3 ms·

Good article, but a bit dismissive of the claim in the Wired article that things like MP3 are preventing people from discovering "real" quality.

Periodic 17y ago
I think the great majority of people wouldn't know real quality if you showed them an example side-by-side with the thing they know. I think we often use price queues to figure that out. And I think people have different needs at different times. I listen almost entirely to MP3s and Internet radio, except when I go to the symphony. I watch a lot of videos on YouTube and Hulu, except when I go to the movies. High quality isn't something everyone wants all the time.
- ams6110 17y ago
  Reminds me of Negroponte's observation (in his book Being Digital from sometime in the mid 1990s). At the time, digital television was hung up in debates about what high-definition standard to use. He said that for most people most of the time, standard def was fine and that in focusing on a level of "quality" that most people did not care about, a lot of other potentially interesting and useful things you could do in the same bandwidth were not being developed. At least, that's what I recall now. It's been at least 10 years since I looked at that book.
  - maudineormsby 17y ago
    Although it seems now that for most people HD is something they notice and care about. So perhaps that hints at the need for people to be trained to appreciate quality? In other words, do they like HD because it's better or because they've been told that it's better? I noticed a difference immediately when I saw an HD demo. It was in 1999, and I saw it at a science center (COSI, Columbus, OH). But some of the people I was with literally could not figure out which TV was which.
- tptacek 17y ago
  With MP3s as with high-end speaker cable, I think your first hurdle is selling me on the idea that I'd want to be able to tell the difference. My friend Danny... oh, wait, I've said this on HN before: http://news.ycombinator.net/item?id=279682 http://news.ycombinator.net/item?id=279682

Periodic 17y ago

I think the great majority of people wouldn't know real quality if you showed them an example side-by-side with the thing they know. I think we often use price queues to figure that out. And I think people have different needs at different times. I listen almost entirely to MP3s and Internet radio, except when I go to the symphony. I watch a lot of videos on YouTube and Hulu, except when I go to the movies. High quality isn't something everyone wants all the time.

ams6110 17y ago
Reminds me of Negroponte's observation (in his book Being Digital from sometime in the mid 1990s). At the time, digital television was hung up in debates about what high-definition standard to use. He said that for most people most of the time, standard def was fine and that in focusing on a level of "quality" that most people did not care about, a lot of other potentially interesting and useful things you could do in the same bandwidth were not being developed. At least, that's what I recall now. It's been at least 10 years since I looked at that book.
- maudineormsby 17y ago
  Although it seems now that for most people HD is something they notice and care about. So perhaps that hints at the need for people to be trained to appreciate quality? In other words, do they like HD because it's better or because they've been told that it's better? I noticed a difference immediately when I saw an HD demo. It was in 1999, and I saw it at a science center (COSI, Columbus, OH). But some of the people I was with literally could not figure out which TV was which.
tptacek 17y ago
With MP3s as with high-end speaker cable, I think your first hurdle is selling me on the idea that I'd want to be able to tell the difference. My friend Danny... oh, wait, I've said this on HN before: http://news.ycombinator.net/item?id=279682 http://news.ycombinator.net/item?id=279682