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Digital Television Transmission Standards
I wanted to know what Slashdotters thought about the COFDM vs. 8VSB digital television transmission standard issue. However, I was suprised to find nothing related to this topic in a Slashdot search. This is an important issue, and it's a big one: almost half of the broadcast television stations in the US support the movement, lead by Sinclair Broadcast Group, to change the standard.
Here's the issue (another NY Times article talks about this -- search for DTV). Digital television, or DTV, is projected to replace America's current NTSC transmission system sometime in the earle 21st century. Stations have already begun to move to the new trasmission format. It promises better picture quality, no ghosting, and (here's the big one for "nerds") 19.2 megabits per second of raw binary data. One of the major forseen applications is delivering data like the data on the PointCast Network to mobile devices. Of course, however, the main application is television. Broadcasters have a choice: either they can transmit one channel of amazingly high-resolution, stunningly detailed high-quality video (HDTV), or several channels (4, I think) of standard-quality video, which is better than the video of the current system because there is no ghosting and fading up until a point where it doesn't come in at all. The issue centers over that point.
The current system is known as 8VSB, and it passed advanced laboratory testing and even some basic field testing almost ten years ago. However, last year, when Sinclair did actual, in-home, average-viewer's-setup testing of this system, it didn't work as well as the NTSC system. They could not receive HDTV signals from a station near an NTSC station whose picture came in clear. Then Sinclair did more, and more detailed, tests at home in Baltimore. This time they brought for comparison a sample modulator for the European transmission system called COFDM, and a demodulator / decoder box to receive it. They tried it in streets with tall buildings, parking garages, and apartments, all places where multipath, which causes ghosting, is prevalent. Each time they tested the two systems--European COFDM and American 8VSB, the COFDM receiver picked out its signal without fail--"It was hard to find a place where it didn't work," says my dad, who was part of the testing--but it was hard to find a spot where 8VSB would
work. Continued testing convinced Sinclair officials that the current system would not be able to work in the real world, and are pushing for a change to COFDM, a system that has been proven in Europe. They wrote up a petition to the FCC, and almost half of the television stations of the US have signed it.
Sort of like the hard deadline of having HDTV transmitters in place by the end of last year in the major markets. To my knowlege (I could be wrong) there are stil no HDTV stations in Chicago, although they did install the antennaes a few months ago. Maybe they'll have them by the end of this year. I'm sure the dozens of people who own compatible sets will be thrilled.
-Rich
The main beef I have with video today is that we've just gotten digital right for NTSC SDTV - or Standard Def TV - and now we're mucking things up by throwing in a totally new set of standards via the ATSC DTV proposal accepted/mandated by the FCC. Now, don't get me wrong - I'm just a video editor/producer by trade, who happens to like LINUX too. I'm not expert on this subject by any measure - but I do know that I can now edit decent NTSC or PAL digital video (compressed) on my desktop computer, for much less money than investing in analog editing equipment. ATSC/DTV threatens to screw all of this progress up as the current PC architecture cannot handle the bandwidth/throughput requirements for non-linear HDTV editing! My 56GB SCSI array can barely keep up with Beta-SP (today's broadcast "standard" tape format) quality in terms of throughput. Now, in the near future I'll have to worry about buying all new equipment just so I can do my job. New cameras, new editors, new VCRs, new TV monitors, etc.... The costs are enormous - especially for broadcasters and cable companies. The only ones who will win by this conversion to digital TV in the us is the major Japanese TV equipment manufacturers - Sony, Matsushita (Panasonic/JVC), and others - as well as those making MPEG codecs... I'll buy only when I'm forced to upgrade. For now my 27" TV looks just fine...
Umm... not finally. Heard of PAL? GSM? Metric units? Here in SA we've had nation-wide GSM for 4, 5 (?) years already with the states only just starting.
But wait, you say -- what if we end up with three different standards? Right. It would be just like the battle for 56K modems that is causing us so many problems today. Of course, that battle isn't causing us problems anymore, and the solution would be the same: standards consolidation, or a cable box that supports all three standards.
