ATSC uses MPEG-2 as its video encoding scheme. Ultimately, I think that will prove to be the greatest flaw in the ATSC standard. Because it uses interframe compression, as soon as you get a tiny bit of signal that can't be decoded, you can lose the signal for up to half a second.
MPEG-2 is capable of intraframe-only encoding, but you would need at least 100 Mbps to get the same quality of 20 Mbps (max ATSC speed) long-GOP (i.e. with interframes, both forward and bidirectional prediction frames) at high definition resolutions.
Unfortunately, the ATSC digital TV standard that the U.S. chose (unlike the standard chosen in Europe) is relatively poor at handling multipath interference
The newest ATSC 8VSB modulation receivers have much improved multipath resistance than they used to. But it is true that COFDM used by DVB-T is more multipath resistant naturally, but it also has a higher peak-to-average power rating which means you need a more powerful transmitter to get the same signal strength.
What exactly is alleged benefit of switching to digital anyway? This is Slashdot, so I would think somebody here would know. Is there a real technical benefit? What reason, real or not, convinced the government to force this switch?
I wonder if the very profession of Economist presumes a liberal bias.
I think that everyone in academia has a lot of pressure on them to be liberal. Even if you scientifically believe in economics that is opposed by liberal parties, you still may feel the need to identify with that party since everyone else on campus does. (It is like being the only member of a minority religion in a town where everyone else is the majority religion. If you don't convert, everyone starts telling you that you are going to hell).
For example, most universities are proud of their Nobel Prize winners, but the at the University of Chicago, naming an institute for one of the world's greatest economists ever, Milton Friedman, was mired in controversy. The non-economist faculty were saying:
Many colleagues are distressed by the notoriety of the Chicago School of Economics, especially throughout much of the global south, where they have often to defend the University's reputation in the face of its negative image. The effects of the neoliberal global order that has been put in place in recent decades, strongly buttressed by the Chicago School of Economics, have by no means been unequivocally positive.
Translation: You economists are making us look bad to our neo-Marxist buddies!
Putting it bluntly there's no way you'd truly enjoy living in the economic realities of even a century ago.
Inded, as recenly AS 1950, 35% of US dwellings lacked full indoor plumbing.
A modern American family at the poverty line has a flushing toilet, a working shower, and a telephone with direct-dial long-distance service; probably has a color television; and may well even have a car.
It was different when you had a billion small to medium sized businesses effectively competiting, once you had robber barons and megacorps the free market was dead. That's when you need a very strong central government to keep the robber barons from running havok over everything.
That would be fine if there wasn't "government failure". Government is simply a market in votes. It also has "market failures," except unlike real "market failures" it is harder to get rid of failed laws than it is to liquidate failed companies.
Sorry if I'm mis-characterizing what you said, but making the announcement of hypothetical future production to lower current prices will last for, what, an afternoon??? The market will respond to actual data, and simply announcing it will have a really short term blip, if any at all.
The potential for future additional oil supply would have a greater effect on the decisions of major oil producers. Saudi Aramco and PDVSA, etc., are sitting on a lot of oil and need to decide whether to pump now at the current price or pump later at a later price (minus inflation).
I think if the US made a serious decision to drill for more oil (Alaska ANWR and Alaska offshore are the only really big supplies we are ruling out now), it may signal that future oil prices may be lower, which could lead producers to decide to produce more now rather than risk producing at lower prices later.
But it also might not have any effect if those major oil drilling countries are more limited in production by nationalized inefficient oil companies rather than rational economic calculation. So I wouldn't call it a sure thing, thus I'd be careful to examine potential environmental damage of such actions closely.
Who was in charge of Fannie Mae when they "misreported" $10.8 billion in 2006?
Moreover, look what top Democrats said regarding attempts by the Bush administration to enhance regulation of the GSEs:
Even President Bush weighed in. On Thursday [August, 2007], he said that both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac needed to complete a "robust reform package" before they expanded their mortgage portfolios.
