Yes, that's probably true.
In many cases, it works, and the hardware survives.
In other cases, e.g. where somebody connects a real RS-232 port directly to a micro serial port that uses 3.3-volt CMOS voltage levels and non-inverted polarity, it doesn't work (for several reasons) and there's often a quiet PHUT and a small leakage of magic blue smoke.
As Durano said to Londo Mollari, "The details are everything."
Isn't the video output from digital tv cameras already compressed by "gamma correction" which applies a power law function?
John
It might or might not be depending on the device. It is quite common for some industrial ones to return the raw data frame to the computer.
Even so if you want to squish the image data into a smaller number of bits then some sort of non-linear fast lookup table is the way to do it.
Usually (but not always) you want to preserve details in the shadows.
-- Regards, Martin Brown
The available line speed was 384 kbit/s so assuming 10 bits/s and no overhead, that is 38 kpixels/s. Even a VGA frame 640x480 = 300 kpixels, so it takes nearly 10 s to transfer a single frame. Not really live video. That link speed would be capable of supporting
160x200 pixels once a second. assuming asynchronous transfer (start/stop bits).
I'm generally more looking at USB3 and low light fast Mpixel industrial cameras which have become very popular for amateur/pro astronomy. It is generally reckoned that at least 3 amateurs worldwide have Jupiter imaged in video continuously whenever it is available to see.
Turns out SL9 type impacts with Jupiter are a bit more common than we once thought. Someone catches and incident every couple of years. Last lunar eclipse someone even caught a meteorite striking the moon!
Lucky imaging has revolutionised high resolution ground based optical astronomy - bringing it well within reach of advanced amateurs.
-- Regards, Martin Brown
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