> Funny, a stream of data at a constant rate makes much more sense to me intuitively than packets, specifically for uncompressed video. There is a data rate fl

> Funny, a stream of data at a constant rate makes much more sense to me intuitively than packets, specifically for uncompressed video. There is a data rate floor for how fast the device that outputs must meet. We’ve surpassed this (due to optimization at the silicon level, designing hardware who’s sole job it is to send bursts of data) and we end up running out of data in the buffer periodically because it’s just so fast. Because analog is real time, you can squeeze much else in that data stream but with digital, we are afforded the luxury of packet switching instead of that line being idle, we can pump even more down the linen. > Are there any downsides to packetization, like increased latency or dropped frames or anything? Or not really, is it all upsides in being able to trivially combine multiple data streams or integrate easily into hubs? If I recall correctly, the timing and data rates is all prearranged based on reported capacity and abilities of the receiving device and it won’t even attempt to support multiple streams if it is incapable of doing so or the data channel established cannot fully support the bandwidth required.