But then, what happens when someone creates a fourth standard, and it's better? Obviously, the manufacturers would end up making a cable box that is software upgradable. The next step would be for the decoding software to be carried on a cable channel so the decoder can be upgraded on-the-fly. After that, people could plug in their TV, and it would just work. End of problem.
Somewhere along the line, it would occur to people that the decoding software can run on a PC, the Internet and TV broadcasting will merge, and we all live happily ever after.
That isn't what's going to happen, of course. The bureaucrats need to maintain their power base, so they're going to enact a standard, and lock us into a technology that will become increasing obsolete. Then, like the railroads, and radio, and telephones, we won't see any improvements for fifty years. Fortunately, we will be using the Internet to bypass whatever they do. That is, unless they forbid it -- in the name of ensuring access for everyone.
Okay, is it just me, or is there very little cause for worry here? It appears that the problem is already taking care of itself...
Here's the scenario as I see it:
-Moving to DTV cause it's better
-Adopting 8VSB cause it got approved
-8VSB proving not up to snuff
-Adopting COFDM instead cause it's better
Now, is it just me? Since we're not going to immediately switch over to DTV for awhile anyway, and we've already got almost half (a big number no matter how you look at it) rooting for COFDM, which I view as the better, then it's downhill from there.
Any cable company installing a standard in which the reception isn't healthy isn't going to prosper, plain and simply. There are too many alternatives to your local cable company. Satellite, mini-dish, or, as I do, hook up a big antenna and only receive 5 channels... Works for me.
Synopsis:
-Any stations adopting the weaker standard is going to end up with unhappy customers.
-Unhappy customers means revenue loss
We are FINALLY living in a day and age in which consumers are REALIZING their purchasing power. I mean, c'mon, understandably enough, people are locked into things like Microsoft products because they don't know better... but who doesn't know about satellite. In most communities it's considered an UPgrade.
Anyway, I just think the situation is handling itself properly, and that there isn't any cause for concern... Feel free to flame me with more accurate info if I'm wrong.
Unfortunately, DVD doesn't have enough resolution to really necessitate HDTV. Just get a good-quality SVHS-capable TV instead, or something which can accept component video if you're really finicky. My 35" Sony Trinitron has 900 lines of resolution, and DVDs fed to it through the SVHS jack are incredibly sharp. As a test of this, I hooked up both the SVHS and RCA inputs on my TV to my DVD player and put on the Ghostbusters menu screen (with the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man tromping through a rendered New York with the menu items on various buildings). By flipping between RCA and SVHS, I could see how incredible the difference was - SVHS was perfectly sharp, whereas RCA looked like a plain old VHS videotape. But regardless, SVHS can handle 600 lines of resolution (as evidenced by my LeadTek S320 putting out a perfectly-sharp Quake2 at 800x600 on said TV), and I believe DVD has something like 400 lines.
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"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
Just what we need, another standards war.
At least this one will most likely be decided by the FCC before consumers have to deal with it. Unfortunately, I don't trust the FCC to make the best decision.
Even if the two standards are equal, I hope the one from Europe wins. That will result in more standard world-wide consumer electronics, which is a good thing. With any luck, they can use this as a chance to eliminate the stupid PAL vs. NTSC vs. SECAM television incompatibility mess.
Finally, somewhere where the EU is ahead of the USA.
Don't forget GSM phones. They work everywhere but the US.
--GnrcMan--
Here in sweden, the plan is to move over to HDTV as soon as practically possible. However, the box needed i rather expensive and not many channels are yet sending digitally. The consequence is of course that very few (like 500-600) people have bought boxes, which means the stations have not started to broadcast in this format. With a box you still do not get HDTV quality and you won't get any more channels than the regular programming; I for one will not pay a lot of money to get exactly the same (crappy) programming I already have.
Related to this is an effort to move to digital radio, but here the problem is even worse. While a lot of people own regular, cheap, receivers, the digital units are several times more expensive, and since FM radio sounds so good already, there is hardly any incentive to switch.
I do wonder if all that money could not be put to better use producing content that we viewers would actually want to see...
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
The 3 networks+PBS are bleeding viewership because of the obstinacy over the pizza dish.
