With satellite spot beams, you won't be able to get every local market from a single location. The signal for far away markets won't be broadcast there.
Spot beams are really a necessary technology for satellite broadcasters to service lots of local markets. There's no point in sending NY signals to the whole country if the laws only allow NY people to watch them. Thus you can divide the signal spacially and only send the NY signals to NY, and use the same frequency to send other signals to other parts of the country.
That kind of scares me, actually. When you consider how unreal and directed the "reality TV" programs are these days, can you imagine how warfare will change if entertainment value becomes a factor in how war is conducted?
Hmm, I wonder how much that's already happening, actually. Although, perhaps "political value" is still more important than "entertainment value". I've heard reports that right now troops in Iraq are being told to sit tight and safe until after the election is over. More dead soldiers are a liability for the current administration's re-election chances.
The outages they experienced are solar outages, which happen when the sun falls exactly in line with the transmitting satellite and your location. The radiation from the sun overwhelms the satellite signal, causing the outage.
This happens in two periods each year, during the spring and fall. If you google around, you can find programs to calculate the exact times for your location.
Actually, Dish Network has 7 satellites, and the largest selection of channels. The satellites are at 61.5, 105, 110, 119, 121, 148, and 157 W longitude. However, some satellites have only a few active Dish transponders, and some are low power Ku FSS satellites (105 and 121).
It is true that they try to squeeze most of their popular programming into their main satellites at 110 & 119.
For a per-satellite listing of all US digital satellite broadcasters, see http://www.lyngsat.com/packages/america.html. Clicking in the third column will show the channels on that satellite.
That "newer" dish has been standard fare for several years now (it's called "Dish 500", vs. "Dish 300" for the original single-satellite dish).
Dish's latest attempt to increase bandwidth into one dish is called "SuperDish". There are two versions, but each picks up one Ku FSS satellite plus the DBS satellites at 110 & 119 W longitude.
However, since it's 3' wide (Ku FSS satellites are much lower power than DBS satellites, and hence require a larger dish), it's not that popular. Dish seems to keep changing its mind about how it's going to expand its capacity.
Oh, regarding putting channels on the "wings": Congress was trying to force Dish (and other satellite broadcasters) to keep all the channels for a given local market on a single dish. How's that legislation coming along?
I believe it's the case that if they rebroadcast 1 channel from a given local market, they have to rebroadcast all the channels from that market (all the channels that meet or exceed a certain transmission power).
This does make for ugly bandwidth problems, which are mostly being solved by satellites with multiple "spotbeam" transponders. Still, every spotbeam requires an uplink, so it's still not the most elegant solution. I wonder how big Echostar's and DirecTV's satellite farms are these days?
Hmm, and if you haven't got your tinfoil hat to protect you from all those high-power Ku DBS transmissions, now you'll have yet another thing to worry about?
Is it really good to be irradiating everyone like this with more and more RF energy? Just wondering...
Response time has nothing to do with "decay time". As you note, LCDs don't have decay. However, they do have "inertia", which means that they are slow to change from one image to a different image. This leads to ghosting when you view moving video.
With regard to 15ms, you should realize that a single number does not adequately capture what is meant by response time.
Usually, the number means the time between the change in signal and the point when the light output reaches a certain percentage of where it should be according to the new signal.
Depending upon what that percentage is, you can still have plenty of ghosting even though your response time of 15ms should be "just fine".
Yes, but they still need good response time in order to avoid ghosting.
Of course, response is a function of brightness vs. time compared to signal change vs. time. To abbreviate this set of curves into a single number certainly leaves out a good bit of information.
That's where the lies and deceit of "marketing numbers" come into play. Such numbers are not very helpful unless you know how they are produced.
I think it's been show many times over that bigger isn't really better (for the consumer), especially as competition gets eliminated. This applies not only to media companies, but most all businesses.
I would support changes to the taxation system that make it unfavorable for giant businesses to merge if it means reduction of competition and harm for the consumer.
Does anybody even read the messages this deep into the thread?
2. Put an extra power outlet on the back, along with a jack for a special octopus cable that plugs into the video and controller ports of an Xbox. Put a switch on the new system that switches the video/controllers over to the old system.
So even though I'm joking about #1 (although does anyone remember Bleem?), I think #2 is a good idea. Wonder why no one does it? (Aside from the fact that they're too cheap to.) I suppose you can make an external device to do this, too. If you make one and are successful, send me a few $, okay? Please?
Most of the cheap-ass fans they put in computers these days also fail after about a year.
I once took apart a "ball-bearing" fan. It had a single metal ball inside, placed at the end of the shaft (the real bearing was just a metal sleeve). I had to laugh! At least they weren't totally dishonest.
What do you mean "no shielding"? There's a metal plate over the back of the motherboard, and you can't see the front due to all the conduit he's got on his (plentiful) cables.
Slashdot Mirror
With satellite spot beams, you won't be able to get every local market from a single location. The signal for far away markets won't be broadcast there.
Spot beams are really a necessary technology for satellite broadcasters to service lots of local markets. There's no point in sending NY signals to the whole country if the laws only allow NY people to watch them. Thus you can divide the signal spacially and only send the NY signals to NY, and use the same frequency to send other signals to other parts of the country.
How does the router on the satellite help? Or do you mean a caching proxy? I can see how the latter would help a lot, but not the former.
If uptime is important to you, you can always get a bigger dish (or dishes).
A cover to prevent water sheeting on the dish may also help some.
> Wow, I can't wait for the army channel.
That kind of scares me, actually. When you consider how unreal and directed the "reality TV" programs are these days, can you imagine how warfare will change if entertainment value becomes a factor in how war is conducted?
