The answer to #2: No. Comcast will not, as far as I can tell, be rolling new Tivo specific boxes out. They will be updating their existing boxes to run Tivo software, and a relatively limited Tivo software at that. The demo I've seen ran pretty slowly, didn't support the Live Guide EPG style. It did have swivel search. But in the end, Tivo software on an ugly Motorola box... yay?
Or better yet, if the system is so sensitive, give it a bunch of false alarms. Soon enough, the guards will get tired of tracking down broken wristbands and either get rid of the system or ignore the alarms. These little buggers have to be relatively expensive compared to what was being used before, so break a bunch of them and the prison starts having financial troubles...
It means, if you're trying to watch that much TV, you've maxed out the bandwidth available to you. Since they're using Microsoft, I'd guess the video will be encoded WMV9. Which means, a little over 6 Mbps for the HD channel, and 1 Mbps each for the SD channels. So, they'll give you around 10 Mbps worth of data to your home.
Or at least make it a modular add-on to the back of the TV
That's exactly what the cable card is. And your fear of the cable card slot failing is one of the reasons that they don't do that very often. The connector for a modular add-on is far more likely to break than a solid state device. And if your modular add-on is, say, a memory card reader with physical connections being made and broken, that simply gives TWO highly likely points of failure instead of one.
Additionally, the cable card slot is not really meant to be used very often - how often do you change cable providers? - and the likelihood of failire is directly corrolated to how often you swap out the card. So that means the slot should not fail under normal use. The most frequent time of failure would be when the cable card is first installed, and this mostly happens when the set is brand new, and therefore still under warranty.
I don't think that this, if used as described, obsoletes any DVD players.
The article says that it wouldn't be used for video recorded from analog sources, so there's no obsoleting there.
It would be used when serially recording digital TV streams which DVD players most often can't play anyway. Digital TV, while MPEG-2 like DVDs, uses different resolutions, frame rates, bitrates and encoder efficiencies than DVD. The most obvious difference is HDTV, with the much higher resolution and bitrate. But even 480p, while a supported DVD resolution, may be incompatible with DVD due to the ability of TV to use longer GOP lengths.
you can't assume that if you drive 100 miles and get 25 miles to the gallon, that the next 100 miles will also give you 25 miles to the gallon
But you can approximate that, under similar driving conditions, if you use 16 gallons of gas rather than 4 gallons, you will be able to go about 400 miles.
You cannot say that, under similar propogation conditions, if you transmit 160 uW rather than 40 uW, you will be able to receive the signal from 2200 miles away instead of 550.
I agree that the accomplishment is impressive. I will not say, however, that it is record setting on the basis of miles/watt, because it is a meaningless and misleading number.
Which is worse...a deadly, but containable waste product that can be collected and buried, and thus controlled...or a deadly, uncontainable waste product that cannot be controlled and is simply released into the atmosphere?
Not in my back yard? Screw that! I say, not in my lungs.
Manufacturers will include an option to disable the remote control function of the TV, thus allowing mission critical sets to be immune to such a device. As an added bonus, they could make it so that only the Power functionality is disabled, still allowing the channel and volume to be controlled.
In the meantime, expect sports bars to be putting little bits of duct tape over the remote sensor:)
The broadcast flag rule says that you can't sell an 8VSB demodulator that doesn't obey the broadcast flag. So you can't sell your device.
However, people could legally build their own 8VSB demodulator, and not break any laws as long as they did not try to sell it. Such a project would be expensive and difficult for a hobbyist, to say the least.
While the FCC is asking the question about copy protection for digital broadcast radio, as it stands they do not really have the authority to actually mandate any copy protection for it. I'm pretty sure that those in charge are aware of that as well.
The only reason the broadcast flag for TV happened was because Congress gave the FCC broadened authority to move the DTV transition. That expanded authority is missing for digital radio, and will likely never happen.
So, calls for the FCC to mandate DRM will not likely work, and if the FCC tries, it would probably be killed by a court appeal. Watch Congress - that's where anything important will happen.
