[opendtv] 060711 Twang's Tuesday Tribune (Mark's Monday Memo)

  • From: Mark Schubin <tvmark@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: tvmark@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 19:24:25 -0400 (GMT-04:00)

     Here are some very efficient (low-administrative-cost) relief 
organizations (all have four-star ratings from CharityNavigator.org):
<http://www.americares.org/>
<http://www.redcross.org/donate/donate.html>
<http://www.directrelief.org/index.html>
<http://www.hopeww.org/>
<http://www.mercycorps.org/splash/>
     Americans may also call the Red Cross at 800 HELP NOW (800 435-7669).

- Follow-ups:

     - Common Blu-Ray/HD DVD player - Ricoh is showing a small diffraction 
plate at the International Optoelectronics Exhibition this week in Japan.  It's 
said to allow a single optical head to deal with Blu-ray data (0.1 mm from the 
disk surface), HD DVD (0.6), and CD (1.1):
<http://www.eet.com/news/design/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=190300953>

     - Next-generation disk-player issues - Peter Putman reports a number of 
tests of both Blu-ray and HD DVD interconnections with various displays.  The 
results were often no pictures, due to problems with HDMI or DVI connections.  
The material is not yet posted to his web site but is expected to be soon:
<http://www.hdtvexpert.com/>

     - Thomson's Film Grain Technology - The system, which preserves grain 
characteristics through codecs, the benefits of which were discussed at the 
Hollywood Post Alliance's Technology Retreat in February, is being used in HD 
DVD.  This story is from Digital TV Design Line:
<http://tinyurl.com/oy6h9>

     - Mobile TV channel changing - The Mobile DTV Alliance is developing 
guidelines for interoperability.  Among them is a way of getting channel 
changes down to 1.2 seconds instead of six:
<http://www.twice.com/article/CA6349608.html>

     - USDTV - They have reportedly filed for bankruptcy protection having 
picked up just 16,000 subscribers in four markets in two years:
<http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6351629.html>

     - May 1 - None of the lists I check have been updated since the last memo.

- There are no H/DTV items on the agenda of Thursday's Federal Communications 
Commission (FCC) meeting:
<http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-266285A1.pdf>

- Based on figures from CEA, sales to U.S. dealers of non-H/DTV television sets 
for the first 24 weeks of 2006 were down 46.2% from the same period in 2005; my 
ten-week running average was down 49.1% (CEA revised its week 23 figures).  For 
the first 25 weeks, they were down 46.5% and my ten-week running average was 
down 48%.  Sales of so-called "Digital Televisions" to U.S. dealers for the 
24th week were 370,036 units, for the 25th week 406,993 units and for the first 
25 weeks (revised) 7,616,806 (compared to 5,000,133 for sets not called 
"digital" by CEA), accounting for 60.4%.
     To qualify to CEA as a "Digital Television," a display need only be 
capable of dealing with at least 480p; it need not be capable of either 
receiving digital signals or displaying them, although now that the 100% "tuner 
mandate" has kicked in for sets 25-inch and larger, it would seem that most do 
have such capability.  CEA says about 82% of the "digital televisions" sold in 
2005 (when not all TVs 25-inch and up were supposed to have DTT-reception 
circuitry) were HDTV.

- DVD news: According to CEA's figures, sales of DVD players to U.S. dealers 
for the first 24 weeks of 2006 were up 13.9% from the same period in 2005; my 
ten-week running average was up 22.6%.  For the first 25 weeks, they were up 
17.4%; my 10-week running average was up 32.1%!
     I find those figures remarkable this far into what is thought to be a 
mature technology.  Next-generation disks have a VERY tough row to hoe.

- Upcoming Dates (DTV and non-DTV):
     - September 27-29, Hotel Washington, Washington, D.C., IEEE Broadcast 
Symposium <http://www.ieee.org/organizations/society/bt/sympo.html>.
     - October 3-5, Hotel Fort Des Moines, Des Moines, Iowa, Iowa DTV Symposium 
<http://www.iptv.org/dtv/2005/>.
     - October 4-6, Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles, Jackson Hole Tech 
Symposium <http://www.jhfestival.org/symposium2006/>.
     - October 18-21, Renaissance Hollywood Hotel, SMPTE convention 
<http://www.smpte.org/conferences/148cfp.cfm>.
     - ***January 31-February 2, The Westin at Mission Hills, Rancho Mirage 
(Palm Springs area), California, ***HPA Technology Retreat*** 
<http://www.hpaonline.com>.
     - April 14-19, Las Vegas Convention Center, NAB convention 
<http://www.nabshow.com/>.
     - April 18-21, Atlanta Convention Center, Satellite Expo 2007 with C-band 
Pioneers Reunion <http://www.bobcooper.tv/c-band-reunion.htm>.

* - new or revised listing

TTFN,
Mark

PS  Permission is granted to forward this or any other Monday Memo.  Next 
week's memo might be late.

Have a question about the memo?  Before contacting me, please try the FAQs and 
glossary in the second postscript to the January 5 memo:
<http://www.digitaltelevision.com/mondaymemo/mlist/frm02213.html>


 
 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways:

- Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at 
FreeLists.org 

- By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word 
unsubscribe in the subject line.

Other related posts:

  • » [opendtv] 060711 Twang's Tuesday Tribune (Mark's Monday Memo)