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selenayLast night, I was sitting at my computer watching some videos on YouTube to get myself ready to write a fic.
It occurred to me that, six years ago, that simply isn't a statement that I could have made and it got me to thinking about just how much progress has been made with Internet technology and computers.
When I first started getting into Stargate, it was mid-season 4 in the USA and I needed to catch up on the episodes to have some clue on what people were talking about. I was able to borrow seasons 1-3 on video from the library, but catching up with S4 was more tricky. At that time, I was on a 56K modem and broadband had barely been mentioned yet. It certainly wasn't something that was actually available to my area.
There was a download site where you could get Stargate episodes at that time. I had to use a download manager in case my connection dropped and it took me over two hours to download a 45MB .avi episode file. As you can imagine, the quality of the video wasn't great and could be viewed in a window larger than 4inch x 4inch without degrading unviewable. There were artefacts all over the picture and the sound and it was 'affectionately' known as squinty-vision. The idea of watching a video of that length streamed over the Internet? Pretty much impossible.
What I was watching last night was a much higher quality video file, it could be expanded to full screen without too much degredation and there were no sound artefacts. My 2MB broadband connection kept well ahead of the viewing speed, meaning that there were no random pauses as the download attempted to catch up. If I wanted a really good quality video, it would only take me a couple of hours with BiTorrent to download a 500MB file that's pretty much as good as analogue TV.
When you actually think about things in those terms, the way they've affected us, the changes in technology have been quite incredible over the last few years.
In completely unrelated news,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
paranoidangel42: it's lucky you don't listen to Radio 2's drive time. They were discussing how to cook and eat rabbits. Poor bunnies.
It occurred to me that, six years ago, that simply isn't a statement that I could have made and it got me to thinking about just how much progress has been made with Internet technology and computers.
When I first started getting into Stargate, it was mid-season 4 in the USA and I needed to catch up on the episodes to have some clue on what people were talking about. I was able to borrow seasons 1-3 on video from the library, but catching up with S4 was more tricky. At that time, I was on a 56K modem and broadband had barely been mentioned yet. It certainly wasn't something that was actually available to my area.
There was a download site where you could get Stargate episodes at that time. I had to use a download manager in case my connection dropped and it took me over two hours to download a 45MB .avi episode file. As you can imagine, the quality of the video wasn't great and could be viewed in a window larger than 4inch x 4inch without degrading unviewable. There were artefacts all over the picture and the sound and it was 'affectionately' known as squinty-vision. The idea of watching a video of that length streamed over the Internet? Pretty much impossible.
What I was watching last night was a much higher quality video file, it could be expanded to full screen without too much degredation and there were no sound artefacts. My 2MB broadband connection kept well ahead of the viewing speed, meaning that there were no random pauses as the download attempted to catch up. If I wanted a really good quality video, it would only take me a couple of hours with BiTorrent to download a 500MB file that's pretty much as good as analogue TV.
When you actually think about things in those terms, the way they've affected us, the changes in technology have been quite incredible over the last few years.
In completely unrelated news,
paranoidangel42: it's lucky you don't listen to Radio 2's drive time. They were discussing how to cook and eat rabbits. Poor bunnies.
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no subject
Date: 2007-03-02 11:58 pm (UTC)Oh god, YES! I remember waiting for the links to come through on usenet. And the first transcript was always a bit naff. X-D
I remember discovering the fullscreen button on Win Media and shouting 'HOLY COMPRESSION CRYSTALS BATMAN!' - it was like trying to watch SG-1 with a full-on migraine, so I switched down to squinty size.
My disillusionment isn't so much with the innovation - I love it. I look at how far we've come in five years and never fail to be gobsmacked. What makes me sniffle for the future of the web is the way innovation comes along, thrives, grows, makes everyone happy and then a corporation come along and screws the golden goose. *sigh*
no subject
Date: 2007-03-03 05:02 pm (UTC)I used to know which people did the readable transcripts and wait for theirs rather than going for the first transcript, which was often by people who couldn't even get character names right!
it was like trying to watch SG-1 with a full-on migraine, so I switched down to squinty size.
Oh, god, yes I did this! Squinty was teeny and almost un-watchable at times, but at least it didn't give me headaches (too much).
makes everyone happy and then a corporation come along and screws the golden goose. *sigh*
*sigh* Yes, that is depressing. I know that people have to make a living, but it seems like the best innovations get swallowed up by the crappest, greediest companies. Grrr.