From reading all the documents associated with the Tivo application, it looks like the FCC got annoyed with the MPAA asking for more and more each time it comes back. The broadcast flag ruling said it was to prevent only "indiscriminate mass internet redistribution."
The MPAA wanted Tivo rejected because it did not include controls to keep the content proximate to the home, preventing even discriminate internet redistribution. The FCC said "Wait a second...that's not what the broadcast flag is about. Shut up."
By applying with the FCC, Tivo has gotten permission so that even when the broadcast flag is enabled, broadcast content can be transferred between all Tivos associated with the same account (up to 10). And the spectacular thing is that Tivo network can even be across the internet.
But everyone has to be aware that the sharing can only happen between Tivos connected to the same account through a credit card. Unless you plan to pay for your friends Tivo subscriptions, you still can't transfer content to their Tivos.
I would love to know how this might act as a precedent for computer-based sharing methods... i.e. recording a show with BeyondTV or another PVR and emailing it to a friend.
That is excatly what the Broadcast Flag is supposed to prevent (with Digital TV anyway - Analog is still completely up for grabs for now;-) ), and exactly what Tivo does not let you do.
The government doesn't have to - Tivo's doing it for them. Content can only be transferred between devices associated to the same credit card. Are you going to give something that you're paying a significant monthly fee for to a complete stranger?
The cell phones are banned on airplanes because the cell phone providers ASKED for them to be. You see, when you're on the ground, you're visible to usually just a couple of cell towers...when you're a few miles up, you're visible to MANY cell towers, and your phone's power is turned to maximum because you're so far from the towers. It creates all sorts of intereference with users on the ground - if you use your phone in the air, you'd be leaving a trail of dropped calls by other people underneath you.
You know that AirPhone system? That's basically a cell network but with the sites spread far apart so there's no interference. One proposal I've seen is to put a micro-cell on the airplane. It tells everyone's phones to go to a low power mode, which prevents the contact with multiple ground sites, and routes the calls through the AirPhone system those. I'm thinking they would stll charge an arm and a leg for those calls, but that would certainly help minimize the use.
Because beyond the RF issues, the sanity of the other passengers is at stake. People tend to talk loudly to their phones, especially in environments with high background noise - like an airplane. Having a few loud chatty people in an enclosed space with a lot of people trying to read or sleep would be disastrous.
They don't really have a choice...The way it's set up, radio stations can broadcast whatever songs they want, as long as they pay the appropriate royalties to ASCAP. RIAA doesn't get a dime out of it, other than the free advertising of their product.
The phone companies will compete by lobbying making sure that any startup VOIP phone company has to pay the same taxes and fees, and has to provide 911 and wiretapping, etc.
The TV stations aren't pissed off at the FM stations because TV and FM don't have to share any spectrum, and FM is also a licensed and regulated service. There is a nearly 100 MHz break between channels 6 and 7 used for FM, Aircraft navigation and communication, and various other things.
This is different because it proposes using 'unused tv channels' to carry unlicensed signals. (Take note that this is also different from what is implied in the headline...this is not 'the space between TV channels,' it is full channels.)
Well, let's do a little back of the envelope calculation here. A digital TV signal payload is about 20 Mbps and uses 6 MHz of spectrum. This is a reasonable approximation of what a wireless ISP would be able to relibaly use as well. The channels the FCC may be allowing for use here are 5-51, excluding 34. So, best case, we have 45 channels worth of available spectrum. Multiply by 20 Mbps per channel, and you get a best case bitrate of 900 Mbps. Not quite a gigabit, but substantial nonetheless.
I'm not sure where you get the idea that this is 'sheer stupidity.' If it's based on the reasons given in your post, you may want to try reading about the actual proposed system.
The FCC will not have to license this at all. If you'd actually read about what they're doing, you you would have seen that this is intended for unlicensed devices.
I'm not quite sure how the HAMs got into this, but I don't think they'll be terribly concerned.
