Slashdot Mirror
US DTV Patent Royalties Are $24–$40
shiroobi writes "Wow! $24-40 USD a pop? This would seem to mean that every TV is already marked up with this cost now that ATSC tuners are required. Looks like Vizio is fighting something like this already against Funai."
I think this might finally explain something I observed when preparing for the switchover. I was trying to find a VCR/DVD recorder with an ATSC tuner so I could record programs. (A converter box->regular VCR setup doesn't work well because the VCR doesn't have the ability to tell the converter box to change channels.)
I couldn't find anything in a low end VCR. All of the low end VCRs or DVD recorders were all tuner-free. You had to go up to the mid- to high-range models before you found one with a tuner, and even then it was hit-or-miss. Contrast that with VCR buying 3-5 years ago, where even the lowest of low end VCR had an integrated NTSC tuner.
At the time I thought it was a reflection of changing viewing habits, that no one was using VCRs to record television shows anymore, but it makes sense that if you need to spend $25-40 on just ATSC licensing fees, you'll just drop the tuner, or would only put it into more expensive models.
(BTW, I finally went crazy, bought an ATSC capture card and converted an old computer into a MythTV box. It's slicker and arguably better than a VCR, but with more headaches and frustrations.)
This is really an old story, actually a continuation of the NTSC/PAL battles. VSB is the acronym for vestigial sideband, a variation of the modulation scheme used for NTSC. Coded Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (COFDM) is a different and more complex modulation scheme used by Digital Video Broadcast (DVB) in Europe and Japan. The general consensus at the time (way back in the last millennium) was that OFDM was better for penetration but the receivers were more expensive. VSB had a greater service area but could not handle noise (especially reflections) as well. In Europe and Japan, there are more large concentrations of people and DVB/COFDM made more sense.
THE REAL REASON, however, was that European companies owned the patents on COFDM, and Zenith had the patent on VSB-8 (some say 8-VSB, 8 for the number of levels of signal amplitude used, there is also a 16-level version for cable that was never used). So, America "bought American" and chose Zenith's solution. Later, LG Electronics bought Zenith. LOL!
Note: Bell Labs patented OFDM in 1966, but Philips and STM wrote patents covering DVB COFDM in 1987. I am sure there are others too.