Angie & Jim

Conference in HD?by Jim

In the past, I’ve been saddened by how the Church has lagged in the technology department.  Understandably, technology is normally very expensive and it is sacred tithing they spend, so I’ve never complained about it.  A few years ago, when they finally started posting conference as video files, I was very pleased.  It wasn’t anything new or especially impressive, but it was a step in the right direction.  This year, though, I was impressed.  The new video streamer we used to watch conference this year was fantastic.  Not only was it very responsive (we were able to watch conference without missing large chunks because of insufficient bandwith on their part, as in years past), but the fidelity of the video was unbelievable.  I didn’t do any tests (I was trying to pay attention to the speakers), but the quality definitely looked HD to me.  Full-screened on my HDTV, the quality was better than most DVDs.  More than once, I got up from the couch and stared at my TV only inches away to see how clear the picture was.  As an added nicety, http://lds.org broadcast conference in widescreen!  (Strangely, http://www.byu.tv did not.)  Forgive me for being so excited about this… after spending a lot on a TV, it is nice when I get to use the HD-ness of it.  Did anyone else who watched conference online notice how good it looked?

The talks were all very good.  I especially liked Pres. Uchtdorf’s talk in the Priesthood Session.  What great counsel we received over the last 36 hours!

–Edit–

Okay, so it wasn’t HD.  It was 640×360, which is technically not high-def; but in all honesty, online conference never looked better.  😉