Re: [tlug] Mencoder conversion of files

["Lyle H Saxon" <llletters@example.com>]

On Dec 3, 2007 10:57 AM, Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen@example.com> wrote:
> Lyle H Saxon writes:
>
>  > Video is such a money-burner though....  And here I am again burning
>  > money in an attempt to rescue the tapes so expensively taken fifteen
>  > years ago....
>
> If it's any consolation, it won't be a money burner for much longer.
> We've reached the point where keitais are reliable enough to be used
> to send video to news channels, reliable cheap easy-to-use
> NTSC-quality video on PCs can't be far behind, and HD-quality video
> will presumably be reliable and easy-to-use on Linux (of course it
> won't be cheap for another 2-5 years because of the memory demands)
> very shortly thereafter.

But the more easily pictures can be taken with cell phones, the more
difficult it becomes to take street photography!  Japan used to be a
photographer's paradise!  In the pre-911, pre-cell phone camera years,
I took pictures virtually every day (when not video, still photos) and
the only complaints I ever received were from a red-faced
fire-breathing foreigner in a subway station who threated to smash my
camera and a violin-playing man who scowled at me and then his friend
came over and told me I couldn't take his picture (later I thought I
should have said "Well, I don't like your friend playing music in my
train station - tell him to stop!"  In both cases, I was way off and
they were just one of a crowd - I wasn't in their face with the
camera.

Also, please define "HD-quality" - as there are so many factors
involved!  The picture resolution in one thing, and then there are
optics, etc., and "HD" on what size display?

Regarding progress in photography - the electronics keep getting
batter, but high quality optics are as expensive as ever.  No matter
how fine the electronics, if the optics suck (which they do on most
compact digital cameras and certainly on cell phone cameras) then the
result *will* suffer.  Garbage in, garbage out!  Everything passes
through the optics first!

Lyle