The reception in rural areas for over-the-air-broadcasts is quite poor. That's why everyone went to cable, and I mean everyone. The local broadcasting stations demanded cable carry them so they could retain viewership. It worked.
The stations have a different attitude with satellite dishes. They forbid the operators to carry their signal. Nohow, noway, never, even when the air signal is poor and cable is unavailable. People in these areas get pizza dishes, and quickly learn to forget about network programming. Loss of customer base.
Now their friends in town see the amazing picture quality, and drop cable for the dish. Same programming, except no local stations. They get over it quickly enough, and it's more loss of customer base.
Most cable companies have really bad customer relations. I know of one that lost a third of its base in a summer because they jiggered tiers and rates. All of the loss was picked up by dishes, and no dish viewer ever sees any network TV.
I think network programming will disappear from rural areas. Half of the potential customers already have dishes, they're not buying spindly antennas or a $4000 TV. When the remaining half see the price of entry, it's Helllllo EchoStar.
So just who is the intended market for DTV?
Basically, here's the gist: Broadcast companies could care less about broadcasting HDTV. For all their talk about drastically improving the quality of television, their eyes are on the really big asset they're sitting on: their spectrum.
First, a little history. (Sorry for the slight tangent, but bear with me :-) Unbeknownst to most people, network TV stations are the only companies in the country that get free transmission spectrum. This was done in 1932 (or sometime around then) when there were few other uses for the bandwidth and the government wanted to encourage broadcasting because they felt it would be in the public good to have universal access to this new communications medium. Since then, of course, that spectrum has become incredibly valuable, but the broadcasters continue to get it for free.
Enter HDTV. Using modern compression standards, broadcasters can fit the entire datastream of an HDTV picture into the same 6MHz T.V. channel currently used for NTSC. But broadcast companies started looking at it the other way around. Using modern compression standards, they could fit 6 NTSC channels into one spectrum slice. Or... they could fit 1 NTSC channel into 1/6 the slice, and use the other 5/6 slice for other services e.g. data transmission, cell phones, etc. After all, they're getting a full 6Mhz for free; if they can continue their current broadcasts (thereby continuing their current revenue) and add other profitable services without having to pay for the spectrum, why not?
Look at it this way: they could either use the 6Mhz to a) transmit 1 HDTV channel b) transmit 6 NTSC channels c) transmit 1 NTSC channel and a bunch of other services. It's clear that options b & c would be far more profitable than option a. This is why there is no one HDTV standard, but a whole spectrum of standards. Note how NTSC defines one picture standard, but HDTV defines 18 (all of which must be supported by a TV in order for it to be sold as an "HDTV")! One of those happens to include compressed, digitized NTSC...
Grease the palms of our honorable legislators enough, and it's not hard to get a sweet deal. And the networks are sitting on an incredibly sweet deal. First of all, they can decide which picture standard to use (ranging in quality from crappy NTSC to fullblown HDTV) assured that consumers have paid for the expensive decoder chips to watch whichever standard they choose to broadcast. Secondly, they can decide which mix of channels/services/etc. is the most profitable for them with no regulation whatsoever that forces them to use their spectrum for actually broadcasting HDTV. And they can do it all on free spectrum that otherwise would have cost them $70 billion (according to estimates of how much that spectrum would have fetched the government if it was auctioned)!
Are you feeling sick? Do you want to lead a consumer revolt by not buying HDTV sets? Don't worry; they have that covered too. In 10-15 years, by law, all NTSC broadcasts will be halted and everyone will be forced to switch over to HDTV. Unless you want to quit watching TV of any kind, you *must* purchase an HDTV set. Note how if you have a B&W T.V. from the 40's, you can still watch T.V. today, but 10 years from now, your NTSC set will be useless; why do you think they couldn't come up with a way to maintain backward compatibility when they were defining the HDTV standard? Or at least allow the market to determine the rate of HDTV acceptance as it saw fit? Perhaps because broadcasters knew that once people began to see that they essentially bought expensive new sets in order to watch the same crappy TV just so that the network companies could make more money off their spectrum, no one would buy HDTV sets and networks may have to continue broadcasting NTSC and miss out on all their extra profits...
