From this point on the quality of recording human sounds has increased in leaps and bounds. In the same fashion the quality of our recorded images has also improved substantially, from the early blurred and faded images through to colour taking in moving images along the way. from 186o onwards we have added colour, sound and movement, stereo, 3D, IMAX, HD TV, multi mega pixel cameras. The history of human recording is a long upward path of ever better quality. Until now that is, and strangely the death of quality is part of the modern digital age.
When the CD was introduced in the 80's audiophiles waxed long and hard over the supposed reduction in sound quality compared to their beloved LP's. In truth they had a point, but a marginal one. CD's offered audio quality that was acceptable to the vast majority of music and lovers and sales of both CD's and audio systems boomed. But can the same be said of our modern equivalent, the downloaded mp3 file.
The vast majority of mp3's come direct from the internet and, in order to speed up download times, the rate at which they are recorded is truncated. The original iTunes standard of 128Kbps (kilobits per second) has been increased to 256Kbps but both are a long way short of CD quality (320Kbps). In addition most mp3 content in consumed on portable devices via cheap headphones, while on the go.
While flat screen HD screens are becoming the norm in homes, younger consumers of video content are just s likely to watch on smaller screens, attached to laptops or even portable video devices. Streaming video content via YouTube and others is compressed to allow for download even HD movies from iTunes suffer from compression artifacts. Meanwhile back in the old fashioned word of traditional broadcasting, digital TV promises more and more channels, until bad weather cuts the signal off, resulting in freezes and drop outs in the signal that good old fashioned analogue never suffered from.
And what about photography? Surely modern mega pixel digital cameras offer good solid increases in quality. Well again, many photographers would beg to differ. Digital is certainly more convenient but it has taken until only very recently for the latest 40Mp and better digita backs to rival medium format film. Most amateur photographers will save their snaps as jpeg images, without thinking they are throwing away vast swathes of digital information and dumbing down their images. More savvy snappers may keep files in RAW format, but again loose quality when they convert to 16bit in photoshop, and that's before we look at uploading files to Flickr and similar for sharing.
The merging of TV and internet looks like it will only increase the move to lower quality content. While most people automatically equate the word digital with quality, what they actually mean is convenience. The digital age has resulted in an explosion of content and the ability to share this content and view it anywhere and any time. But almost always at a severe price in terms of quality. Digital content is not so much high quality, or even good quality but almost always good enough quality. Content trumps quality pretty much ever time, especially for younger consumers.
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