[opendtv] Re: Bob likes COFDM

  • From: Eory Frank-p22212 <Frank.Eory@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "'opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx'" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 11:45:44 -0700

>I don't know how hard they're working on it, but the non-LG receiver 
>with 5th-generation LG chip that was tested recently at my apartment 
>performed worse than 2nd-generation models.  In 2005, almost nine years 
>after the first DTT stations went on the air in the U.S., that seems 
>pretty junky.
>
>TTFN,
>Mark

As I once posted a long time ago, Generation "N" just means "newer than 
generation N-1." Newer doesn't necessarily mean better...just newer.

>>John Golitsis wrote:

>>I'm curious to know where all these "junk" receivers are going to come from?  
>>In 
>>your opinion, is someone offering a product today that would fit into that 
>>category?  Perhaps engineers are hard at work today trying to create "junk"?

I don't think "hard at work" is the right phrase, since the recipe for making a 
basic, bare-bones ATSC receiver is well-known in the industry. The real 
questions are market-driven. How much will the average consumer, who doesn't 
need and will not use terrestrial reception, pay for a government-mandated 
feature in his new TV set? If the answer is "approximately $0" then you have 
pretty well defined the engineering parameters for the design of that feature.

The problem the TV mfrs have is that this low-value feature is a required part 
of their high-end product today, and reputations, customer returns, etc. are 
real issues. Some percentage of consumers will actually try to use off-air 
reception, even if the majority do not. So far TV mfrs have mostly tried to buy 
"good" 8VSB (to the extent that there is such a thing!) and hide the cost of 
the tuner mandate by adding other features to those sets -- so that apples to 
apples price comparisons (same set with or without ATSC tuner/decoder) are 
difficult to make.

I stated years ago that I thought there would be a market (albeit a small one) 
for high-performance 8VSB receivers, driven by a class of OTA viewers who will 
pay for performance, and who will hire a professional to work out antenna 
selection and installation, preamp vs. no preamp, etc. If someone makes the 
'golden chip' at whatever price, I'm sure there are companies that will make 
those niche market high-performance receivers. Just like there are companies 
that make (and sell low volumes of) ridiculously expensive audio systems.

-- Frank
 
 
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