The size of TV broadcast towers is more a factor of the distances they're trying to reach than the frequencies being used. If you only need to go 5 miles instead of 120 miles, a short antenna is quite sufficient.
And don't forget that, in general, the atmosphere absorbs more radiation at higher frequencies than it does at lower frequencies. Thus, 5 Megawatts at 150 MHz is going to go a hell of a lot further than 5 Megawatts at 2.4 Ghz - That's why WISPs have been begging for spectrum below 1 GHz for quite a while now. The power bill is actually cheaper for a given coverage area!
I could go on for a while, but I'm tired. In short, I will say: Feel free to be skeptical, but at least have good, correct reasons to do so...
You're closer, but still not totally right. The Broadcast Flag is supposed to prevent "indiscriminate redistribution." You will be able to record from over-the-air tv. With almost all of the technologies the FCC is considering right now, you will be able to make copies of that recording.
With a Tivo, for example, you can record it on one Tivo and send it to another one that you own (currently up to 10 on a single account).
To lend it to a friend, you can record it on a DVD-R and hand him that original. You could make a copy of that DVD-R yourself and hand him the copy. You won't be able to rip that DVD-R and share the contents on Kazaa or IRC in any sort of readable form.
With Microsoft Windows Media, you could stream the recording to a limited number of other computers.
The RIAA has been expecting this for a while now. Over the past several months they have been lobbying the FCC to put copy protection on the new Digital Audio Broadcasting (IBOC) to prevent this very thing. So far the FCC has held back from doing anything because RIAA has failed to show harm already being done - I wonder if this will be their example?
They argue that ripping programs to individual songs is illegal because it is "librarying" - which is NOT a legitimate fair use. Rest assured, they will come after it.
My boss, who knows that he knows not; But pretends that he knows that he knows; And he's so convincing at it, that; People who know that he doesn't know; Beleive that he knows that he knows anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
The answer to #2: No. Comcast will not, as far as I can tell, be rolling new Tivo specific boxes out. They will be updating their existing boxes to run Tivo software, and a relatively limited Tivo software at that. The demo I've seen ran pretty slowly, didn't support the Live Guide EPG style. It did have swivel search. But in the end, Tivo software on an ugly Motorola box... yay?
Or better yet, if the system is so sensitive, give it a bunch of false alarms. Soon enough, the guards will get tired of tracking down broken wristbands and either get rid of the system or ignore the alarms. These little buggers have to be relatively expensive compared to what was being used before, so break a bunch of them and the prison starts having financial troubles...
It means, if you're trying to watch that much TV, you've maxed out the bandwidth available to you. Since they're using Microsoft, I'd guess the video will be encoded WMV9. Which means, a little over 6 Mbps for the HD channel, and 1 Mbps each for the SD channels. So, they'll give you around 10 Mbps worth of data to your home.
Or at least make it a modular add-on to the back of the TV
That's exactly what the cable card is. And your fear of the cable card slot failing is one of the reasons that they don't do that very often. The connector for a modular add-on is far more likely to break than a solid state device. And if your modular add-on is, say, a memory card reader with physical connections being made and broken, that simply gives TWO highly likely points of failure instead of one.
Additionally, the cable card slot is not really meant to be used very often - how often do you change cable providers? - and the likelihood of failire is directly corrolated to how often you swap out the card. So that means the slot should not fail under normal use. The most frequent time of failure would be when the cable card is first installed, and this mostly happens when the set is brand new, and therefore still under warranty.
I don't think that this, if used as described, obsoletes any DVD players.
The article says that it wouldn't be used for video recorded from analog sources, so there's no obsoleting there.
It would be used when serially recording digital TV streams which DVD players most often can't play anyway. Digital TV, while MPEG-2 like DVDs, uses different resolutions, frame rates, bitrates and encoder efficiencies than DVD. The most obvious difference is HDTV, with the much higher resolution and bitrate. But even 480p, while a supported DVD resolution, may be incompatible with DVD due to the ability of TV to use longer GOP lengths.
you can't assume that if you drive 100 miles and get 25 miles to the gallon, that the next 100 miles will also give you 25 miles to the gallon
But you can approximate that, under similar driving conditions, if you use 16 gallons of gas rather than 4 gallons, you will be able to go about 400 miles.
