Photo Finish

http://cyclingnews.com/photos/2008/a...O08/USPRO082/1

In article
,
DirtRoadie wrote:

http://cyclingnews.com/photos/2008/a...hotos/2008/aug
08/USPRO08/USPRO082/1

Your winner, by a pixel...

--
Ryan Cousineau http://www.wiredcola.com/
"In other newsgroups, they killfile trolls."
"In rec.bicycles.racing, we coach them."

DirtRoadie schreef:
http://cyclingnews.com/photos/2008/a...O08/USPRO082/1

But to call it "the narrowest of margins" is a hyperbole. I mean, it's
almost a tyre width! How about half a pixel?
http://www.xs4all.nl/~ewoud/rbr/weeningkloeden.jpg

Funny: ESPN called it "Weening barely wins stage"

On Sep 1, 4:36*am, Ted van de Weteringe
wrote:

[snip].jpg

I'm under the impression that, because of its compression algorithm,
you can't absolutely rely on a given pixel boundary in jpegs.

Robert Chung schreef:
I'm under the impression that, because of its compression algorithm,
you can't absolutely rely on a given pixel boundary in jpegs.

Sure. I don't know what comes out of the photo finish system, probably
wbmp. My jpeg was just an upscaled copy from the Tour site copy. Given
those crappy conditions, it still seems rather clear that the same
vertical pixel line is darker at one wheel than the other, and that it
isn't a random jpeg artifact. So, half a pixel time difference.

Besides, the winner is not decided but defined by the result of reading
the finish photo... It's Plato's cave all over again.

In article ,
Ted van de Weteringe wrote:

Robert Chung schreef:
I'm under the impression that, because of its compression algorithm,
you can't absolutely rely on a given pixel boundary in jpegs.

Sure. I don't know what comes out of the photo finish system, probably
wbmp. My jpeg was just an upscaled copy from the Tour site copy. Given
those crappy conditions, it still seems rather clear that the same
vertical pixel line is darker at one wheel than the other, and that it
isn't a random jpeg artifact. So, half a pixel time difference.

Besides, the winner is not decided but defined by the result of reading
the finish photo... It's Plato's cave all over again.

This is going to turn into Phelps and Cavic in the 100m butterfly all
over again, isn't it? The crazier folks in my hockey team's newsgroup
got the vapors over the fact that race finish was defined by a pressure
plate with a non-zero contact pressure requirement.

When I explained to them that bike races finished at the front of the
front wheel, and how bike throws worked*, one guy thought it sounded
like an unfair way to define a race.

But yeah, the decisive events in many modern sports are defined by the
measuring equipment.

*The sprinter's kind, not the Bjarne Riis TTing badly kind.

--
Ryan Cousineau http://www.wiredcola.com/
"In other newsgroups, they killfile trolls."
"In rec.bicycles.racing, we coach them."