[opendtv] Re: FCC Opens ATSC Patent Costs Proceedings
- From: Kilroy Hughes <Kilroy.Hughes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2009 02:45:25 +0000
The majority of video streamed and downloaded from the Internet is encoded at
actual picture height and width with square samples (and progressive).
It can then be optimally framed to whatever display it lands on according to
the type of device, user preference, etc. (You might want a "full screen"
center crop of a 1.85 AR movie on a portable device, but want full width
letterboxed (different amounts) on your 4:3 or 16:9 TV, and not letterboxed at
all on your 2.0 AR iPod or 21:9 display)
An Internet video may land on 640x320 AR 2.0 screens like iPods, 720x480 NTSC
AR 1.333 screens like Playstation Portables, adjustable windows on PC screens,
4:3 NTSC screens, 16:9 square pixel screens, 320x240 and 416x240 cell phones,
etc. A device with one screen aspect ratio will plug into external displays
with different aspect ratios.
Active Format Descriptors are a kludge to repair the screen-specific formatting
encoded, but they can't be relied on, so are mostly ignored. The problem is
bigger than a descriptor and requires an end to end system model where
producers/encoders know what they are supposed to do, and devices know what
they are supposed to do.
It is a multiscreen world today, so it makes no sense to do bad things to the
encoded source material to frame it for old TV screens or new TV screens. Our
motto should be "Do no harm"; encode the content as accurately and close to its
original form as possible, and let the render and display devices frame
according to their particulars.
Same motto applies to encoding 24P content as is, not adding 3:2 pulldown that
will just confuse your 120Hz or 240Hz display. Same motto applies to not
flicker filtering the encoded content, and leaving filtering to any renderer
unfortunate enough to have to output fields to an interlaced raster display.
Same motto applies to capturing the full gamut and letting displays reduce as
necessary. A corollary is that displays should stop scaling up the pictures
they are given in order to crop the edges a few percent just because analog
recording used to screw up the edges and CRTs used to have bad power supply
regulation ("overscan"). Trust encoder/post to crop any garbage before
encoding and show all 1920 or 1280 or 704 NTSC or 640 wide.
Introducing new standards usually involves throwing away lots of obsolete boxes
(like NTSC TVs), unless you designed and required extension mechanisms from the
start ... rarely the case for cost and vision reasons. In computerland, we
have to work much harder to make the hardware obsolete because new standards
can be implemented with software updates. Case in point: Many companies are
shipping the bits of HTML 5 they like even thought the standard isn't finished.
Definite flexibility/stability tradeoff.
Kilroy Hughes
-----Original Message-----
From: opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Manfredi, Albert E
Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2009 12:46 PM
To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [opendtv] Re: FCC Opens ATSC Patent Costs Proceedings
Craig Birkmaier wrote:
> The ATSC chose to use MPEG-LA to administer the patent pool since it
> has some overlapping standards and the infrastructure in place to
> deal with collection of these royalties.
Aha. Thanks, Craig, that was the part I was missing.
> Seems a bit late for the FCC to be sticking its nose under this
> tent. The damage is done.
Could be, different administration, different priorities?
> At least one can now understand why so many companies spent so much
> to develop the ATSC standard. To bad the world is now moving on...
>
> 21 x 9 displays
As of now, according to Jeroen's description of 21:9 (which is very close to
Cinemascope 2.35:1), what this super wide screen buys you is "only" the ability
to zoom into the super-wide content, which in 16:9 displays would have a bit of
letterboxing top and bottom. In the 21:9 display, such content under normal
circustances would display both pillarboxed and letterboxed.
So surely that much you can do with any existing DTV standard, including ATSC.
It's only a function of the display. Until DVDs and BluRay discs come encoded
with anamorphic 21:9, you won't be able to actually benefit from the full
resolution potential. And when anamorphic 21:9 becomes reality, all the DTV
standards could be updated to incorporate this.
> 1080 @ 50/60P
> Extended color gamuts
> H.264
Just as M/H with H.264 has been added to ATSC, and just as HDTV with H.264 was
added to DVB-T, I don't see why these new standards can't be introduced. Even
the wide gamut now available with MPEG-2, as Ron pointed out. These are all
layered standards, plenty upgradeable. Too bad that the US keeps mixing in so
much proprietary content in its standards, but then again, that seems all the
rage. China, Japan, and even Brazil have picked up on that. Just look at the
digital radio insanity worldwide.
Bert
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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:
