NASA's Apollo Program Footage in HD

Posted by Matt Butrovich | May. 08, 2008 01:13PM PST | 602 views | 0 comments

FILED UNDER: News, Videos. Science, TV.

Lots of cool space stuff today, so just bear with me. Earlier this week, NASA announced that they've completed restoring over one hundred hours of footage from the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs that got us to the moon. MSNBC has more on the story:

The HD makeover was performed by the Discovery Channel for "When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions," a documentary series due to premiere in June.

The archive includes dramatic shots of the first American spacewalk, conducted in 1965 by Gemini 4 astronaut Ed White. If White's spacesuit failed, there were few options available for rescuing him, Gemini 4 commander James McDivitt recalled.

"We didn't have a plan. We didn't have a checklist on how you kill your best friend," McDivitt told the filmmakers behind "When We Left Earth."

The best part about all of this? Besides receiving what will surely be a great Discovery Channel special, the entire high definition library will be made available for our viewing pleasure. This news has me itching to watch one of my favorite mini-series, From the Earth to the Moon, all over again. MSNBC has some of the remastered footage available to watch, but it's not streamed in HD. Go figure.

Read More (Source: MSNBC)

Tags moon, apollo program, discovery channel, hd, space, nasa

Comcast is Sticking it to HD Subscribers

Posted by Chris Jensen | Mar. 31, 2008 04:55PM PST | 501 views | 3 comments

FILED UNDER: News. TV, Tech.

Some Comcast subscribers have noticed a lowering in quality of certain HD channels, especially in light of Comcast adding more channels to their lineup with no feasible infrastructure to support the additional content. So...how is Comcast able to add more without investing more? Simple: lower the quality of the Hi-Def.

Proof is in the pudding, whatever that means, as some renegade at AVSForum has taken the time to conduct an experiment with telling results. He compared the quality of the same program as it appears on Comcast and Verizon's FiOS, comparing the bitrate of each MPEG-2 record.

His results clearly indicate that Comcast is distributing HD content at a much lower bitrate, in some cases, a whopping 35%. I doubt you've seen an equitable decrease in your monthly bill.

Head on over to the full post for some interesting examples and numbers that clearly prove Comcast is pulling a fast one on customers.

Read More (Source: AVS Forum)

Tags bitrate, verizon, fios, comcast, hd