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hinkley 7 months ago

Human communication is full of forward error correction. So much of it that we can compress text at around 10:1. When compression first got big we could already manage more than 8:1, which makes it very useful in an era before digital photography was big. We developed lossy compression for media.

4k is 8.3 megapixels, at least 24 bits per pixel, and 24 frames a second about 4.8 Gbps if you include the audio. Netflix streams at 15.6Mbps, which is more than 300:1. We talked here a couple years ago about how HBO redid their “dead channel” intro to make the “white noise” compatible with video compression so it didn’t look like ass.