[opendtv] Re: (No Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 10:30:37 -0400

  • From: "John Willkie" <johnwillkie@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 14:21:06 -0700

As to who talks about what here, I am corrected.  (I suspect that you are
missing a "not" in the last sentence, but I was able to discern a
correction.)

But, how much do those COFDM silicon assemblies that handle HD cost compared
to 8-VSB?  Shouldn't we compare apples to apples?

As to permitting COFDM would not have required any change in PSIP:  I guess
I have an unfair advantage, being that I only really know about metadata.
However, I've looked extensively at the DVB-SI spec, and I know PSIP and
PMCP innately.  If you can find a way to unambiguously define a COFDM
transport stream in PSIP or PMCP, could you point me to it?  If you know of
a way to unambiguously define an ATSC transport stream in DVB-SI, you might
want to point me to that.

I have advocated on my PSIP email list that the PMCP candidate spec be
altered slightly to permit it's use in the DVB world.  That comment was one
of the first comments included by T3/S1 on the candidate spec.  I can't say
more due to the ATSC NDA, but when/if PMCP is approved as ATSC A/76, it
might be interesting to see if my feedback changed anything in that regard.
(Yes, I know the answer to this, but I cannot say.)

Just in case someone wants to draw that into a criticism, I have the utmost
respect for the due process that I have seen at T3/S1, and I have the
highest regard for my fellow members and all the other folks I have
encountered at/with the ATSC.  I also suspect that in due course I will have
similar regards for DVB groups.

John Willkie

-----Original Message-----
From: opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Eory Frank-p22212
Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2004 12:24 PM
To: 'opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx'
Subject: [opendtv] Re: (No Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 10:30:37 -0400


From: "John Willkie" <johnwillkie@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 19:02:07 -0700


>So, were the decision made to adopt DVB in the U.S., there might be some
>advantages in the modulation model.  Indeed, I was talking a few months
back
>with a high-ranking engineering executive at CBS, someone who is a lurker
on
>this list, and he admitted that there are some advantages in COFDM
>modulation over 8-VSB.  He said that he would never say such a thing
>publicly, but we were "among friends."

There are many such individuals who feel the same way but "would never say
such a thing publicly."

>However, adopting DVB in the U.S. would, absent a WHOLESALE revision of the
>DVB-SI spec, result in U.S. television stations becoming passive
>retransmitters of network programming.  That might work in Europe, but in
>the U.S., Canada and Mexico, local stations are federal/state constructs:
>most of the programming is created elsewhere, but localism is an important
>component.

IIRC, nobody every seriously proposed "adopting DVB in the U.S." The debate
was strictly about the modulation. In principle, the DVB-T modulation scheme
or even a uniquely U.S. COFDM scheme could have been incorporated into the
ATSC standards in addition to or in place of the 8-VSB modulation scheme.
Nothing else (PSIP, Table 3, etc.) need have changed.

>And, what's really at play in the modulation wars -- even going back to the
>1920's -- is patents, IP and licensing.   I know I'm not the only person on
>this list who knows this, but I'm the only one who talks publicly about
>THAT.

You are absolutely correct, and you are the only one on this list who has
talked publicly about THAT. The IP licensing cost of an ATSC
receiver/decoder will soon exceed the silicon + software cost, and a chunk
of that will go to LGE for the 8-VSB patents. We have discussed this on
OpenDTV many times in the past, including some news articles that put a
dollar figure on the IP windfall that LGE expects from the ATSC tuner
mandate.

-- Frank


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