25 (microblogging) | hombrelobo, una mente dispersa

Sun, 25 Nov 2007 23:24:12 +0000

[...] - GigaOM » Blog Archive Does HD On a PC Screen Matter? « HD video on a PC screen doesn’t [...]

By: Faisal

Faisal — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 23:53:37 +0000

Our users and the studios we work with tell us it depends on the length of engagement with the content. It’s ok to watch a 90 second clip in blurry, SD or below quality.
For feature length movies, whether experienced on a laptop or whilst connected to a plasma, however HD is important. In the same way gaming resolution has become higher why would you accept anything less when you lean back and enjoy the movies?

By: Frank Sinton

Frank Sinton — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 03:29:28 +0000

Quality will matter more and more as Mainstream Mom (and Dad) start watching Web Video. Right now, your average 18-25 year-old is OK with YouTube quality. Your 45-year-old who has his/her computer hooked up to a LCD monitor or HDTV will care — a lot.

We are already seeing an interesting trend - while the 18-24 year-old crowd still is the majority of viewers, we have seen a recent surge in 35-54 year-olds. They are watching shows such as “Beautiful Places in HD” and “National Geographic HD”:
(link)

(BTW, if you use Miro - you should really stick that channel’s RSS feed in Miro - just be sure to turn autodownload off and pick and choose the ones you want to download - amazing!)

By: Pete

Pete — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 20:56:38 +0000

My point exactly. There’s no way YouTube will reach that prime quality level that people enjoy because the creators of those videos can’t reach it themselves.

By: Arlo Gilbert

Arlo Gilbert — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 20:54:39 +0000

Absolutely it matters, for free video perhaps not so much, but the resolution of pc screens is high enough that the difference is resolution between 320x240 video and hi def video is really massive whereas on tv screens the difference is not as noticable.

By: Jeff Harris

Jeff Harris — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 20:09:15 +0000

Pete…I used an old country adage in my comments on the panel. “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” No matter what YT does, they can’t flip a switch and make every video HD, even if they had the bandwidth to serve it up. To deliver HD, they’d have to start with HD source. How many people have HD camcorders? Now count how many of them would contribute to YT. No one is suggesting that YT needs “fixing” so they can deliver in HD. They could do so right now, but you have to deal with the source. Jaman delivers high quality because they start with HQ source, shot & lit professionally. YT can’t do any better than the source they get: cell phones, DV camcorders, digicams acting as camcorders, 2nd-gen rips from TV. All less than HD, some less than SD. The bottom line: quality is the measure. My 2 cents. Spend it wisely. :)

By: Pete

Pete — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 19:38:20 +0000

I’d rather watch Stage6 because of reasons 1080p has stated. It’s no use trying to figure out how to ‘fix’ YouTube so that it seems hi-def, whether it be going big screen and just moving yourself back or whatever. Honestly I think YouTube would skyrocket even more if they could find a way to HD every video, seems impossible doesn’t it?

By: 1080p

1080p — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 19:06:32 +0000

Compare Stage6 to YouTube. Most PC and laptop screens are capable of much more than 720p. And 720p is far beyond YouTube. HD may not matter to the PC because the PC is capable of much more. Until we define “high-quality”, HD is our only barometer.
We watch internet video on our best screen (1080p,42″) all the time, as well as surf, read/write email, &IM. There is noticeable difference between YT, upscaled DVDs, and HD. We you think of the PC as intermediary and not an endpoint, you will see the need for 720 or better. BTW, when not connected to the TV, my laptop res is 1680×1050.

By: Jeff Harris

Jeff Harris — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 17:42:00 +0000

While I agree with the basic premise that “Quality Matters on Broadband” (and not so much HD), it really hits home when you consider the screen. Small pixels hide a lot of sins, and most people can’t see the difference on a 20″ screen. Take the same video, blow it up to 50″ and the quality matters a whole lot more. As I said on the panel, when someone plumbs internet video to the best screen in your house, then HD on broadband will matter a whole lot. We are a ways away from that, no matter what people think. It’s not easy…yet. :)

By: morepete

morepete — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 17:06:31 +0000

It totally doesn’t matter 480p widescreen up-scaled will look great on any laptop screen on the market. Want proof? Just pop in your creaky old Matrix DVD into any MacBook Pro. If you can imagine that it could somehow look even better, maybe you need HD on your PC. The rest of us don’t.

Counterintuitively, however, I think people are hungrier for higher-resolution interfaces on their computers, as websites take up more screen real estate and so on, but it doesn’t have an impact on their video preferences. Youtube already looks OK at full screen. If they could make the artifacting less obvious, I’m happy.

By: tonyleachsf

tonyleachsf — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 16:17:59 +0000

A growing number of people are watching full TV episodes online (hence the writers strike). The exact figure I’ve seen thrown around was 17% of all households have watched a full-length TV show online, or something like that.

So I think HD is not only a big deal, but the future. As content delivery moves away from cable and physical media like CD’s/DVD’s/Bluray/HD-DVD and towards service like iTunes and Netflix, people will demand higher and higher quality. So we’ll be able to stream HD movies and television (and you-tube, I suppose) to our computers, hooked up to our 50″ plasmas.

By: monkeypox

monkeypox — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 16:03:19 +0000

those guys are insane. of course HD on a pc matters. not only do modern monitors have much higher pixel densities (thus magnifying any compression artifacts), they also generally run at higher resolutions, especially with so many widescreen displays flooding the market.

even a jump to 480p as a standard would be a huge improvement. take a look at some of the trailers on apple's HD quicktime site for an example.

By: Jeff Harris

Jeff Harris — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 14:51:19 +0000

I think to be clear, you have to look at the difference between encoding quality and resolution. YouTube could push out 720p video (lowest level of HD), but if the compression is cranked up so much that artifacts are pervasive, is it really HD? It really comes down to the level of quality. Look at all the complaints about some providers not providing a “full HD” experience. It’s not a question of resolution or compression level alone. It’s the balance of both. Let’s face it, the standard we have been used to for years is 480i on small CRTs. Now we have progressive video on displays capable of showing every blemish in a video signal. Unless you have a 1280×720 screen or greater on a PC, HD really doesn’t matter much. If you have a clean image, and it’s encoded properly, you’ll get a fabulous picture on any modern display, HD or not.

By: soxiam

soxiam — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 14:19:25 +0000

i think this is inherently unfair to compare HD video vs. ‘higher quality’ video on PC. HD standards, although not crystal clear, recognizes certain level of base requirements in resolution and bit rate. but the so called ‘higher quality’ has nothing to measure up to. youtube video is high(er) quality than even lower quality videos. HD is low(er) quality than the new ‘red one’ technology. comparing ANYTHING to ‘higher quality’ video does not mean anything until someone can explain to me what the definition of higer quality is.

By: hoberion

hoberion — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:28:00 +0000

HD on your pc matters, I usually watch 720p content on my laptop.. it really makes a difference to standard def or even worse the webvideo crap..

By: Daniel

Daniel — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 11:57:50 +0000

Quality on web material does not matter so much when viewing on a small screen such as a mobile phone terminal, but I view a lot of things from my computer on a 40″ LCD meaning quality is a big issue. When upload/download speeds increase we will probably also see that the quality will improve too. Now it just takes too long time uploading HD material to various sites (if even allowed).