So to segue back on-topic, broadcasters could care less about the quality of TV transmission and the details about penetration rates, signal quality, etc. etc. Because no matter how bad the transmission quality is, in 10 years, everyone will be forced to adopt the new standard anyway. And why should they care if half the people in their station area can't receive their TV signal and are thus not watching their advertising? They'll be making far more from all those extra services they'll be selling on their newfound $70 billion bandwidth horde...
Modulation at this date rate is not something that is normally done in software. A custom designed microcoded DSP, maybe, but it would probably have been designed for the specific 8VSB modulation scheme and not easily converted to CODFM.
I believe the exact same thing as in the US.
We get American channels in Canada and, conversely, Americans get Canadian channels. I doubt the Canadian broadcasters and the cable companies would be very happy if they couldn't deal with HDTV.
Remember that the 'N' in NTSC stands for "North America."
In the game of DTV there is one often overlooked contender, our good friend Coax. Coax cable can deliver (currently) 10Mbps but improvements and refinements of the technology has allowed engineers to squeeze 30Mbps out of coax which is plenty of bandwidth fo both HDTV and NTSC signals on the same wire. Not only does it have the capacity for HDTV it also provides a rather high bandwidth return path for high speed internet. I think if cable companies put the effort into getting their coax up to spec with HDTV they could really get their foot into the market. If they made getting HDTV as easy as getting analog cable consumers would jump all over it. Networks are already moving into the multicast area, take Fox for example (please take Fox!); they have their main network, a sports channel, a channel for mostly syndicated shows, and their "family" channel. This is most likely the rubrick that networks will follow, all their different types of shows on a single channel. Then people like HBO and Showtime will take advantage of the 1920x1080 true HDTV format for movies and special events. None of this affects me too much, all I watch anymore is Cartoon Network, although an HDTV anime station might catch my fancy...
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
I don't know what it is, but most every major "standard" differs between EU and the US, and to be honest, it tends to seem like the EU versions are much better than what we've come up with.
AFAIK, there is a fixed point as set by the FCC when the broadcast signals are to be turned off. I want to say 2006, but I might be wrong. Of course, given such findings as these, and the fact that digital TVs are still $3000 or more, the FCC may delay it until the tech catches up appropriately.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Want evidence?
- VHS beat Beta. Why? Because you could record six hours on a VHS tape. Quality be damned.
- Prerecorded audio cassettes are still selling.
- George W. Bush (ok, maybe that's the lesser of many evils)
- Disney
- E-Machines
- Micro$oft
The FCC is forcing broadcasters to convert to digital, and along with it they'll be forcing us to spend money.Or maybe they are just getting us to throw away our TVs and get lives.
Could be a positive thing after all. (For purposes of this discussion: "People" == The government and/or the manufacturers.)
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NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
I said the 35mm crap people see in theaters, not 35mm in general. But very few theaters properly focus their projectors, clean the film, etc...
Its rare to get a good film experience.
My god, you are demented. Are you actually trying to equate the process of standardization of a new technology that is fraught with tons of issues to how you you treat your "clients"? Who the hell do you think you are?
Gee, someone who usually tries to improve a situation instead of just implementing mindless upgrades just for the purpose of New Whiz Bang Technology(TM).
I'm rather shocked that that isn't the same policy of an entire industry, which has been singing the praises of Digital Television for around half my life now. How interesting that it's only now, when suddenly a new technological solution arrives from Europe, that any news is released that says the American DTV standard is almost completely and utterly useless, and that it'd essentially remove reception from large swaths of the population.
If this observation offended you in some way, AC, I apologize. Feel free to continue this discussion; however I think I'd prefer an actual argument, based on the facts, rather than some pseudo-effective ad hominem flamage.
If you've got a point to make, make it. If you don't, we've all got better things to do.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Apart from reception quality, the main difference is that the European DVB standard is a lot more flexible in how it lets you configure the bandwidth and the error correction between different services running in the same 6 MHz channel multiplex.
The bandwidth is there, same as ASTC, to run an HDTV channel. Australia in particular is mandating HDTV content over DVB from its broadcasters. But what the broadcasters in Oz think will make the DVB standard really pay are the possibilities for datacasting over some of the bandwidth -- and there is a huge plus in being able to datacast to people on the move.
