There's no denying that vector graphics displays (like the old Vectrex computer games and the arcade versions of Asteroids and Tank Commander) look cool - beautiful crisp lines, no pixellation, not much flicker, and pure, sparse shapes. Of course, raster graphics are preferred for television, being more versatile and capable of displaying tones and colours.However, cartoons are a special case - they typically use relatively simple shapes and colour and tone play a less prominent role - many animated cartoons have been made in black and white line drawings. So, this idea is for a television channel to broadcast vector-rendered pragramming (very low bandwidth of course - as vector graphics are just a list of x,y coordinates) which could be displayed on special televisions. Initially the content would be animated cartoons.Artists and directors may then see the appeal of this new medium and create feature films, pop videos and dramas all utilising the simplicity and elegance of thin, clean, white lines on a black VDU.Oh yes, and because it's a vector display, you could have a wall-sized display unit with no loss of quality in the picture.-- hippo, Mar 09 2003 Shockwave.com animation section http://atomfilms.sh...e.com/af/animation/Darn near baked here. [krelnik, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004] (?) USB Monitor http://www.halfbake.../idea/USB_20Monitor [half, Oct 04 2004] Vib Ribbon http://www.vibribbon.com/When I say "Vector-rendered cartoon", this gets fairly close to what I mean. [hippo, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004] Flash TV?-- waugsqueke, Mar 09 2003 Animations that are posted in Flash format on the web are close to what you want, you just need a way to watch them in the living room. See link.-- krelnik, Mar 09 2003 I'm not much of a fan of the cartoons that have this look. But, I like the idea.
The low bandwidth requirements might make the halfbaked "USB Monitor" a viable display medium.-- half, Mar 09 2003 Would save on storage space considerably. (+)-- Shz, Mar 09 2003 The Flash animations have something of what I mean, but rely heavily on bitmaps and fill effects which you would really attempt to do on a vector display.See "Vib Ribbon" link.-- hippo, Mar 10 2003 All moving images should be distibuted in this way. As we move to more flexible media and devices that need to display the same image on inch-high handphone screens to wide, wide outdoor display screens, we need a medium that can handle universally scaleable images.
In my version of Corel Draw, you can reduce bitmaps to vector images. The algorithm is suboptimal and the vector rendering process isn't up to real-time movies, but it's a good technology/ concept demonstrator.
{ I believe processing power availability and pricing will outgrow bandwidth over the long term. }
Therefore vector animations will take over as the medium of choice in the medium-term future.-- FloridaManatee, Mar 10 2003 PS, 'kin excellent!-- FloridaManatee, Mar 10 2003 Nice - I could do illustrations of some of my crappy ideas with SVG without worrying about flash bandwidth (why I didn't renew Swish after getting new 'puter a few years ago)-- thumbwax, Mar 10 2003 But bandwidth/scalability/storage aren't really issues with television broadcasting. It seems to solve a non-existent problem. And I can't see there being a great market for specialized televisions that only pick up certain types of channels (as lagging HDTV sales certainly indicate).
Plus, I hate cartoons.-- waugsqueke, Mar 10 2003 This would also lend istelf to truly scaleable huge outdoor projections, using lasers. (+)-- 8th of 7, Mar 10 2003 I'm not convinced that this is a good idea for broadcast technology (although some varieties, e.g. terrestrial digital TV, have bandwidth restrictions that would make more efficient compression useful). But it would be great for downloading Powerpuff Girls episodes over the internet. However, I think more complex animation such as Disney movies may not gain much with this; and animations such as South Park which use texturing effects and occasional bitmaps and captured images might require add-ons.
This isn't quite the same as Flash, because Flash is an authoring medium rather than a compression scheme: it produces highly compressed movies by allowing the creator a number of simple animation and image primitives to create their animation from. However it is not really designed to compress vector graphics created elsewhere (even though they can be imported in certain formats).-- pottedstu, Mar 10 2003 Has anyone seen “Home Movies” on the Cartoon Network? Episodes from season two and above are made entirely in flash. It is very funny too, by the way. Check it out Monday through Thursday, at 11:30 pm.-- JRandMoby, Mar 10 2003 I don't suppose anyone has seen "Max and Ruby"?
I swear, that whole thing is in flash. (Would be perfect for this, though since it uses no textures)-- JackandJohn, Mar 11 2003 random, halfbakery