[opendtv] Re: Another Wireless PC-to-TV Idea

  • From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2010 09:27:37 -0400

At 1:56 PM -0500 10/8/10, Manfredi, Albert E wrote:
Doesn't even have to do that. I watch wide screen "HD" news from the French TF1 network all the time. When I click it to full screen, in my 16:10 TV monitor, you see slight letterboxing. If I sent this same TF1 program to a 16:9 TV display via the new ATSC dongle, the dongle would fill in the entire screen, as it was meant to be from TF1.
I don't need a single thing from AppleTV, from Google TV, or from anyone else to do this.
Of course. because this is NOT a web page, but a graphic service designed for distribution to TVs.
The same goes for content on the major networks' web sites. I can watch cath-up TV from any of these, exactly the same way as TF1. No need for any walled garden to solve any non-problem.
No problem if you want to watch the video streams. It is the HTML around these streams that must be modified for the TV.
This is all about legibility, specifically as it relates to viewing distance. Let's assume that you have both a computer monitor and an HDTV with identical resolution - e.g. 1920 x 1080. The viewing distance to the computer display will be 15-30 inches; assuming normal PC pixel densities in the range of 96 - 120 DPI (I'll use 100 DPI for convenience), we are talking about a monitor that is 19.2 by 10.8 inches. Roughly 22 inch diagonal. And we are talking about viewing it at 1.5 to two picture heights.
To duplicate this viewing setup you would need to either sit 1.5 to 2 picture heights from a 22" diagonal HDTV, or at least a 40" display at three picture heights. Unfortunately, most people watch displays of this size at about 5 picture heights. People typically do not sit three picture heights from an HD display until the display is larger than 70 inches, and this still does not equal the PC monitor resolution - you would need a TV nearly 100 inch in diagonal to equal this at three picture heights.
So the solution is to reformat the HTML to adjust for the TYPICAL HDTV viewing distance/resolution.
Many browsers allow you to do this by changing the size of the displayed text. But the best solution is to create a page layout that is optimized for the TV. 



 > Apples and oranges. These techniques send "baseband video" not

 compressed packet data.


Nonsense. They send uncompressed *packet* video, vs compressed *packet* video.


Yup. each TV line is a packet complete with sync and blanking...

Scheeze...
The only difference is that you don't decompress. On the other hand, since all TVs sold since 3/1/2007 have the MPEG-2 decoder built in, that one minor difference is taken care of rather nicely, at the sink end anyway. And guess what. No need for any stinkin' UWB or 60 MHz.
The difference is that you MUST compress the source in a manner that an ATSC receiver understands. I'm not saying you cannot do this, I am just saying that this takes some intelligence and probably some real-time hardware to pull it off. And in doing this you are using a bunch of IP that will increase the cost of your device - e.g. MPEG-LA royalties for the encoder, and transport stream layer and likely some ATSC patents as well.
Furthermore, the MPEG-2 compression is actually a great idea, because it allows the RF link to be narrow and to use an existing standard. Instead of requiring new schemes, with new royalties and new production issues to resolve, and no installed base. 

HUH?
Everything that you might want to send from the PC to the TV is ALREADY compressed and the devices like Apple TV have the necessary hardware to decompress the content in addition to the hardware needed to render the GUI and HTML. And the price include any required IP.
I'm not saying your idea is not possible, just limited, and in the end, no less expensive to build, given the limited size of the potential market. 

Regards
Craig


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