P3D jpeg images / AOL browser

[boris@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Boris Starosta)]

Hello:

I'll be glad to move discussion to SD-3D, if necessary, but I feel this is
important for the whole group, especially for non-tech heads (as will
become evident).

Some time ago there was a discussion about the merits and demerits of using
the JPEG file format for stereo graphics files.  Many people commented that
JPEG was not good for stereo, because it creates artifacts in the images
that hurt the stereoscopic depth cues - thereby lessening the overall
impression of depth and presence.

When I first followed this thread, I was a bit mystified, because I thought
JPEG worked great for me.  Then I learned that different software packages
will compress images differently, and that this affected quality (the
degree of compression also affects quality as well).  After a time, it
became evident that using Adobe Photoshop, as I do, gets you very
efficiently compressed, and very good looking JPEG image files.  I was
happy.

Now I have come across something very disturbing.  I recently visited my
website from a friend's machine.  He is not very "tech-head" - evidenced by
his web subscription/connection via AOL - and we surfed using the browser
supplied by AOL.

I was stunned by the poor quality of most of the graphics coming onto his
screen.  To check it further, we went to my web site (home of superbly
clear images), where the graphics looked _just as bad!!_   It looked as if
the browser was not completing that final pass (on interlaced JPEGs), and
leaving all the images at the preliminary low-quality rendering.  We looked
for some kind of preference setting within the browser, and could find
none.

This is very upsetting to me.  Here I spend a lot of effort putting high
quality images on the web, and just because AOL is so stingy with
bandwidth, they apparently set up their browser to download the jpegs only
partially - thus giving their users a definitely substandard experience,
and misrepresenting my work!

Now you see why this post had to go into P-3D.  Few users of AOL's browser
are likely subscribed to SD-3D!  And they should know about this!

Now I would like to solicit comments from users of AOL, or anyone else who
may have observed this.  You may post to SD-3D, if you like.

Thank you,


Boris Starosta            boris@xxxxxxxxxxxx
                          http://www.starosta.com
usa 804 979 3930          http://www.starosta.com/3dshowcase



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