COFDM is a much more rugged standard for mobile reception -- remember that very cute thinkpad sized combined TV/data terminal/GSM phone from Nokia. Mobile reception is easy with COFDM, but not possible with 8-VSB; in fact it's hard enough with the ATSC standard even to get good static reception.
This article by Craig Birkmaier does a particularly good job comparing the two standards, and brings out the exciting possibilities for a combined mobile data/TV/phone system.
"With my new TV I can see the twinkle in Matthew Perry's eye!"
Now it seems to me that the European system is definitely better. But regarding general digital transfer of information over the airwaves, I'd like to bring up a point. Anybody who has used a digital "cellular" phone can say that when it works it has much better audio quality than an analog phone. But if you talk to a sales representative, you'll hear that if you live in an outlying area that you'll definitely want to opt for analog or dual-band. This is due to two reasons, obviously the digital networks are not as widespread as the analog networks. However, in addition, the digital towers have to be about 3 times closer together to ensure a signal. I'd imagine that this is because with digital, you are either getting clear enough reception to get a signal, or you're not, whereas an analog phone can deal with weak signals by simply having sound that's less clear. Error correction can probably in some way compensate for this, but obviously it doesn't work as well because the towers still need to be closer.
Now the point of my response - will the same thing be true of digital TV? Will the broadcast area for each station not be able to reach as far? This study on 8VSB vs CODFM does seem to indicate that there is the potential for this problem. I live in a somewhat outlying area, I don't have cable, and half the stations that I get come from about 100 miles away (and over quite a few mountains) so the signal is fairly weak. If digital TV means that I won't be able to get the CBS and NBC stations that come out of the next state, then as far as I'm concerned it's useless.
I am a professional television broadcaster. I run engineering for one of the major channels on almost all cable systems. HDTV is almost surely doomed to failure.
First and foremost, the majority of Americans watch TV via cable or direct-to-home satellite. There is currently no way for consumers to get HDTV programming this way. There is no benefit to cable companies to send HDTV to cable customers. HDTV uses up much bandwidth and there is no way for cable headeds to insert their own commercials. The VSB vs. CODFM debate is small potatoes compared to the fact that no HDTV is available via cable system.
Second, there are *no* standards for broadcasting HDTV besides transsmission. Broadcasters are free to choose any systems that fits into the VSB transmission system. There is not even agreement on making the system progressive (what computers use) or interlaced (what analog TVs use). This has led to a bad situation for the television set makers. They have to make a choice on the 'native display format' for they televisions. That means that if Sony make a 720 Progressive tube set, all broadcasts not in 720P must be deinterlaced or upconverted to that format. That conversion leads to even more picture degredation
Remember, the base HDTV signal used in post-production is 1.5 GHz and that is squeezed down to 19.4 Mbit/s for transmission. Compression can only go so far.
Lastly, while the VSB vs. CODFM indeed does rage, that is nothing compared to the simple fact that there is no business reason to broadcast HDTV. The only reason broadcasters are doing it is because the FCC is forcing them to do it. No one has been able to demonstrate any revenue plan for HDTV yet.
BTW, what people have in Europe is digital television, it is not High Definition TV. All of the direct-to-home satellite services in America are basically the same as DTV in Europe. I think that Dish Network even uses the DVB (European) format for transmission. Currently, Europe has no HDTV.
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Whenever I start fixing a misbehaving system, I always abide by one rule:
Don't Make It Worse.
If I give up on fixing the thing for one reason or another, that's fine. I only have so much time in the day. But I'm not going to leave until I get it back, at least, to where it was before I arrived.
It's an issue of trust, and one of reputation: I can't afford to be known as somebody who you much rather have never walked in the door in the first place.
The revelation now that the present DTV standard doesn't even meet the reliability levels of NTSC is jawdropping. You mean to tell me I'm more respectful of my clients than an entire industry?!
The existence of a superior DTV standard from Europe is not particularly relevant to this foulup--NTSC was around ten years ago, and so were the early development versions of the American DTV standard. How, exactly, could it not be noticed that there were large, vast swathes of viewer who would recieve minimal reception even when NTSC offered perfect picture?
