[opendtv] DEA-what? was: Re: Re: News: DIRECTV Sued Over HDTV Picture Quality
- From: Kon Wilms <kon@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2006 09:43:33 -0700
On Thu, 2006-09-21 at 11:35 -0400, Manfredi, Albert E wrote:
> Craig Birkmaier wrote:
>
> > In either case, ATSC is irrelevant.
>
> The beauty of this tid-bit:
>
> John Shutt wrote:
>
> > Let's hope 8-VSB is receivable. The Department of Homeland Security
> > and FEMA has bet our safety on it.
> >
> > http://www.apts.org/news/deas.cfm
>
> is that ATSC cannot become irrelevant. That's only to the good.
Are you kidding me.
KET and NDS pioneered this almost 8 years ago. Ready for deployment -
before 9/11.
Stupidly enough I pushed ahead with this at LI - we put a custom
emergency STB in FEMA's hands 2 years ago and they didn't know what to
do with it - before Katrina. A STB so simple that all it required was an
ATSC or DVB input and a connection to a TV w/o remote, and incoming data
would be displayed on screen (text, images, whatever) while an on-disk
mapping server would zoom and overlay data on a map in realtime.
I sat on the committee that penned the spec for the XML communication
format being used by DEAS (CAP and EDXL). At first this system was
extremely efficient and lightweight. The latest incarnations are at a
point where you look at the spec and your jaw drops. Instead of using a
data network to transport the data the spec calls for files to be
inserted *into* the XML document. *XML is being used as the transport*.
If this isn't insanity then I don't know what is. And I don't joke when
I say that there was an ongoing thread about how feasible it would be to
carry *streaming* media such as video inside these XML files. Cries of
'by the time your receiver gets the 200mb XML file containing the video
clip of the disaster planning route, everyone will be dead' were met
with comments along the line of 'but bandwidth is not an issue'.
I stepped off this committee after these types of 'events':
- committee member hiding (throwing in the trash) all my business cards
to make it difficult for me to get contacts after a really large
inter-agency demo
- committee members calling me up under the auspices of 'lets co-operate
on this here demo', the real reason being 'send us your system specs so
we can rip it off'. Which they did.
Do you see where this is headed?
Now turn stage left to look at systems like EMWIN. The latest generation
did not move to DVB and IP datacasting as you think it would logically
have done. No, it moved to 14.4k proprietary modulation (up from 9.6),
and initial devices were science-fair rigged *using a PC SOUNDCARD*. The
encapsulation method is so rudimentary it is not even worth explaining,
besides the fact that it is a primitive carousel with insanely small
blocks, and *uses XOR for encryption*. No no, I am not kidding.
Complaints from many users of this system that the switch should be to
DVB were met with.. you guessed it.. outrage (this after EMWIN people
asked the 'industry' for input).
And then there is the EAS brigade. We could not promote or advance any
DEAS technology for almost 2-3 years because it hurt their feelings. 'Do
not actively promote this system because the EAS community will move
against you politically' was the repeated message. How absurd is that?
Dinosaurs need to move aside.
And last but not least the objections from the ATSC itself when we first
had this system up and running, that the entire system would be
steamrolled politically in the industry unless we fully supported A/92
SAP announcements, which itself is a joke. If you're reading this, you
know who you are.
The government has dragged their feet until now. They are flip-flopping
and wishy washy in their 'decisions'. That combined with the fact that
everyone and their brother has a 'solution' (most of which are just
plain crap - sorry I see no reason to butter this up), and no-one works
together (its more of a let me stick a knife in your back so I can get
ahead game).
I can't tell you how many 'demos' I have been to on this under various
committees and companies which have centered around the 'funding is
coming any day', just come do this demo for <insert name of political
figure> and just turn out to be a back-stab and/or grab for some
political clout.
In fact, a certain someone shown on a certain URL you posted used the
first system I mentioned to get this entire DEAS initiative rolling
(even taking powerpoints and network diagrams and 'replacing' names and
logos on them), then buddied up with a competitor that actually had
nothing more than some amateur hour file delivery system. I recall a
demo for FEMA where instead of showing a system that had realtime
mapping overlay, streaming, EMWIN integration and other features - an
amateur hour file delivery system with a couple files arriving in a
windows explorer folder was shown instead. Awesome demo - not. How's
that for thanks and government efficiency. Your tax dollars and
corporate coffers at work.
If you think this will actually roll out before they pull their heads
out of the sand and ATSC becomes irrelevant then you sir are seriously
dreaming. Either that or all the suckers building systems for this
network will be bankrupt (and there are some for which I hope this does
not happen).
The modulation choice for this 'system' is a joke - cellular with
multicast or other data-network overlay is the natural choice here
people. SMS and J2ME cross-platform data receiver applications. Data
pulled from a government/local hub to the cellular hub for distribution.
Redundant links and load balancing (already exist). A cheap cell with
USB interface to a display device as a 'PC/STB' receiver and parser of
these alerts using host-side mapping and other applications to improve
the visual experience from the raw data. Done and done.
Remember FEMA's Brownie? Whenever I see him in the press I cannot stop
laughing. If we ever have another 'terrorist' act in this country, we
are sorely doomed on this alerting front.
Cheers
Kon
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