Does Moore’s Law Apply to Video Formats?

Moore’s Law, of course, defined in 1958 that the number of transitors in computer hardware will double approximately every two years. Approximately, whether it be by luck or science, it has proven amazingly correct:

But can the same be said, in general terms, for the size of digital video formats?

The argument against that happening is the “CD” argument. CDs haven’t really changed that much since they came to market; sure you occasionally get 5.1 channel formats but essentially, the original 16 bits / 44.1 kilosamples per second standards have prevailed since they came to market during the early 1980s. Storage requirements for sound has not doubled every two years.

Thus, far formats have grown in steps: HD is 5 times the size of SD. 3D is twice the size of HD. Furthermore, TV screens have grown in pixels. We in Britain used to feel quite superior to the USA for having transmissions on 625 instead of 525 lines but HD puts all that into scary stories to tell the grandchildren, with 2048×1080 for “Full HD Ready TVs” (2k format), and even 4096×2160 in “Cinema” HD (4k) format.

Likewise, storage requirements for digital formats can sometimes seem to have endless needs.

But will the space required to store video follow a Moore’s Law like pattern, or will the limits of our sensory capacity but a boundary on how far they can go (as with digital music)?

OM’s Take

OM believes not. Today we are just beginning to experience what can be done with video formats, but perhaps there will be a limit. Video formats, and subsequently storage requirements, will be capped by the human’s ability to sense.

Surely, there must be a limit!!