Why is apple's retina "nonsense". The whole idea of retina is that it is the density of the pixels that is important. So, 3200x1800 on a very large display would be less dense than a lower res on a small display. The importance is that the eye cannot discern the pixels at normal viewiing distance - that is a relation between resolution, screen size and viewing distance.

Your screen may be a "retina" display but only if it is small enough that the pixel density is high. Also, a TV generally doesn't need to be as high a resolution to be a "retina display" as the viewing distance is generally greater than with a laptop or tablet.

Edited by ian72 (Thu 03-Jul-14 08:48:23)

My ultrabook (Lenovo Ideapad Yoga Pro 2 if you care) is also a 13" size device - like a MacBook 13", so the point remains.

Anyhow, the point was that screen resolutions improving, there is little reason not to have better resolution streams - and actually your point about screen sizes is relevant - people are wanting to stream to larger screens (mostly TVs) so having better resolutions will matter more and more to providing a good quality image.

Fair enough. Just checking for clarity. I have to say though for a lot of my TV watching on a 46" screen I don't generally worry about the difference between SD and HD - mainly because if the program is good I stop noticing the image quality, it just needs to be good enough.

Because it's a higher resolution than 99% of current TVs and monitors can make use of.

In reply to a post by broadband66:

Because it's a higher resolution than 99% of current TVs and monitors can make use of.

Yes... "today" maybe.

Roll back just a few years at most... things move forward, and it is happening.

The quality of "SD" or "HD" on a broadcast (especially for example with Sky) varies considerably - some SD broadcasts are shamefully poor, and that is noticeable to me and certainly does detract from the programme itself.

In much the same way I find poorly setup cinemas annoy me so I don't enjoy the film.

In reply to a post by ian72:

Why is apple's retina "nonsense". The whole idea of retina is that it is the density of the pixels that is important. So, 3200x1800 on a very large display would be less dense than a lower res on a small display. The importance is that the eye cannot discern the pixels at normal viewiing distance - that is a relation between resolution, screen size and viewing distance.

Your screen may be a "retina" display but only if it is small enough that the pixel density is high. Also, a TV generally doesn't need to be as high a resolution to be a "retina display" as the viewing distance is generally greater than with a laptop or tablet.

Critical also is the codec: it's often said that compression is an "art form", high compression rates can be achieved by making the image "look good" particularly where areas of the frame are static. A variable bit rate is useful in that regard since a higher bit rate can be used when there is rapid movement of the subject or there is movement within the whole frame. One example where hardware/software may not cope with playing every frame due to the increased bit rate and difficulties decoding is a pan shot where the pan is not smooth (dropped frames generally to maintain audio sync..)

Just seen this report from a member who is on 40/20
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...

Kinda interesting that the download shows it is performing well but what IP Profile/cap is actually set on the PlusNet side, since it looks to be higher than 40 Meg.

The little blip on the stat of the HTTP is interesting, we see similar on some other capped products from other providers.

I had my install on wednesday, heres my results

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...