Hmm, I wonder how much that's already happening, actually. Although, perhaps "political value" is still more important than "entertainment value". I've heard reports that right now troops in Iraq are being told to sit tight and safe until after the election is over. More dead soldiers are a liability for the current administration's re-election chances.
The outages they experienced are solar outages, which happen when the sun falls exactly in line with the transmitting satellite and your location. The radiation from the sun overwhelms the satellite signal, causing the outage.
This happens in two periods each year, during the spring and fall. If you google around, you can find programs to calculate the exact times for your location.
Actually, Dish Network has 7 satellites, and the largest selection of channels. The satellites are at 61.5, 105, 110, 119, 121, 148, and 157 W longitude. However, some satellites have only a few active Dish transponders, and some are low power Ku FSS satellites (105 and 121).
It is true that they try to squeeze most of their popular programming into their main satellites at 110 & 119.
For a listing of all Dish channels, see http://www.dishchannelchart.com/.
For a per-satellite listing of all US digital satellite broadcasters, see http://www.lyngsat.com/packages/america.html. Clicking in the third column will show the channels on that satellite.
Wonder if it will be porn that drives new real-time image processing technologies:
- automatic zit removal
- wrinkle reducer
- cellulite softener
- razor burn & stubble removal
- etc.
Here's a link that mentions that one-dish legislation:
& concentrationID=&ID=1219&Type=7#11
http://www.mofo.com/news/bulletin.cfm?MCatID=9312
That "newer" dish has been standard fare for several years now (it's called "Dish 500", vs. "Dish 300" for the original single-satellite dish).
Dish's latest attempt to increase bandwidth into one dish is called "SuperDish". There are two versions, but each picks up one Ku FSS satellite plus the DBS satellites at 110 & 119 W longitude.
However, since it's 3' wide (Ku FSS satellites are much lower power than DBS satellites, and hence require a larger dish), it's not that popular. Dish seems to keep changing its mind about how it's going to expand its capacity.
Oh, regarding putting channels on the "wings": Congress was trying to force Dish (and other satellite broadcasters) to keep all the channels for a given local market on a single dish. How's that legislation coming along?
I believe it's the case that if they rebroadcast 1 channel from a given local market, they have to rebroadcast all the channels from that market (all the channels that meet or exceed a certain transmission power).
This does make for ugly bandwidth problems, which are mostly being solved by satellites with multiple "spotbeam" transponders. Still, every spotbeam requires an uplink, so it's still not the most elegant solution. I wonder how big Echostar's and DirecTV's satellite farms are these days?
Probably most of the channels will be rebroadcast local HD stations, so everyone won't be able to see everything.
Hmm, and if you haven't got your tinfoil hat to protect you from all those high-power Ku DBS transmissions, now you'll have yet another thing to worry about?
Is it really good to be irradiating everyone like this with more and more RF energy? Just wondering...
Easy. Rebroadcasts of local HD channels. It's not like all those channels will be broadcast everywhere.
Response time has nothing to do with "decay time". As you note, LCDs don't have decay. However, they do have "inertia", which means that they are slow to change from one image to a different image. This leads to ghosting when you view moving video.
With regard to 15ms, you should realize that a single number does not adequately capture what is meant by response time.
Usually, the number means the time between the change in signal and the point when the light output reaches a certain percentage of where it should be according to the new signal.
Depending upon what that percentage is, you can still have plenty of ghosting even though your response time of 15ms should be "just fine".
Yes, but they still need good response time in order to avoid ghosting.
Of course, response is a function of brightness vs. time compared to signal change vs. time. To abbreviate this set of curves into a single number certainly leaves out a good bit of information.
That's where the lies and deceit of "marketing numbers" come into play. Such numbers are not very helpful unless you know how they are produced.
If you've got the carbon, why bother with the silicon? Actually, I wonder what they use to "dope" diamond semiconductors?
0 5
http://www.eetimes.com/at/hpm/news/OEG20030822S00
I think it's been show many times over that bigger isn't really better (for the consumer), especially as competition gets eliminated. This applies not only to media companies, but most all businesses.
I would support changes to the taxation system that make it unfavorable for giant businesses to merge if it means reduction of competition and harm for the consumer.
Does anybody even read the messages this deep into the thread?
Consider the spec a wishlist, written before the (un)realities of CMOS scaling came to be known.
As with any wishlist, the easiest way to get your wishes is to modify the list.
Because these specs were probably written before Steve Jobs made the promise of "3Ghz by summer '04".
This when everyone thought Moore's "Law" would be golden down to 0.65 nm, before the full scope of scaling problems became clear to everyone.
1. Make it compatible with PS2 titles.
2. Put an extra power outlet on the back, along with a jack for a special octopus cable that plugs into the video and controller ports of an Xbox. Put a switch on the new system that switches the video/controllers over to the old system.
So even though I'm joking about #1 (although does anyone remember Bleem?), I think #2 is a good idea. Wonder why no one does it? (Aside from the fact that they're too cheap to.) I suppose you can make an external device to do this, too. If you make one and are successful, send me a few $, okay? Please?
It's the lurkers who RTFA.
Most of the cheap-ass fans they put in computers these days also fail after about a year.
I once took apart a "ball-bearing" fan. It had a single metal ball inside, placed at the end of the shaft (the real bearing was just a metal sleeve). I had to laugh! At least they weren't totally dishonest.
1) Orac merely served as the inspiration. Orac^3 wasn't meant to be an exact copy.
2) Orac is also "just" a rectangular box.
What do you mean "no shielding"? There's a metal plate over the back of the motherboard, and you can't see the front due to all the conduit he's got on his (plentiful) cables.