Interesting Links for 22-10-2015

[andrewducker]

• Plastic bag charge in Scotland sees usage cut by 80%
  • (tags: environment Scotland )
• Fascinating court case involve a deaf man with almost no language skills who had to give evidence
  • (tags: speech sign law Scotland )
• Here's where the public are on Jeremy Corbyn's side - and where they aren't
  • (tags: Labour politics uk )
• The TV industry wants you to go

Comments

[gonzo21]

So if 4k broadcasts will require at least a 25mb internet connection to stream. Will they ever be able to broadcast 4k transmissions via traditional broadcast methods? I'd assume there's only so much bandwidth available?

Presumably they'll wind up having to slash SD and HD transmissions and degrade those signal strengths, in order to show more 4k stuff. Just as they did when Sky limited SD to favour HD.

I'm not sure consumers are ready yet to want to upgrade their blu-rays already anyway.

Interesting though. Means flatscreen tellies are about to get a lot cheaper.

[andrewducker]

I'm still not convinced that 4K is going to take off. It really does make no sense to upgrade from HD unless you have a 60" TV.

And yeah, they'd have to cut out a bunch of the other channels to make it work. I'm not convinced that that's feasible either.

[gonzo21]

No, me neither. It doesn't have the wow-factor of seeing HD on a big screen for the first time over SD. And you need a wow factor if you're gonna sell somebody a thousand pound telly.

And no, a lot of the SD channels on satellite already look terrible because they've cut the bandwidth allocated to them. If they cut them even further, and start cutting the HD signals too, then everything apart from the 4k transmission on your 60" 4ktv is gonna look terrible.

[andrewducker]

Exactly. I'm not sure what the hell they're going to do.

(But I am glad that I get a lot of my stuff over the internets, because the quality is definitely better.)

[gonzo21]

I'm also not sure what they're going to do next. The upgrading tv market has clearly been very profitable for tv companies for the last 15 years. With widescreen sets, then flatscreens, then HD, then 3DHD. But after 4k, I can't see where the market will go next.

But I'm sure they'll think of something. Maybe these super thin roll-up screens. Tv Wallpaper or something.

[gonzo21]

Speaking of, 3DTVs have kind of crashed and burned haven't they? I can't remember the last time I saw a television ad that made a big selling point of being 3D capable.

[a_pawson]

So have 3D films. The novelty has worn off and there seem to be very few films in the cinema being shown in 3D.

[gonzo21]

The only movie I wish I'd seen in 3D is Gravity.

But yeah, awful glad this fad is dying out.

[andrewducker]

Mad Max, The Martian, Avengers 2, Ant-Man, Minions, Everest, Star Wars, SpongeBob, The Walk, Last WitchHunter, and a bunch of others:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:2015_3D_films

[octopoid_horror]

60" TVs probably also require (ideally, although lots of people don't care about ideal viewing distance) larger rooms than you generally get in British homes.

[andrewducker]

Yup. My living room is fine for my current TV, but much bigger than that and I can't get back far enough from it!

[a_pawson]

As I understand it, with digital transmission this won't be a problem. A standard has been approved for broadcast at these resolutions, so it is on the way.