[dcurtis]

Woah. I don't think that's a good way to be thinking. One of the major downsides of internet-based television is that the video quality is typically very, very bad.

To take over TV, you need to at least match the picture quality of made-for-TV movies, and probably match 1080i resolution.

[dkokelley]

This is true, but you won't need your project necessarily projected on a 100ft screen for a blockbuster release. Film is an analog medium, which allows it to scale without becoming pixelated (it will get blurry instead). HD cameras with decent filters should be fine for web shows.

Then again, if anyone has more experience in the industry please correct me.

Edit: Also, the reason for the poor quality is probably not due to the quality of the original film. I would think it's more of a compression/bandwidth issue.

I still believe in film as an art form but for a commercial production webshow it may be overkill, especially as HD cameras get better.

[froo]

I still believe in film as an art form but for a commercial production webshow it may be overkill, especially as HD cameras get better.

I think that for content to be produced for online (not just as a novelty webisode but as an actual artform) people need to start thinking outside the 22 minute content 8 minute ad format for half hour blocks of television.

For example, a standard sitcom format goes like this.

  Credits
  Story (teaser / cold open)
  Commercial
  Story
  Commercial
  End of Story
  Commercial
  Tag
  Credits

Its a relic that was built upon from the radio age, timing designed specifically for synchronous listeners. Now we're entering the Asynchronous age, I'm curious how the ability to skip commercials (Tivo) and the associated changes in timing (shorter ad blocks for online) affect how "funny" comedies are now (since timing is everything in comedy)

It would be interesting to see some A/B testing with recutting lengths of commercials for the exact same episodes with a randomised set of people and see if the net effect of how "funny" a show is is noticeable or negligible.

(sorry, just late night stream of conciousness rambling)

[zandorg]

An overlay surface (in a PC's video driver) smoothes out all Divx, Flash, DVD, etc video sources. You'll see, when the overlay surface is not available, that the video/DVD is actually blocky without it.

[pmjordan]

I don't think you meant "overlay" there:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_overlay

You're probably thinking of a deblocking filter:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deblocking_filter_(video)

which is typically used in the decoder for the relevant video CODEC; recent video drivers do have hardware support for this, but it's not a fundamental connection. Moreover, deblocking only helps so much.