The statement drew fire from many Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
Christopher J. Dodd [Democrat], the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, called upon President Bush to "immediately reconsider his ill-advised" position as problems in the housing market worsen.
In an interview yesterday, Barney Frank [Democrat], the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said that the president's comments were "inane."
The results demonstrate that democratic economists lean left and republicans lean right. Economics ought to be unbaised. The fact that it is baised indicatse that economists can't be trusted to understand economic issues objectively.
I don't believe that is what the data shows. The majority of economists believe things about the economy that neither Democrats or Republicans support. Both Obama and McCain have said some truly economically illiterate things. So it is kind of a toss-up on who they'd vote for.
87.5% agree that "the U.S. should eliminate remaining tariffs and other barriers to trade." 85.2% agree that "the U.S. should eliminate agricultural subsidies." 85.3% agree that "the gap between Social Security funds and expenditures will become unsustainably large within the next fifty years if current policies remain unchanged." 77.2% agree that "the best way to deal with Social Security's long-term funding gap is to increase the normal retirement age." 67.1% agree that "parents should be given educational vouchers which can be used at government-run or privately-run schools." 65.0% agree that "the U.S. should increase energy taxes to fight global warming" 62.2% agree that "marijuana should be legalized" 53.8% agree that "current immigration levels are not too high" and only 16.7% feel levels are too high now
On the minimum wage, 46.8% of economists think it should be eliminated, 37.7% think it should be raised, 14.3% think it should remain the same.
Since no (major party) presidential candidate is running on a "I love free trade", "end agriculture subsidies", "raise the Social Security retirement age", "school vouchers for all", "legalize marijuana", and "immigration levels are fine" platform, who is an economist to vote for?
Anyway, are your FCC/ATSC *really* using MPEG-2 for hi-def? If that's true, it makes no sense at all.
When the US DTV transition was planned, there was no H.264...
The truth is that a $20,000 broadcast HD MPEG-2 encoder does a pretty good job at 18 Mbps. Real-time H.264 HD encoders that could do the same thing have only been in serious commercial production for a year (I've seen them try and fail for years, but now we seem to have enough CPU to make them operate stable and well).
It is my impression that most DVB-T systems like UK Freeview also use MPEG-2. As far as I know, no terrestrial HD digital television uses H.264, though it is possible that some satellite services might.
Even in technical demonstrations to the US congress, that system (COFDM) worked much better, but they still chose 8-VSB.
COFDM clearly has better mobile performance than 8VSB and is more inherently resistant to multipath, but 8VSB uses less power (because of a much lower peak-to-average signal ratio). Power bills for megawatt TV stations are actually a significant part of their budget.
There also was some question about whether COFDM decoding could be done as affordably as 8VSB in consumer receivers at the time the decision was made (of course, it turned out that wasn't an issue since the transition got pushed out so long). Of course, 8VSB multi-path resistance technology has also increased dramatically as well, so we are receiving 8VSB better now as well.
I think the digital signals use the same bandwidth segment as the old analog signal.
TV stations began digital operations on a new channel but in the "traditional" TV bands. But a goal of the transition is to have all the final digital channels in the DTV core (channels 2-51), freeing up channels 52+ for exploitation by other technologies.
Or using illegal labor here, which has driven down wages.
You might want to check the most recent research on this:
"Separating the effects of immigrants on natives of different schooling levels we find positive effects on the wages and rents of highly educated and small effects on the wages (negative) and rents (positive) of less educated."
Thus more educated Americans who are not replaceable by most illegal immigrants benefit from the lower cost of illegal immigrants, while those with similar education and skills experience minor wage reduction (while these low-skill native workers may be replaced to some extent, it is balanced by the presence of the illegals that expand the economy as the illegals consume, and also balanced by the expansion of the overall economy creating more demand for low-skill workers).
