Enhanced Game of Thrones books

[John F]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Maps compress well in jpg. The problem is the low resolution.

Wrong again. The problem was clearly compression artifacts.

[JSWolf]

I've seen plenty of maps in JPG that are clearly readable. But only if the resolution is high enough. I've also seen some maps that were too low a resolution even with an 800x600 eInk screen.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I've seen plenty of maps in JPG that are clearly readable. But only if the resolution is high enough. I've also seen some maps that were too low a resolution even with an 800x600 eInk screen.

JPEG is a poor format to compress images that contain text (eg names on maps) because JPEG compression blurs the edges of lines. GIF or PNG are both much better choices for such images.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

JPEG is a poor format to compress images that contain text (eg names on maps) because JPEG compression blurs the edges of lines. GIF or PNG are both much better choices for such images.

It depends on the level of JPG compression. I've compressed many images to JPG without seeing any noticeable artifacts. I do sometimes recompress cover images.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

It depends on the level of JPG compression.

True, but the point is that any image that is not "photo-realistic" - ie that contains lines, text, and blocks of a single colour, rather than continuous gradations of colour - will compress to an enormously smaller file with GIF or PNG than with JPEG. Try it for yourself. Eg, take a screenshot of this MR screen, and save it respectively as JPEG, GIF and PNG. The results may surprise you!

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

Why?
Unless they drastically increase the size of a eReader the resolution is irrelevant. If the image is 800x600 it will show exactly the same on a 800x600 eReader and a 80,000x60,000 ereader.

Eh, no. I you take an 800x600 image, created for an 800x600 e-reader, it will be stretched 2x in each direction when displayed on a 1600x1200 e-ereader. The latter e-reader is four times bigger than the image, so it has to 'make up' 75% of the pixels. That will make the image blurry.

You can't just show the image at 800x600 and then center it, because it'll only cover 25% of the screen and thus it'll be tiny.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Eh, no. I you take an 800x600 image, created for an 800x600 e-reader, it will be stretched 2x in each direction when displayed on a 1600x1200 e-ereader. The latter e-reader is four times bigger than the image, so it has to 'make up' 75% of the pixels. That will make the image blurry.

...

FWIW, it wouldn't need to make up anything when scaling; it is an exact stretch/scale.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say "...created for..."

[Katsunami]

A line, 800x1 pixels long, will be displayed exactly at 800 pixels wide, 1 pixels high, on an 800x600 screen. ("Created for an 800 pixels wide screen.") If you show that same line at 100%, on an e-reader with a 1600x1200 screen, it will reach only up to half of the screen, and it'll be half as thick.

Because the screen has double the pixels, the line will need to be scaled up to 1600x2, and thus the reader will need to 'invent' every other pixel, as it's not there. In case of a line this will not be a problem, but an image will become blurry.

If the resolution is not exactly x2 on each side, scaling will be worse. (Nowadays, algorithms are good enough to also handle 1.5x or 2.5x, for example, but if it's something like 2.3, or 1.75, your image will definitely be blurry.)

[John F]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

...

Because the screen has double the pixels, the line will need to be scaled up to 1600x2, and thus the reader will need to 'invent' every other pixel, as it's not there. In case of a line this will not be a problem, but an image will become blurry.

Nothing needs to be 'invented'.

If the resolution is not exactly x2 on each side, scaling will be worse....

It could also be X3, X4, ... also.

... (Nowadays, algorithms are good enough to also handle 1.5x or 2.5x, for example, but if it's something like 2.3, or 1.75, your image will definitely be blurry.)

How often do you think you get an exact 800x600 image? How often do you think that 800x600 image displays with a one for one mapping (on a 800x600 display)?

There is going to be scaling on both, so if an 800x600 image is "good enough" on a 800x600 display, it is going to be "good enough" on a high res display.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by John F

if an 800x600 image is "good enough" on a 800x600 display, it is going to be "good enough" on a high res display.

It will of course look the same as it does on the 800x600 screen, but the high-res display offers the potential to replace it with an image showing much finer detail.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by John F

There is going to be scaling on both, so if an 800x600 image is "good enough" on a 800x600 display, it is going to be "good enough" on a high res display.

If your statement is true, then why do so many older programs that don't support hi-dpi scaling in Windows look crap on a high resolution display?

If you stretch/blow up something, i.e. a user interface or an image, to a resolution it wasn't designed for, it -will- look worse.

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

If your statement is true, then why do so many older programs that don't support hi-dpi scaling in Windows look crap on a high resolution display?

If you stretch/blow up something, i.e. a user interface or an image, to a resolution it wasn't designed for, it -will- look worse.

They generally looked crap on the old screen as well, it's just what you were used to

One of the main differences is that your old monitor was probably about 14", the other is windows bitmap scaling which sucks.

TBH it does depend on if the resolution is a direct multiple of the old resolution, 1.5x will look a little bit blurry 2.0x will look the same, this will diminish as the new resolution gets higher so you will end up with a slightly better resolution screen looking worse but a much better resolution screen looking the same.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

They generally looked crap on the old screen as well, it's just what you were used to

Actually, no. I have some old games (made for those ancient 14" CRT monitors with a 800x600 screen, you might remember them!). They look crisp if I open it non-full screen but tiny!, and blurry when I use the highest resolution (while still keeping the aspect ration at 4:3 naturally)