[opendtv] Re: A detail in the history of video standards

>I reject your assertion that the ATSC didn't incorporate foreign (to
the US)
>ideas into the ATSC specifications.  Unlike many who comment on these
>aspects, I have actually read the underlying specifications.

True, i have only read the more general specifications, out of
curiosity, not for practical use, and was not really interested in the
Pids/PSIP aspects of the thing.

>ATSC specifications can and do co-exist in the world.  ATSC has taken
much
>care to insure that their specifications do not interfere with ARIB
(Japan),
>SCTE (Cable) and an offshore suite of specifications called MPEG.  

Is MPEG really viewed as an offshore development in the US ? After all
american companies like Digital instruments have played an important
part in it. But i suppose it should, as i read about developments by
Thomson and France Telecom (among many other IP holders) that were close
enough to the mark, even before the word "MPEG" became known.
As MPEG is an important basis of the ATSC standard, i suppose it is
indeed fair to retract my claim about the unwillingness to consider
foreign inputs into the process. 



>Then, there's the nature of the specifications themselves.  DVB-SI, as
a
>practical matter, ONLY will work in an environment where there is a
>network
>that furnishes all it's programming to a local transmitter which
>passively
>relays the network programming.  That's why there is a transmtter tsid
>and a
>network tsid.  This wouldn't make sense in the US and most countries,
>but it
>does make sense to Europeans.

>The US, indeed, much of the world, doesn't operate in such a passive,
>top-down mode.  Europe, however, does and has since day one.  Time will
>only
>tell if this model straitjackets DVB countries in the future.

I don't clearly grasp the implications of those choices. Could you
describe a specific use case where the DVB-SI concept would be a
limitation ?


>There are more TV stations -- independent television signals -- offered
in
>Tijuana, Mexico, from Mexican transmitters, than are offered in Britan,
>France, Germany, Korea and Taiwan COMBINED.

>that
>in the U.S., Mexico and to a good extent, Canada, the government has
>little
>or no presence in transmitting electrons to citizens?  Indeed, were the
>government to start a channel, it would be regarded in the U.S. and
>Canada
>as propaganda.   In most DVB countries, it's called "state of the art."

Do you see such virtue in numbers? It would seem this makes for more
fragmented audience, less market share for each station, and less
ressources to create good programming. Perhaps my european background
leads me to downplay the value of local TV broadcasting.

We do have local radios, though, and i can't say that i am thrilled with
the result of the transition from State-only broadcasts. The FM band is
crouded in places, with some stations interfering with others, we get
more or less the same content duplicated at different frequencies, and
lots of ads. "But", we are told, "those poor things need publicity to
survive, isn't that obvious?" Well i think you have to question the
wisdom of a system that will mathematically result in a public ressource
(the spectrum) being used to harass the citizens with something they
hate. The idea that all the fascinating developments of digital HDTV may
end up in producing more of that kind of airwave pollution is a rather
sobering thought.

The presence of state-owned stations besides the private ones, in
comparable numbers, gives at least a little hope that the latter will
have to check themselves if they don't want to see their audience flee
towards less aggressive audio-visual environments.


 
 
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