Simpsons over Shortwave

This idea came to me when I watched a Simpsons episode on DVD and noticed some mpeg compression artefacts around the edges.

Cartoons such as the Simpsons are simple drawings. They consist of mostly black lines, solid colour surfaces, and the occasional gradient. The mpeg format used to compress these cartoons, however, has been designed for photographic images with soft edges - the exact opposite of cartoons. This is an inefficient way of compressing these files.

I suggest a new video codec designed specifically for cartoons. It digitises the drawings and interpolates lines using spline functions. Since most lines in Simpsons cartoons are simple geometric shapes only a handful of spline parameters is required to describe each line accurately. Then it fills the spaces between the lines with solid colours. That, and the fact that cartoons use a small frame rate of 5-10 fps, would allow very agressive compression which is almost lossless.

This would open up new distribution opportunities for The Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park etc. : 40 episodes on one DVD and downloads over dial-up internet - in near perfect picture quality.

The small required bandwith would even allow cartoons to be broadcast over shortwave transmitters using two channels (one for video and one for 64 kb/s mp3 audio). This way you could recieve cartoon channels in even the most remote parts of the world without internet connection. All you need is a small shortwave USB adapter for the laptop. Since it is relatively cheap to set up a shortwave transmitter, a whole new culture of independent channels showing cartoons from less well known artists could emerge, especially in poorer countries.