Having read with interest the latest travails in the US and the forthcoming= ones in Brazil its amazing that people never ever learn: a) The use of DTT as a bearer platform for a commercially credible and comp= etitive pay-Tv platform is a non-runner whilst analogue broadcasting contin= ues, not enough spectrum vs DBS. RIP ITV-Digital, Quiero and now USDTV. Of = course the latter was probably hobbled by 8VSB as well with its delightful = reception travails. b) In the pay-TV wars the platforms with the highest throughput always win.= The very same story is being replayed now in mobile TV: the highest throug= hput platforms are likely to win hands down (eg DVB-H and FLO) over the oth= er pretenders which are narrow bandwidth systems. I also see that American = ingenuity, in the form of Texas Instruments, has come up with a clever solu= tion to the DVB-H channel change time issue. Just transmit a reference stil= l frame occasionally which reduces channel change time to 1.5 seconds from = 6.0 seconds. Makes it same as DTV and FLO. A very competitive situation. C) Brazil. This outcome was entirely predictable given the preferences of t= he broadcasters, the desperation of the Japanese to secure another market, = and the blandishment of US$ 500 million for a semiconductor factory. ISDB-T= continues to lack global scale, and Brazil has compounded the error by goi= ng for MPEG4. That adds 40% to STB costs which will have a significant impa= ct in a country with low GDP/capita. Elswehere MPEG4 systems are only being= deployed in IPTV, DBS, cable, pay-DTV (France..) and MDTV which are all, o= f course, subscription funded systems which can subsidise the rollouts. Bra= zil appears to be repeating the mistakes of the past by a) choosing a non-s= tandard system with only one other market b) compounding the error by going= for a high-cost solution. The result is likely to be a replay of the past:= DTV System M++ (the ++ referring to high costs, high scale losses and high= analogue retention likelihood). d) Its very interesting to note that in the markets where the Freeview mode= l has been adopted take up is phenomenal: 3.0M TNT DTV homes in France, 2.0= +M in Spain. Its driven by free content, global economies of scale and scop= e, a working modulation system, cheap boxes and the undermining of the basi= c cable tier which siphons off many broadcasters to deliver FTA service. Th= e latest to go clear in the UK is FilmFour, Channel 4's film service later = this month. A very interesting paper has shown that the economics now work = far better FTA for many broadcasters than basic tier pay....Distribution, d= istribution, distribution. e) The UK is a very interesting market now: Freeview will shortly overtake = Sky, STBs are =C2=A329 for a zapper, and about =C2=A3130 for a decentish PV= R box, and virtually all bigger LCDS/plasmas have Freeview tuners, there is= also a very interesting omndidirectional outdoor antenna with 15dB gain (o= nly works with COFDM standard) which is powered off the STB, on sale for = =C2=A329, which is apparently highly effective. A battle royal is expected = over what to do with the released UHF spectrum: HDTV, MDTV or both... f) I have been watching both the Sky MPEG4 HDTV broadcasts and the Freeview= DVB-T MPEG4 HDTV tests (the latter via a high-spec PC with fancy codecs et= c...): the picture quality is outstanding but there is a way to go with thi= ngs like slow motion replay, dealing with multiple sources, concatentation = chains, etc, etc... And, apart from the BBC, the main commercial broadcaste= rs are not persuaded by the economics of HDTV transmission, preferring to c= oncentrate on multichannel FTA offerings. The cost of ownership is high: = =C2=A3299 for the Sky box, =C2=A360 installation, an extra =C2=A310 a month= , + a suitable HD ready LCD/plasma. Total upfront cost in year one is north= of =C2=A31500. at the moment all broadcasts appear to be mostly 1080i, it = would be interesting to see 720P comparison soon, and the transition to DV= B-S2. So as opendtv continues it seems some hard lessons are being learnt all ove= r again... Kind Regards, Dermot Nolan ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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.