US average life expectancy from birth over the years 1980 to 1999 is 75.3 years, or 76.9 years if you leave out fatal injuries due to violence or auto accidents (http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2007/09/natural-life-expectancy-in-united.html)
(Keep in mind when you read about "western countries" with higher life expectancies than the US, the difference tends to be due to "fatal injuries" as we drive more miles and shoot each other more).
So yeah, we're going to get much older and probably healthier for longer periods of time.
When you bought a widget for $1 made within your country...When you buy the same widget for $0.10, you're injecting capital into the offshore trading partner's economy and gaining nothing in return.
Actually when you buy something that previously cost $1 for $0.10, so you are getting an extra $0.90 in wealth while transferring $0.10 in wealth to the other country. I could use that $0.90 to invest anywhere I want, perhaps in my own county, my own state, my own country, or in another country.
That said, the US exported $65 billion to China in 2007 (http://www.uschina.org/public/exports/us_exports_to_china_2007.pdf) and US exports to China have risen 300% from 2000-2007. The market is growing, and I know I have had conversations in my company about how we can sell into the expanding Chinese market as they become richer.
From 2003-2006, US exports overall grew 8.3% average annually, more than twice as fast as the US economy in general (http://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/2008_erp_ch3.pdf). The US is the world's largest exporter, doing with $1.5 trillion in goods and services exports in 2006. The United States is the top exporter of services and second-largest exporter of goods, behind only Germany.
Even if we want to just look at manufacturing, US manufacturing output is at an all-time high. Real value-added manufacturing output has risen every year since 1987, except for brief declines during the 1990-91 and 2000-01 recessions. The United States is still the world's largest manufacturer. (http://www.uschina.org/public/documents/2007/05/uscbc-7-myths-about-us-china-Trade.pdf)
government policy has made it increasingly difficult for low-skill Americans to get appropriate jobs.
The US minimum wage means there is no market for low-wage, low-skill jobs here. However the truth is that many of these jobs have been eliminated with automation rather than being exported. Robots will eventually take all of these jobs globally (assuming the continuation of the current long-term pattern of world wide economic growth).
Yeah, doesn't Chavez have Byrne Convention grounds to go after them?
Sorry, to further the aims of the Bolivarian revolution, the US government will be nationalizing Chavez's email, comrade!
Copyright is "the imperialist false democracy of elites" and is "an old scheme through which some private sectors seize the nation's wealth without a drop of sweat":)
All corporate taxes do is increase the costs of the goods these corporations produce
Of course, basic economics is that taxes increase the cost of goods while simultaneously reducing the number of goods sold (due to the downward-sloping demand curve).
The reduction in the number of goods sold creates a "deadweight loss" to the economy - economic activity that would have occurred without the tax that now does not occur.
if a bunch of Chinese students came to the US and flung banners around Stanford demanding we give California back to Mexico, we'd probably tell them to get their butts back to China and mind their own business.
That would assume anyone in California would want to be part of Mexico - the US citizens don't want it, and the illegal aliens risked their lives to get out of Mexico!
Slashdot Mirror
ATSC uses MPEG-2 as its video encoding scheme. Ultimately, I think that will prove to be the greatest flaw in the ATSC standard. Because it uses interframe compression, as soon as you get a tiny bit of signal that can't be decoded, you can lose the signal for up to half a second.
MPEG-2 is capable of intraframe-only encoding, but you would need at least 100 Mbps to get the same quality of 20 Mbps (max ATSC speed) long-GOP (i.e. with interframes, both forward and bidirectional prediction frames) at high definition resolutions.
Unfortunately, the ATSC digital TV standard that the U.S. chose (unlike the standard chosen in Europe) is relatively poor at handling multipath interference
The newest ATSC 8VSB modulation receivers have much improved multipath resistance than they used to. But it is true that COFDM used by DVB-T is more multipath resistant naturally, but it also has a higher peak-to-average power rating which means you need a more powerful transmitter to get the same signal strength.
