[opendtv] Re: Analysis: Money for Nothing

Craig Birkmaier wrote:

>The following interesting article was forwarded to me by another list 
>member. It puts the all channel receiver act in proper perspective, 
>not to mention the DTV receiver mandates that are about to kick in...
>
>
>Money for Nothing
>The FCC is forcing you to buy digital TV tuners that may not even work.
>By Thomas Hazlett
>Posted Monday, October 7, 2002, at 8:07 AM PT
>
>  
>
What makes it worse is that for those people who not only buy the 
receiver, mandated or freely, but actually then try to use it the future 
looks particularly dim.

What with E-VSB and USDTV promising to eliminate HD capable spectrum you 
also have the specter of broadcasters awakening from an OTA daze and 
smelling money in their OTA spectrum.

And what will they do with the spectrum now that I hear 5th gen 
receivers are pretty good? I think they will broadcast one NTSC quality 
program and use a superior codec or group of codecs to maximize 
programming in a subscriber based service with other broadcasters in the 
same market just like USDTV. Why wouldn't they? Who would stop them? 
Seems like the market would drive broadcasters there. They could do 
multiple HD programs there if they want or whatever is in demand.

And all current receivers and maybe a lot of those mandated receivers 
will only receive one SD talking head program in MPEG2. And the host 
will be the living partner of a ventriloquist team that doesn't move his 
lips or blink often.  So why does that receiver have to handle HD?  
Could the FCC grant a waiver that would allow SD only capable receivers 
in those mandated sets?

If you were manufacturing DTV sets it would seem wise to use a chip like 
Xceive's that works with all modulations and then the broadcaster should 
use Codecsys multicodec system to future proof compression. Then we 
could relax for a few years till the next disruption occurs.

 
 
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