[opendtv] Re: PBS National Datacast
- From: "Albert Manfredi" <bert22306@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 26 Feb 2006 14:40:53 -0500
Kilroy Hughes wrote:
[Bert] ... although I seriously dount that PBS thinks Dotcast
provides better coverage than ATSC can.
[KH] They don't think that, they know that from a couple
years of empirical testing.
Sorry, then let me rephrase: "Even if PBS doesn't know this, Dotcast is well
aware of the fact that their signal won't cover the same area a proper ATSC
datacast can cover."
Here's direct from the horse's mouth:
http://www.dotcast.com/pdf/dNTSC_tutorial.pdf
"In a nutshell, the dNTSC system inserts data as a quadrature component to
the TV signal. With Dotcast?s patented data insertion and extraction
techniques, the dNTSC system can provide unimpaired analog television
viewing while simultaneously delivering errorfree, rich multimedia
content to a TV station?s Grade A contour?for example, about 1.7 million
people in Los Angeles, CA for an ABC affiliate station."
Isn't that less than 20 percent of the population (9,937,739 in 2004,
according to http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06/06037.html, which
makes this 1.7M 17 percent).
The way Dotcast works, first you provide your street address (and name, and
e-mail address) on their web site, *then* they tell you whether you have
coverage. Well, I suppose under those constraints, you can claim pretty good
reliability.
By the way, I visited Best Buy yesterday. I spoke to one sales person who
insisted she wanted me to ask questions about their products. So I gave in
and asked where the recording devices for DTT were. She gave me a blank
stare. I was asking in Chinese, evidently.
Then I spoke with a more "mature" salesperson who seemed completely tuned in
to my questions. He said that he had bought a 32" Sony XBR integrated LCD
TV, and that the ATSC receiver was much better than all the previous ones he
tried. He also lives south of the DC area, and he said he could receive the
two stations I can't seem to get *without* having to re-aim his antenna, but
only on this Sony. One of the two is due West of where we live, and the
other is WETA-DT on a low tower and at low power.
The good news being that maybe other brands than just LG seem to have
mastered 8-VSB. (Or maybe Sony builds in LG receivers.)
I asked him about the dearth of DTT products, like recorders. He thought
this had more to do with copy HD protection issues than anything else. He
thinks they will soon become available. We'll see.
Bert
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