What exactly is alleged benefit of switching to digital anyway? This is Slashdot, so I would think somebody here would know. Is there a real technical benefit? What reason, real or not, convinced the government to force this switch?
High definition TV....5.1 channel audio.
I wonder if the very profession of Economist presumes a liberal bias.
I think that everyone in academia has a lot of pressure on them to be liberal. Even if you scientifically believe in economics that is opposed by liberal parties, you still may feel the need to identify with that party since everyone else on campus does. (It is like being the only member of a minority religion in a town where everyone else is the majority religion. If you don't convert, everyone starts telling you that you are going to hell).
For example, most universities are proud of their Nobel Prize winners, but the at the University of Chicago, naming an institute for one of the world's greatest economists ever, Milton Friedman, was mired in controversy. The non-economist faculty were saying:
Many colleagues are distressed by the notoriety of the Chicago School of Economics, especially throughout much of the global south, where they have often to defend the University's reputation in the face of its negative image. The effects of the neoliberal global order that has been put in place in recent decades, strongly buttressed by the Chicago School of Economics, have by no means been unequivocally positive.
Translation: You economists are making us look bad to our neo-Marxist buddies!
Putting it bluntly there's no way you'd truly enjoy living in the economic realities of even a century ago.
Inded, as recenly AS 1950, 35% of US dwellings lacked full indoor plumbing.
A modern American family at the poverty line has a flushing toilet, a working shower, and a telephone with direct-dial long-distance service; probably has a color television; and may well even have a car.
It was different when you had a billion small to medium sized businesses effectively competiting, once you had robber barons and megacorps the free market was dead. That's when you need a very strong central government to keep the robber barons from running havok over everything.
That would be fine if there wasn't "government failure". Government is simply a market in votes. It also has "market failures," except unlike real "market failures" it is harder to get rid of failed laws than it is to liquidate failed companies.
Sorry if I'm mis-characterizing what you said, but making the announcement of hypothetical future production to lower current prices will last for, what, an afternoon??? The market will respond to actual data, and simply announcing it will have a really short term blip, if any at all.
The potential for future additional oil supply would have a greater effect on the decisions of major oil producers. Saudi Aramco and PDVSA, etc., are sitting on a lot of oil and need to decide whether to pump now at the current price or pump later at a later price (minus inflation).
I think if the US made a serious decision to drill for more oil (Alaska ANWR and Alaska offshore are the only really big supplies we are ruling out now), it may signal that future oil prices may be lower, which could lead producers to decide to produce more now rather than risk producing at lower prices later.
But it also might not have any effect if those major oil drilling countries are more limited in production by nationalized inefficient oil companies rather than rational economic calculation. So I wouldn't call it a sure thing, thus I'd be careful to examine potential environmental damage of such actions closely.
Who was in charge of Fannie Mae when they "misreported" $10.8 billion in 2006?
Moreover, look what top Democrats said regarding attempts by the Bush administration to enhance regulation of the GSEs:
Even President Bush weighed in. On Thursday [August, 2007], he said that both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac needed to complete a "robust reform package" before they expanded their mortgage portfolios.
The statement drew fire from many Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
Christopher J. Dodd [Democrat], the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, called upon President Bush to "immediately reconsider his ill-advised" position as problems in the housing market worsen.
In an interview yesterday, Barney Frank [Democrat], the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said that the president's comments were "inane."
The results demonstrate that democratic economists lean left and republicans lean right. Economics ought to be unbaised. The fact that it is baised indicatse that economists can't be trusted to understand economic issues objectively.
I don't believe that is what the data shows. The majority of economists believe things about the economy that neither Democrats or Republicans support. Both Obama and McCain have said some truly economically illiterate things. So it is kind of a toss-up on who they'd vote for.
What do economists believe?
87.5% agree that "the U.S. should eliminate remaining tariffs and other barriers to trade."
85.2% agree that "the U.S. should eliminate agricultural subsidies."