How, praytell, did this avoid any and every discussion of the technology?
My guess is that many an R&D budget went into developing the American standard, and should that standard have been left unadoped, upper management would have had to write it all off as a loss--such a significant accounting would be detrimental to the future of Digital TV, and the jobs of all the researchers.
So the reliability issues were supressed, with the improved quality being the siren call that would get widespread industry support. "Color made people watch more TV. More color and more channels means more ad minutes, means more money!", so were told the networks. "Imagine every American being forced to buy a new TV!", and the consumer electronics industry signed on.
And the consumer? "More channels...more quality...all free! You just need new equipment, or you lose all TV." Note, the lack of any less...any downsides...and apparently some degree of truth.
We're really lucky that the European standard actually does do what the American standard was supposed to.
If it wasn't for it, we'd not have known until it was far too late.
Don't think it's purely selfless devotion to the consumer that's leading that standard replacement alliance...suddenly, a large number of television stations just realized that it's very likely that only the biggest stations with the most skilled engineers and highest quality equipment would actually be able to get their signals broadcast successfully.
Anyone else depending on purely off the shelf hardware would be screwed...maybe, just maybe that was the idea?
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
For anyone who hasn't seen HD digital television in person, its hard to appreciate how drastic a difference it really does make in the viewing experience.
The first time I saw HD programming was at the Newseum in Washington DC (great place to visit if you're ever in the area). I was *stunned* and stopped in my tracks when I walked around the corner and saw it.
I'm a geek and a film guy. Film was the field of choice when I was in school. The 35mm crap people see in movie theaters can't hold anything on HD. Night and day. Really, until you've seen it you can't appreciate how amazing it really is.
I hope these issues get resolved quickly so people have more confidence in buying sets, and prices start to drop. The art of video and film deserves to be seen that way. Its good to see that there is finally serious pressure to drop the DTV standard we've got now for a better one.
What of the millions of people who can't *afford* new HDTVs or the little box to convert down to "normal" broadcast signals of today? Do they get told, "Sorry, you're fucked"? There are plenty of people out there that simply will not stand for this, if the options are either buy a new television or give up TV.
Let's see, the poor can't afford the new televisions, so they're forced to no longer watch TV. This results in a massive amount of culture and independant thinking amongst the poor, sort of re-emergance of the "Harlem Renaissance". Suddenly, millions of people realise that they don't need television, and that they can create their own entertainment that is beyond almost anything ever put on the boob tube.
And meanwhile, the rich and middle class are watching reruns of "Seinfeld" in beautiful HDTV quality.
So, what's the problem, again?
Michael Chisari
As to outdoor antennas, sadly true. Multipath echoes, which we see as ghosts on analog TV, wreak havoc (intersymbol interference, fairly sure) on an 8VSB signal. Although a couple of companies claim to have ghost-canceller chips, they may not work, because the noise is raised with the signal. The FCC seems to be putting blind faith in these chips; their attitude is that a chip will fix 8VSB's problems. I'm not holding my breath.
I sent a spoof about channel surfing with 8VSB to a DTV newsletter, saying that military gun-mount position servo technology and reinforced towers (and antennas) should allow slewing to the new azimuth in maybe 1/2 second. I also kidded about the passionate channel surfer who had a chimney-mount antenna, and made his chimney fall apart from the reaction torque. The spoof was published, as a spoof. Electronically-steerable antennas (such as phased arrays) might be a (costly?) solution.
The reluctance to recognize the deficiencies of 8VSB has been a fantastic example of stubbornness.
There are other advantages of COFDM: Additional transmitters on the same frequency can fill holes in the coverage, or extend it; iirc, Singapore has very good success that way, with several low-power transmitters instead of the megawatt-category apparently needed for 8VSB. Not only that, but multipath echoes actually help COFDM reception!
As to display standards, quite apart from transmission standards, the situation is a muddled mess; iirc, there are 13 of them! The FCC waffled shamelessly and spinelessly in failing to define our display standards, and decided to let the market sort matters out. (Find out about "Table 3', iirc.)
COFDM also works very nicely for portable and mobile receivers; maybe not so important for TV, but for data, another story.
