mears@hpindda.cup.hp.com (David Mears) (09/22/90)
I found this note in rec.video, and since it mentioned the shuttle and space station, I thought people here would find it interesting (and the sentiment likely to be inflamatory!). David B. Mears Hewlett-Packard Cupertino CA hplabs!hpda!mears mears@hpinddf.cup.hp.com ---------------------- / wtm@uhura.neoucom.EDU (Bill Mayhew) / 12:07 pm Sep 20, 1990 / It probably won't be too long before it may be practical to incorporate digital zoom into LD players ... given that 1Mx9 80 nS DRAM SIMMs are down to $46 (US) in 100 lots. VRAM chips won't be far behind since VRAMs should be able to produced on the same fab lines as DRAMs. Some nice fast 24 bit video ADC / DAC parts would be nice too ... the pix is going to have to look a lot better than the current generation of digital freezes on consumer LDs in order to be satisfactory. Problem number two is deciding how to market such a player. Least Common Denominator comsumers have trouble adjusting the HSV of their sets let alone figuring out how to adjust a digital zoom. Given that most sales people seem to fall into the interant labor turn-over life expectancy categoryy, I can just imagine the interesting conversations between sales people and consumers, neither of which really understand the product. The best fix would be to incorporate a subcode on the LD that informed a smart LD player how to de-letterbox the disc. Fat chacnce... Of course, best of all would be for the US (et al?) to get off its duff and make wide screen HDTV a reality. Perhaps we can just bag the shuttle and the incredible shrinking space station all together, wire everything with fiber optic so we don't needs sats, then put NASA's budget into HDTV development. Mom and pop consumer would like a nice HDTV a lot more than a shuttle anyway. :-) ==Bill== -- Bill Mayhew NEOUCOM Computer Services Department Rootstown, OH 44272-9995 USA phone: 216-325-2511 wtm@uhura.neoucom.edu ....!uunet!aablue!neoucom!wtm via internet: (140.220.001.001)