85.3% agree that "the gap between Social Security funds and expenditures will become unsustainably large within the next fifty years if current policies remain unchanged."
77.2% agree that "the best way to deal with Social Security's long-term funding gap is to increase the normal retirement age."
67.1% agree that "parents should be given educational vouchers which can be used at government-run or privately-run schools."
65.0% agree that "the U.S. should increase energy taxes to fight global warming"
62.2% agree that "marijuana should be legalized"
53.8% agree that "current immigration levels are not too high" and only 16.7% feel levels are too high now
On the minimum wage, 46.8% of economists think it should be eliminated, 37.7% think it should be raised, 14.3% think it should remain the same.
Since no (major party) presidential candidate is running on a "I love free trade", "end agriculture subsidies", "raise the Social Security retirement age", "school vouchers for all", "legalize marijuana", and "immigration levels are fine" platform, who is an economist to vote for?
The Duratorq engine used on this model of the new Ford Fiesta doesn't come close to meeting the EPA Tier 2 Bin 5 emissions standard
So California emissions mean we get more CO2 (global pollutant) for less sulfur and NOx (local pollutant). Great!
LCoS Technology (supposedly similar to DLP)/i
LCoS is a liquid crystal on a reflective chip (made of silicon). DLPs are an array of micromirrors.
Anyway, are your FCC/ATSC *really* using MPEG-2 for hi-def? If that's true, it makes no sense at all.
When the US DTV transition was planned, there was no H.264...
The truth is that a $20,000 broadcast HD MPEG-2 encoder does a pretty good job at 18 Mbps. Real-time H.264 HD encoders that could do the same thing have only been in serious commercial production for a year (I've seen them try and fail for years, but now we seem to have enough CPU to make them operate stable and well).
It is my impression that most DVB-T systems like UK Freeview also use MPEG-2. As far as I know, no terrestrial HD digital television uses H.264, though it is possible that some satellite services might.
Even in technical demonstrations to the US congress, that system (COFDM) worked much better, but they still chose 8-VSB.
COFDM clearly has better mobile performance than 8VSB and is more inherently resistant to multipath, but 8VSB uses less power (because of a much lower peak-to-average signal ratio). Power bills for megawatt TV stations are actually a significant part of their budget.
There also was some question about whether COFDM decoding could be done as affordably as 8VSB in consumer receivers at the time the decision was made (of course, it turned out that wasn't an issue since the transition got pushed out so long). Of course, 8VSB multi-path resistance technology has also increased dramatically as well, so we are receiving 8VSB better now as well.
I think the digital signals use the same bandwidth segment as the old analog signal.
TV stations began digital operations on a new channel but in the "traditional" TV bands. But a goal of the transition is to have all the final digital channels in the DTV core (channels 2-51), freeing up channels 52+ for exploitation by other technologies.
I've read that WUNJ is a translator for part of the PBS UNC network and they are "technically unable to separate Wilmington-specific DTV information from that going to the rest of the state", that is the real reason why it is remaining on the air in analog until February.
The FCC has been more lenient with non-commercial TV stations than commercial ones during the DTV transition.
There are a lot of analog translators that will have to remain on the air to cover rural areas even after February.
Not only should school attendance be required, but private schools should be audited to ensure that their curriculum at least resembles reality.
But what if the "auditors" are from the government, and the government believes that "creationism is reality"?
What if the "auditors" shut down the last private school that still teaches evolution?
Geosynchronous satellites are too far away (22,000 miles above the planet) to take detailed pictures of the surface.
Most surface imaging satellites are in low earth orbit (500 miles or lower).
Or using illegal labor here, which has driven down wages.
