[opendtv] Re: Time to give up on 1080i for football
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 10 Dec 2009 08:46:47 -0500
At 5:46 PM -0800 12/9/09, Dale Kelly wrote:
Yesterday, I suggested;
As I recall, it was mostly about protecting certain companies' IP profits.
You replied that IP was only a minor issue in this process. (IMO it
is always a seminal standards setting issue)
You now post::
There was a concerted effort to eliminate interlace from the h.264
standard. Unfortunately, the same folks who forced interlace into
the MPEG-2 standard did it again with h.264.
Another pure IP play!
We are talking about and agree on, the same action by the same
company. However, a little more consistency on your part would be
helpful
Dale
Actually Dale, I think we are in violent agreement. I did not mean to
minimize the importance of entrenching IP into MPEG-2 or any modern
standard for that matter. That's the name of the game at ISO/MPEG.
What I was trying to explain in the post you are referring to is that
the process of creating and selecting relevant IP for MPEG-2 was ALSO
driven by competitive concerns.
In essence, the first step is to decide how to build barriers to
competition. Then you develop the IP to entrench your competitive
advantage. In the case of MPEG-2, the Japanese had a huge vested
interest in protecting their investment in 1125/60 interlaced HDTV.
We ALMOST SUCCEEDED in getting interlace out of HD, but at the 11th
hour the Grand Alliance was formed and the decision to support
multiple formats (including interlaced HD) survived.
We also tried to eliminate interlaced SD, requiring a minimum of 480P
for SD. But this too was killed. There were two main reasons for this:
1. The perception that broadcasters needed to leverage existing
investments in ITU-R Bt.601 digital video gear.
2. The reality that 480P looked too good; there were major concerns
that it would be good enough and compete with interlaced HD.
The other reality is that hardly any U.S. broadcasters had upgraded
to digital SD, and even for those who had upgraded, professional
quality de-interlacing products were available to create 480P from
480i.
All of this was built around the perception that retaining interlace
would burden the costs for the computer industry to integrate video
processing into their products, and make video on computers look
inferior to the new HD televisions that the CE industry wanted to
sell.
As is usually the case, time has a way of dealing with poor
competitive decisions. Now its time to clean up the mess. Or just to
let OTA DTV die.
Regards
Craig
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