[opendtv] Re: Global standard

  • From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 8 May 2012 15:30:44 -0400

At 12:03 AM -0400 5/8/12, Richard C. Ramsden wrote:
60 hz AC power. Required by law to be exactly 60 Hz. So electric clocks will keep proper time. Costs the people that generate electricity a fortune to maintain this. Look it up. The clock manufacturers won out over the power companies with their lobbying.
Certainly there are places for standards. This is a good example. It is less fair to call this a mandate on consumers. A better example would be if the government said your clock HAD To have a second hand.
ATSC was not developed to help broadcasters. 8 VSB was a Zenith patent. It was an attempt to protect a US manufacturer. Too bad they went bankrupt and a Korean company bought the assets. 

Correct. In essence, a "trust" developed the standard to accomplish two things:

1. Force the transition to their vision of HDTV;
2. Profit from the royalties on the IP they controlled and re-invented, via a government mandate for their technology in every new TV sold in the U.S. 




The current U.S. digital television standard was developed as a block
and delay tactic to protect broadcast spectrum. Broadcasters willingly
abdicated responsibility to a more forward thinking standard and allowed
broadcast and consumer electronics manufacturers to define another
proprietary, closed system to sell new equipment and consumer TVs.
ATCS to protect spectrum? Sorry, that is ludicrous. The most kind opinion of that idea is that it is very naive. Broadcasters never cared about spectrum until a few years ago, when congress found out what it could be sold for.
Sorry, this all started with the FCC proposal to take broadcast spectrum for Land Mobile in the early 1980's. The ACATS process was precluded from looking at anything but HDTV, which when it started would have required giving every broadcaster a SECOND 6 MHz channel. When it became clear that HDTV could be delivered in ONE 6 MHz channel, or multiple SDTV streams could be delivered in that channel, The ATSC continued to focus ONLY on HDTV to prevent someone in Congress from getting the bright idea that broadcasters would only need 1-2 MHz to replicate their NTSC service. The addition of SDTV to the ATSC standard happened only after Congress had signaled its intent to to loan broadcasters a second 6 MHz channel for the DTV transition.
If you doubt this, consider the current reality that the FCC is asking some broadcasters to give back their spectrum or consolidate multiple licenses into one 6 MHz channel.
What goes around comes around. We are back to where we were in 1992. But this time the FCC is focused on spectrum recovery. You can bet your last dollar that if there is a new DTV standard, the FCC is not going to mandate its use on any device.
Broadcasters are going to need to learn how to collaborate and build a compelling new service if they hope to survive. 

Regards
Craig


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