Choice quote from Bill Aho, chief executive officer of ClearPlay Inc.: "It's against the First Amendment to stop the media from providing content that's edgier and edgier. It's up to technology,'' In other words, they are going to build DVD players that have a "don't show" listing. I have to wonder how this doesn't qualify as some kind of censoring, even though I know it *technically* isn't...
Compressing video for "home use" basically means getting video ready to posting to the web, rather than as a preprocess for making (for example) a DVD. What I find really striking about the newer codecs is that they imprint themselves very forcefully onto the video they compress, making subsequent compressions increasiningly lossy. Since compression is apparently here to stay for the immediate future, this is a nice run-down of the various kinds.
Why is it that when video gets used as part of a larger show, it rarely plays a role greater than that of wallpaper--a visual enhancement to "enliven" the performance, rather than being allowed to play a role in the way that any other "performer" does?
