Radium wrote:
> Makes me wonder what PCM video would look like if
> compared to the crappy MPEG stored on DVDs.

"PCM" means digital. MPEG is digital. MPEG *IS* "PCM".

Where on earth did this notion of some magical "format" called
"PCM" come from anyway? If we call digital "PCM", then
should we start calling analog "ACM" or something? Makes
as much sense to me.

> DVD video is certianly better than the video you get in those
> VHS cassettes. However, if only DVD used the visual equivalent
> of .WAV audio, it would be much better in picture and color
> resolution.

And the digital equivalent of WAV would hold about 5 minutes
of video on a 4.7GB DVD disc. It takes extensive compression to
fit a Hollywood movie onto one of those discs. There people that
are paid to sit in front of computers to hand-tune the amount of
compression from shot to shot in order to keep the visual quality
reasonably good while living within the bandwidth budget and
media capacity.

> DVDs do use PCM audio, which is fine, but it is time they
> start implenting their video in PCM and stop their useless
> MPEG video.

DVDs use several different ways of storing the audio track.
Most of them are compressed (MPEG).

Review: "PCM" means digital. MPEG is digital. Everything
on a CD or DVD disc is digital, ie. "PCM".