A Message To Trevor


Abstract:
I suppose this is an open letter.

Body:
I was wandering around the Internet sometime after 5 AM when I came across this article on MacWrite.com about the MWSF 2005 Stevenote. The thing that caught my eye was the headline which claims that the "keynote wrap-up" (I don't know why a full rebroadcast is a "wrap-up," but I'll let that slide) was presented in HDTV. I read the article, and sure enough, the author claims that he experienced an HDTV stream of the event! Obviously he couldn't have; the amount of bandwidth required even for a compressed HD format would be incredible, and of course all the Mac news sites would have reported this fact by now. I'm pretty sure he simply noticed it was streamed in widescreen, and assumed it was HD.

Anyway, I sent him a message about the mistake, but it bounced back a few minutes later. I had to spend about 20 seconds Googling for some info, so I decided to post the message here due to the amount of time involved in creating it. So, Trevor, if you're listening:

Hi Trevor,

I believe you may have a mistake in your article about the MacWorld SF 2005 Keynote. As Steve mentioned at the beginning, the keynote was the first to use HD projection. However, the keynote was as far as I can tell, not streamed in HD.

I don't think it would be possible to stream HD over today's Internet, due to the high data rate of high-definition video. To check out what format Apple was really streaming in, I set my QuickTime connection speed to Intranet/LAN so I would receive the highest quality stream, and loaded the keynote. Its frame size is 448 x 252 pixels, which is a 16:9 widescreen resolution, but definitely not HD, which has a resolution of 1280 x 720 (720p) or 1920 x 1080 (1080i). Also, it only played at 15 fps, while HD is 30 fps.

Perhaps when you wrote "HDTV," you simply meant "widescreen."

There was a bit more "but besides the mistake your article was pretty good" stuff here, but no need to post that. I hate to be so critical since it seems like MacWrite only publishes about 1 article every month or so, but when somebody claims that Apple streamed the keynote in HD I have to say something!

Posted: Friday - January 14, 2005 at 02:57 AM          

©