You might want to check the most recent research on this:
"Separating the effects of immigrants on natives of different schooling levels we find positive effects on the wages and rents of highly educated and small effects on the wages (negative) and rents (positive) of less educated."
http://www.cepr.org/pubs/new-dps/dplist.asp?dpno=6551
Thus more educated Americans who are not replaceable by most illegal immigrants benefit from the lower cost of illegal immigrants, while those with similar education and skills experience minor wage reduction (while these low-skill native workers may be replaced to some extent, it is balanced by the presence of the illegals that expand the economy as the illegals consume, and also balanced by the expansion of the overall economy creating more demand for low-skill workers).
US average life expectancy from birth over the years 1980 to 1999 is 75.3 years, or 76.9 years if you leave out fatal injuries due to violence or auto accidents (http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2007/09/natural-life-expectancy-in-united.html)
(Keep in mind when you read about "western countries" with higher life expectancies than the US, the difference tends to be due to "fatal injuries" as we drive more miles and shoot each other more).
So yeah, we're going to get much older and probably healthier for longer periods of time.
When you bought a widget for $1 made within your country...When you buy the same widget for $0.10, you're injecting capital into the offshore trading partner's economy and gaining nothing in return.
Actually when you buy something that previously cost $1 for $0.10, so you are getting an extra $0.90 in wealth while transferring $0.10 in wealth to the other country. I could use that $0.90 to invest anywhere I want, perhaps in my own county, my own state, my own country, or in another country.
That said, the US exported $65 billion to China in 2007 (http://www.uschina.org/public/exports/us_exports_to_china_2007.pdf) and US exports to China have risen 300% from 2000-2007. The market is growing, and I know I have had conversations in my company about how we can sell into the expanding Chinese market as they become richer.
From 2003-2006, US exports overall grew 8.3% average annually, more than twice as fast as the US economy in general (http://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/2008_erp_ch3.pdf). The US is the world's largest exporter, doing with $1.5 trillion in goods and services exports in 2006. The United States is the top exporter of services and second-largest exporter of goods, behind only Germany.
Even if we want to just look at manufacturing, US manufacturing output is at an all-time high. Real value-added manufacturing output has risen every year since 1987, except for brief declines during the 1990-91 and 2000-01 recessions. The United States is still the world's largest manufacturer. (http://www.uschina.org/public/documents/2007/05/uscbc-7-myths-about-us-china-Trade.pdf)
government policy has made it increasingly difficult for low-skill Americans to get appropriate jobs.
The US minimum wage means there is no market for low-wage, low-skill jobs here. However the truth is that many of these jobs have been eliminated with automation rather than being exported. Robots will eventually take all of these jobs globally (assuming the continuation of the current long-term pattern of world wide economic growth).
Germany is pumping ~1GW of EXCESS power from rooftop solar panels back on to their grid.
Germany has 3.8 GW installed of Total Photovoltaic Peak Power Capacity. But with an insolation of only 1,000 kWh/kWpeakyr, you get an average power of only 444 MWe for Germany, much less than a single nuclear reactor (typically ~1 GWe).
Yeah, doesn't Chavez have Byrne Convention grounds to go after them?
Sorry, to further the aims of the Bolivarian revolution, the US government will be nationalizing Chavez's email, comrade!
Copyright is "the imperialist false democracy of elites" and is "an old scheme through which some private sectors seize the nation's wealth without a drop of sweat" :)
All corporate taxes do is increase the costs of the goods these corporations produce
Of course, basic economics is that taxes increase the cost of goods while simultaneously reducing the number of goods sold (due to the downward-sloping demand curve).
The reduction in the number of goods sold creates a "deadweight loss" to the economy - economic activity that would have occurred without the tax that now does not occur.
While I'm blissfully ignorant of who this McCullagh guy is
Declan is a neat guy!
That and the Widespread Accumulations of Natural Perchlorate in Southwestern Soils...
if a bunch of Chinese students came to the US and flung banners around Stanford demanding we give California back to Mexico, we'd probably tell them to get their butts back to China and mind their own business.
That would assume anyone in California would want to be part of Mexico - the US citizens don't want it, and the illegal aliens risked their lives to get out of Mexico!