The puzzling degredation of media quality
Was reading this NYT article tonight, and found myself yet again puzzled by the backwards step we've taken in media quality as we've stepped so far forward in media quantity.
The article details a phenomenon I've been observing for years now - namely, that music lovers now have music around them at all times through their portable devices, but the sound quality of this music has become almost an afterthought. Consumers have voted convenience over quality with their pocketbook, which is not something I'd have predicted when I was 15 and spending $10 for Maxell XLII-S chromium cassette tapes to safely capture the warmth of my carefully-maintained vinyl. It wasn't long ago that our parents' (well, our dad's) most treasured home purchase was their hi-fi stereo system, which would dominate the living room with it's ginormous speakers and sheer size.
This same phenomenon has been happening in photos. Most public events are now one person doing something interesting while dozens of cellphones capture grainy video and pictures of these momentous occasions. (I can attest to this personally, having just left the Chelsea Premiership game where every drunk, chanting fool had their own coterie of cell-phone paparazzi). While I have a reasonably high-quality camera on me as I travel, I'm more often than not reaching for my iPhone to record low-quality images which are then compressed as I push them up to Facebook.
(Ironically, I'm traveling with a very talented cinematographer, who was actually banned from bringing his professional-grade camera into the Chelsea game for copyright reasons; so he, like I, was reduced to iPhone snaps).
Still, this quality degradation is not universal. Video seems to be an area that has bifurcated into 2 camps - grainy cell-phone videos and compressed handheld-device viewing, but also an explosion of HD content displayed on beautiful LCD screens. I was over at a relative's house the other day who has pretty much copied the theater experience, complete with 8-foot wide HD and full surround sound, for a fraction of the cost of what the highest home video systems would have cost 10 years ago.
I've discussed the business opportunities this dilemma presents with a few of my friends. One could easily envision a higher-quality photo sharing service (yes, there are a few high-end products out there), and also a site that sells uncompressed, loss-less (or whatever they call it) audio files for the music geeks out there. Still, I'm guessing these niche industries are temporary, as technology improvements, increased bandwidth and decreasing storage costs will ultimately encourage higher quality. As an example, see Facebook's photos section, which appears to now be serving higher quality images (which will in turn be captured by higher quality cameras, if we are to believe the "lost iphone" saga of a few weeks ago).
All of my blabbering leads us to another, probably bigger problem - in a world where everyone is producing audio and video content, how do we sift through the crap and find the good stuff?