You cannot say that, under similar propogation conditions, if you transmit 160 uW rather than 40 uW, you will be able to receive the signal from 2200 miles away instead of 550.
I agree that the accomplishment is impressive.
I will not say, however, that it is record setting on the basis of miles/watt, because it is a meaningless and misleading number.
Which is worse...a deadly, but containable waste product that can be collected and buried, and thus controlled...or a deadly, uncontainable waste product that cannot be controlled and is simply released into the atmosphere?
Not in my back yard? Screw that!
I say, not in my lungs.
Manufacturers will include an option to disable the remote control function of the TV, thus allowing mission critical sets to be immune to such a device. As an added bonus, they could make it so that only the Power functionality is disabled, still allowing the channel and volume to be controlled.
:)
In the meantime, expect sports bars to be putting little bits of duct tape over the remote sensor
The broadcast flag rule says that you can't sell an 8VSB demodulator that doesn't obey the broadcast flag. So you can't sell your device.
However, people could legally build their own 8VSB demodulator, and not break any laws as long as they did not try to sell it. Such a project would be expensive and difficult for a hobbyist, to say the least.
It'll probably be pushed as a Critical Update to Windows XP/2000, so even if you don't upgrade to Longhorn, I'm sure you'll get it.
While the FCC is asking the question about copy protection for digital broadcast radio, as it stands they do not really have the authority to actually mandate any copy protection for it. I'm pretty sure that those in charge are aware of that as well.
The only reason the broadcast flag for TV happened was because Congress gave the FCC broadened authority to move the DTV transition. That expanded authority is missing for digital radio, and will likely never happen.
So, calls for the FCC to mandate DRM will not likely work, and if the FCC tries, it would probably be killed by a court appeal. Watch Congress - that's where anything important will happen.
From reading all the documents associated with the Tivo application, it looks like the FCC got annoyed with the MPAA asking for more and more each time it comes back. The broadcast flag ruling said it was to prevent only "indiscriminate mass internet redistribution."
The MPAA wanted Tivo rejected because it did not include controls to keep the content proximate to the home, preventing even discriminate internet redistribution. The FCC said "Wait a second...that's not what the broadcast flag is about. Shut up."
By applying with the FCC, Tivo has gotten permission so that even when the broadcast flag is enabled, broadcast content can be transferred between all Tivos associated with the same account (up to 10). And the spectacular thing is that Tivo network can even be across the internet.
But everyone has to be aware that the sharing can only happen between Tivos connected to the same account through a credit card. Unless you plan to pay for your friends Tivo subscriptions, you still can't transfer content to their Tivos.
I would love to know how this might act as a precedent for computer-based sharing methods... i.e. recording a show with BeyondTV or another PVR and emailing it to a friend.
;-) ), and exactly what Tivo does not let you do.
That is excatly what the Broadcast Flag is supposed to prevent (with Digital TV anyway - Analog is still completely up for grabs for now
The government doesn't have to - Tivo's doing it for them. Content can only be transferred between devices associated to the same credit card. Are you going to give something that you're paying a significant monthly fee for to a complete stranger?
The cell phones are banned on airplanes because the cell phone providers ASKED for them to be. You see, when you're on the ground, you're visible to usually just a couple of cell towers...when you're a few miles up, you're visible to MANY cell towers, and your phone's power is turned to maximum because you're so far from the towers. It creates all sorts of intereference with users on the ground - if you use your phone in the air, you'd be leaving a trail of dropped calls by other people underneath you.
You know that AirPhone system? That's basically a cell network but with the sites spread far apart so there's no interference. One proposal I've seen is to put a micro-cell on the airplane. It tells everyone's phones to go to a low power mode, which prevents the contact with multiple ground sites, and routes the calls through the AirPhone system those. I'm thinking they would stll charge an arm and a leg for those calls, but that would certainly help minimize the use.
