[opendtv] Re: More 1999 stuff

Bert,

> Regardless, things certainly had not changed much by
> 2001 and 2002, when the NAB still strongly endorsed 8-VSB
> and helped the FCC "stay the course." So that's a mystery
> almost as intriguing as the LG supertuner mystery.
>
> Bert

The CE manufacturers, NxtWave and Zenith in particular, was always promising 
that a big breakthrough was just around the corner.  They said it in 1999, 
they said it in 2000, they said it in 2001, they said it in 2004.

Given all that is at stake for LG, it wouldn't surprise me that their, as 
you put it, supertuner, was just that, a supertuner with a frequency agile 
band pass filter, and it is this super front end, not the chip itself, that 
makes it a supertuner.  That is why the "other" company that used the LG 5th 
gen chip that Bob Miller tried out failed so miserably.

If this is the case, and I am suspecting more and more that it is, then 
Moore's Law won't apply and these high performance receivers will never make 
it into the commercial marketplace.

What we need is to have LG come clean with what they did to achieve the 
performance in their demo unit, and then we can all see if it can ever be 
economically reproduced.

Meanwhile, as we flail around with gen-x chipsets, and electronically 
steered antennas, high precision front ends, and whatever else it takes to 
create a workable 8-VSB receiver, DVB-T receivers are cheap, plentiful, and 
available worldwide by a flotilla of manufacturers.

And as I have argued since 1999, even if 8-VSB could be made to work as 
easily as COFDM, I'd still be strongly in favor of switching to DVB-T simply 
because of the mind boggling flexibility built into the system, as 
contrasted to the "one bitrate fits all" of ATSC.

Have a happy Easter, and don't eat too much chocolate!

John


 
 
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