[opendtv] "Live" DTV from Mars now possible !

I just happened to stumble on the telecom specs of the future NASA mars 
reconnaissance orbiter:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/mission/sc_telecomm.html

It is scheduled for launch in less than a year, and allows for 6 Mbps 
over a distance of 100 million kilometers.

Now with good quality SDTV feeds ranging from 4 to 6 Mbps, and possibly 
less with  state of the art MPEG2 encoders, this would indeed  make real 
time video transmission possible from the red planet, with a 
transmission delay that would be as small as 5 mn with the said distance 
(true, those would be the most favourable conditions, when Mars and 
Earth are practically face-to-face, worst case would be three times that 
amount, probably with a much lower bitrate).

Of course, there is not much action in orbit, but it could be used to 
relay transmissions from rovers or an exploration plane (another of 
NASA's projects) and, of course , the first steps of man on Mars.

That may be a little tight for HDTV, though, unless 720P artfully 
compressed using H.264 ...?




 
 
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