Because beyond the RF issues, the sanity of the other passengers is at stake. People tend to talk loudly to their phones, especially in environments with high background noise - like an airplane. Having a few loud chatty people in an enclosed space with a lot of people trying to read or sleep would be disastrous.
They don't really have a choice...The way it's set up, radio stations can broadcast whatever songs they want, as long as they pay the appropriate royalties to ASCAP. RIAA doesn't get a dime out of it, other than the free advertising of their product.
The phone companies will compete by lobbying making sure that any startup VOIP phone company has to pay the same taxes and fees, and has to provide 911 and wiretapping, etc.
The TV stations aren't pissed off at the FM stations because TV and FM don't have to share any spectrum, and FM is also a licensed and regulated service. There is a nearly 100 MHz break between channels 6 and 7 used for FM, Aircraft navigation and communication, and various other things.
This is different because it proposes using 'unused tv channels' to carry unlicensed signals. (Take note that this is also different from what is implied in the headline...this is not 'the space between TV channels,' it is full channels.)
Well, let's do a little back of the envelope calculation here. A digital TV signal payload is about 20 Mbps and uses 6 MHz of spectrum. This is a reasonable approximation of what a wireless ISP would be able to relibaly use as well. The channels the FCC may be allowing for use here are 5-51, excluding 34. So, best case, we have 45 channels worth of available spectrum. Multiply by 20 Mbps per channel, and you get a best case bitrate of 900 Mbps. Not quite a gigabit, but substantial nonetheless.
I'm not sure where you get the idea that this is 'sheer stupidity.' If it's based on the reasons given in your post, you may want to try reading about the actual proposed system.
The FCC will not have to license this at all. If you'd actually read about what they're doing, you you would have seen that this is intended for unlicensed devices.
I'm not quite sure how the HAMs got into this, but I don't think they'll be terribly concerned.
The size of TV broadcast towers is more a factor of the distances they're trying to reach than the frequencies being used. If you only need to go 5 miles instead of 120 miles, a short antenna is quite sufficient.
And don't forget that, in general, the atmosphere absorbs more radiation at higher frequencies than it does at lower frequencies. Thus, 5 Megawatts at 150 MHz is going to go a hell of a lot further than 5 Megawatts at 2.4 Ghz - That's why WISPs have been begging for spectrum below 1 GHz for quite a while now. The power bill is actually cheaper for a given coverage area!
I could go on for a while, but I'm tired. In short, I will say: Feel free to be skeptical, but at least have good, correct reasons to do so...
You're closer, but still not totally right. The Broadcast Flag is supposed to prevent "indiscriminate redistribution." You will be able to record from over-the-air tv. With almost all of the technologies the FCC is considering right now, you will be able to make copies of that recording.
With a Tivo, for example, you can record it on one Tivo and send it to another one that you own (currently up to 10 on a single account).
To lend it to a friend, you can record it on a DVD-R and hand him that original. You could make a copy of that DVD-R yourself and hand him the copy. You won't be able to rip that DVD-R and share the contents on Kazaa or IRC in any sort of readable form.
With Microsoft Windows Media, you could stream the recording to a limited number of other computers.
The RIAA has been expecting this for a while now. Over the past several months they have been lobbying the FCC to put copy protection on the new Digital Audio Broadcasting (IBOC) to prevent this very thing. So far the FCC has held back from doing anything because RIAA has failed to show harm already being done - I wonder if this will be their example?
They argue that ripping programs to individual songs is illegal because it is "librarying" - which is NOT a legitimate fair use. Rest assured, they will come after it.
I think that's on purpose in this case...given that it's based on a comic book world.
Then there's:
My boss, who knows that he knows not;
But pretends that he knows that he knows;
And he's so convincing at it, that;
People who know that he doesn't know;
Beleive that he knows that he knows anyway.