[opendtv] Let the games begin
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2006 08:04:37 -0400
At 5:54 PM -0500 11/7/06, Allen Le Roy Limberg wrote:
In the EVSB, ASB, Philips and ETRI proposals the information content is
coded in such a way that it is not possible for legacy receivers to decode
it. This means information content has to be transmitted twice if legacy
receivers are to receive it and new receivers are to receive it with full
robustness. This is a major waste of code capability.
The original goal in the Request for Proposals from ATSC was to ruggedize
HDTV broadcast or multi-cast SDTV. The various proposals seem to focus on
replacing HDTV with other services that halve or quarter code rate. Perhaps
this is a tacit concession to business opinion that HDTV broadcast and
multi-cast SDTV will disappear from terrestrial transmitter service.
Al
Thank you Al for beginning a discussion that I hope will help
legitimize our community - by this I mean that we may be able to
contribute solutions, rather than observing and analyzing the DTV
transition. I believe that one objective of the OpenDTV community is
to help turn the vast wasteland of Digital TV in the U.S.A., into a
critical piece of the infrastructure for communications in the rest
of this new century. By so doing, we may also contribute an
acceleration of the DTV transition globally.
So here we are, a decade into the DTV non-transition in the U.S., and
we are trying to invent ways to layer complexity onto a standard that
was never designed to do many of the things that now seem important
to the folks making business decisions about the future.
As a starting point for further discussion, I would suggest that
everyone who wants to contribute, take a look at a recent
presentation about the A-VSB proposals, at the Iowa DTV Symposium,
put together by the "original" IPTV people, Iowa Public Television.
http://www.iptv.org/dtv/2006/media_pres.cfm?ses=5&id=7&Track=T
This page contains an Adobe flash file with the presentation slides,
and a downloadable MP3 file with the audio from the session. It's
almost like being there...
;-)
I have reasons to believe that the Chairman of one of the ATSC
working groups working on and helping to test these proposals will be
addressing some of the questions that Bert raised about the mobile
tests in Buffalo. At least Mr. Aitken said he was working on a
response when I talked with him Tuesday.
Both Al and Bert have focused some attention on the issue of the
payload overhead that may be required to utilize the new tools that
are being proposed. The presentation covers some of the trade-offs
and provides an example of the overhead needed to support the
training sequences and a robust 1.5 Mbps service. Mr. Aitken noted in
our conversation, that they are just starting to test these tools in
the real world, and it is still too early to know how to optimize
their use and determine to actual overhead.
Needless to say, there is plenty here to sink your teeth into, and to
generate serious discussions.
But these discussions cannot take place, without also considering the
alternatives.
I have just completed a column on the Digital LPTV transition in the
U.S. There were thousands of applications for digital licenses for
Class A, LPTV and TV translators, and the FCC will begin to issue
licenses next year. This industry has the unique opportunity to
develop its own platform for DTV and to build SFNs from the ground
up. They are questioning whether they should be saddled with legacy
ATSC, help drive A-VSB deployment, or simply join Qualcomm and
others, who are deploying OFDM solutions in former TV spectrum.
The FCC has not authorized the use of OFDM by these low power
broadcasters, however, the airwaves will soon be carrying OFDM
broadcasts that will be received by devices being used by U.S.
consumers. One can build a very strong argument to let these
licensees have the flexibility to choose the technical parameters of
their infrastructure as Sinclair proposed for full power DTV
broadcasters.
And there is still another alternative.
START OVER
There is plenty of precedent for this - most notably, NTSC.
As was the case when RCA brokered the NTSC deal, it need not take a
long time to come up with a viable solution. So ultimately, this
discussion should also consider how the tools that we have today
could be used to create a digital terrestrial broadcast network that
is:
Interoperable, Scalable and Extensible, but most important,
economically viable and able to drive innovation and new services in
the future.
Let the games begin.
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