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Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

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Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#31

Post by OrangeMango »

wolfgke wrote: post #13
joncrane wrote: post #2

Kind of related: does anyone else notice how long it takes to change channels on the TV these days? It used to be instantaneous when cable first came out and at some point it became this laggy experience where you'll press buttons on the remote and the channel takes forever to change. I hate it and it's one of the reasons I don't have cable any more.

The central reason is that modern video codecs use I-frames and P-frames (sometimes also B-frames; even though as far as I am aware, these are not used for TV broadcasts); see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Video_compression... I-frames are only sent, say, once or twice a second. When a channel is switched, the TV has to wait for the next I-frame, since P-frames (and B-frames) only encode the difference t…

The tuning chip costs maybe 50 cents or something. Just have 3 or 4 of them and pretune the next few channels.

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#32

Post by jaywalk »

wolfgke wrote: post #13
joncrane wrote: post #2

Kind of related: does anyone else notice how long it takes to change channels on the TV these days? It used to be instantaneous when cable first came out and at some point it became this laggy experience where you'll press buttons on the remote and the channel takes forever to change. I hate it and it's one of the reasons I don't have cable any more.

The central reason is that modern video codecs use I-frames and P-frames (sometimes also B-frames; even though as far as I am aware, these are not used for TV broadcasts); see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Video_compression... I-frames are only sent, say, once or twice a second. When a channel is switched, the TV has to wait for the next I-frame, since P-frames (and B-frames) only encode the difference t…

That's a big part of it. But the other part, which can actually contribute more time than the decoding, is simply slow software on the STB.

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#33

Post by JohnJamesRambo »

Someone1234 wrote: post #10

This is a very hard rant to read. The examples either aren't factually true or are poorly explained and the "solution" is largely nebulous. I feel like this topic has merit and with a well written article with real examples (both 2019 and 83) it could be something special, but this isn't that. I'd be interested to know how many upvoted based on the title/what they expected this to be, rather than after having tried t…

I found the list great and it fit the twitter format well. I usually don’t like twitter but it is what it is and this seems like what it is good for.

I disagree about mice but everything else hit the nail on the head for how frustrating it is to be using basically supercomputers and still be sitting around waiting on code bloat.

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#34

Post by javajosh »

arethuza wrote: post #16
ryanianian wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite "the world is terrible" curmudgeon observation is how awful hotel TVs (and hotel TV remotes) are. Every single hotel room TV I've had the displeasure of using in the last N years takes more than 20 seconds to turn on after multiple button-presses, starts out on a terrible in-house channel at high volume regardless of the last-watched channel+volume, takes multiple seconds to change channels, and has no re…

Careful what you wish for - many years ago I worked for an interactive TV company that focused on the hospitality market. One large chain of hotels seriously asked if we could do a remote control with three additional large buttons at the top for "Beer", "Burger" and "Porn". Turns out getting like that manufactured in the quantities we were looking at is a nightmare - so it didn't happen. Edit: Clearly it would have…

Sounds like a legit app, though.

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#35

Post by Causality1 »

joncrane wrote: post #2

Kind of related: does anyone else notice how long it takes to change channels on the TV these days? It used to be instantaneous when cable first came out and at some point it became this laggy experience where you'll press buttons on the remote and the channel takes forever to change. I hate it and it's one of the reasons I don't have cable any more.

It's patently absurd that a modern cable box chugs just when flipping through the channel guide. The provider has control over the software and the hardware so it should be butter smooth all the time.

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#37

Post by criddell »

athenot wrote: post #18
joncrane wrote: post #2

Kind of related: does anyone else notice how long it takes to change channels on the TV these days? It used to be instantaneous when cable first came out and at some point it became this laggy experience where you'll press buttons on the remote and the channel takes forever to change. I hate it and it's one of the reasons I don't have cable any more.

When working on digital settop boxes a decade or 2 ago, channel change latency was one of the toughest problems. Eventually we (collectively, the whole industry) gave up and settled for 1 second as acceptable. Channel surfing quietly went away. When your i-frame only comes so often, there's not a whole lot you can do. Nowadays, that problem is solved by reducing actual live content to a strict minimum; everything els…

These days they should be able to guess what 20 channels you might change to and start recording those in the background.

I've always suspected the reason it's slow is because you press the remote button, the DVR sends that to the provider, the provider has to verify that you can do what you are asking it to do, then a response comes, then the change can start.

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#38

Post by wolfgke »

fortran77 wrote: post #27
wolfgke wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The central reason is that modern video codecs use I-frames and P-frames (sometimes also B-frames; even though as far as I am aware, these are not used for TV broadcasts); see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Video_compression... I-frames are only sent, say, once or twice a second. When a channel is switched, the TV has to wait for the next I-frame, since P-frames (and B-frames) only encode the difference t…

No. It's not a codec problem. They can leave it on the last decoded frame and fade it nicely to, say, the average color for the 1 second without going to black, and you don't have to be a super decoder genius to implement something that's a little less aesthetically jarring.

joncrane was complaining about the time to change channels. This approach does nothing to decrease this time.

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#40

Post by phonon »

seanalltogether wrote: post #28
wolfgke wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The central reason is that modern video codecs use I-frames and P-frames (sometimes also B-frames; even though as far as I am aware, these are not used for TV broadcasts); see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Video_compression... I-frames are only sent, say, once or twice a second. When a channel is switched, the TV has to wait for the next I-frame, since P-frames (and B-frames) only encode the difference t…

Unless I'm very mistaken about modern digital transmissions, cable coming into the house is still based on a broadcast system, which means you're getting everything all the time. The frames are all there for every channel, they're just not being read. I don't know how much processing or memory it would take to read and store frames for surrounding channels to the one you're on, but I imagine its possible.

Feel free to find a chipset on the market that can decode hundreds of channels of Full HD H.264 simultaneously...
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