Yrs. trly. predicts that DTV transmitters will be used more for data, and less for DTV, than we expect, in the future.
Finally, HDTV may get a very bad reputation, because some program material will be upconverted from NTSC analog. Real HDTV is so good that you are likely to be able to tell what kind of cloth a garment is made of, at least sometimes, it seems; maybe not exactly, but that idea. You have to see the real thing to believe it.
Nicholas Bodley (find my e-mail (it's real) from another post; I don't want to be slashdotted!)
I hang out at Digital Theater to keep up with Digital TV happenings. They've had many discussions on this topic, and recommend reading the FCC report, DTV REPORT ON COFDM AND 8-VSB PERFORMANCE. The summary of which is
8-VSB was choosen over COFDM during the 9 year period in which the DTV standards were created. One of the major benefits of 8-VSB is it covers a much larger area which is a very important benefit in the US. It also carries more data than COFDM, which means a better picture can be received. In Europe, where everything is much closer together and multipath is a bigger problem, COFDM was choosen as their broadcast standard.
The 8-VSB reception problems shown by Sincliar were exhibited in 1st generation HDTV sets. The manufacturers of the sets have already come up with better ways of cancelling out the multi-path interference that plays havoc with HDTV reception. The newest sets work much better than the 1st generation, and it is expected this trend will continue.
The general consensus at Digital Theater is that Sinclair is not pursuing this for the benefit of us, but for their own benefit as they stand to gain a lot financially if the US changes to COFDM.
In 6 years, I imagine most of the televisions in our house will still be in service. TVs last a long time, and I'm not concerned with the "latest and greatest" stuff as long as I can watch the occasional show or Yankee game.
What I want to know is, what happens in 6 years when stations quit broadcasting in their current format. Will my non-cable-box-connected, normal, cable-ready televisions still be fine? Or will I have to toss them and buy new ones, something that'll probably end up costing a couple thousand dollars if I have to replace 5 or more sets. If the latter turns out to be the case, I can assure you that I and *millions* of other Americans will be incredibly pissed off.
I'm not sure this whole thing was planned out right, except maybe with the question, "How can the electronics and television industries make a shitload of money in one fell swoop?" being the only objective. What of the millions of people who can't *afford* new HDTVs or the little box to convert down to "normal" broadcast signals of today? Do they get told, "Sorry, you're fucked"? There are plenty of people out there that simply will not stand for this, if the options are either buy a new television or give up TV.
Do I have my facts messed up? Is this really what's going to happen in a scant 6 years' time? If so, it's going to backfire bigtime. Expect to see common analog signals being broadcast far into the future alongside HDTV signals, until the marketshare of people with older, "inferior" TVs is such that ignoring them and turning off the analog broadcast towers for good is more cosf-effective than not.
If I'm wrong, someone please enlighten me.
- A.P.
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"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Was I the only one who expected to see an announcement of a £99 digital TV of questionable quality, when reading about the "Sinclair effort".
Basically the Cable companies and the governement have consipired to create an extremely inefficient use of the bandwidth they do have.
In my area, the gov't mandates thatstandard cable contains about 10 UHF channels that I couldn't get with rabbit ears if I tried, three of which are really bad QVC ripoffs. On top of that, there are several "community access" channels, whose only programming seems to be really ugly videotext announcing various public library programs with the radio playing as a soundtrack. Add to that the two channels which do nothing but promote pay-per-view movies, the four slots for showing PPV, the scrambled pornography, and the standard free over-the-air channels, there is only about 12 slots left for normal commercial cable programming (TNT, USA, CNN, etc), which besides pro wrestling, is nothing to write home about. Internet and Phone access can only be cutting into the limited bandwidth ppol
My fear is that an expanded digitial spectrum is going to be used this way also - as an effort to maximize pay-per-view profits (and kill the corner video store) or 'extended services' over "the public good" of better picture quality or more free entertainment, such as princess diana death dirges and wrestling. (And, no, I'm not a mark - I don't buy the PPVs or commerative plates.)
Then again, my TV is a Commodore 1702 monitor, so maybe I'm not the target market for these ploys.
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