[opendtv] Re: FCC LPTV, Class A CP Proposed Grants Could Impact PSIP

  • From: Albert Manfredi <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 3 Jan 2011 11:56:30 -0500

Craig Birkmaier wrote:
 
> Please explain how legacy ATSC receivers can take advantage of
> these extensions...
 
Please explain how legacy IP devices could be extended to play streaming media, 
or to accept Ethernet over twisted pair vs. the original Ethernet over coax.
 
Answer: sometimes you can get away with just a software update, other times you 
have to go out and buy a whole new PC. Streaming media, for example, would 
barely work on old PCs, and only if the material was audio only, at best. And 
twisted pair Ethernet required new NICs for PCs, at least, and new hubs and 
routers in the network.
 
Please show me, Craig, where IEEE 802 protocols, or IP, or ATSC, either mandate 
or forbid that the equipment running them must or must not be software 
upgradeable. There are no such stipulations. You have created distinctions 
where differences don't exist.
 
> The point is that millions of people were forced t buy ATSC receivers
 
No one forced you to buy a TV, Craig. All the FCC said was, if you buy a TV 
appliance that incorporated a tuner in the past, it must now be ATSC as well as 
NTSC capable. It's obvious why. TV spectrum was going to be yanked away, and 
ATSC was the mechanism to do allow this. And the government did not say whether 
these TV sets and recording devices must be or must not be software upgradeable.
 
> we could have at least based the system on what we knew about digital
> standards. For example, by requiring conformance with the entire MPEG-2
> standard including yet to be created extensions.
 
Oh? You mean, like computers are built to be extensible to all coming Internet 
innovations, or Ethernet innovations, or new codecs? The tell me, how come my 
PCs from the early 2000s cannot keep up with any of the Internet TV streaming 
media sites, Craig? How come the motion always looks jerky, like the processor 
is simply unable to keep up?
 
> Not at all. We saw all this coming and the computers
 
And all along, we knew that new PCs would be needed. Just like we know that to 
implement H.264 or H.265 in ATSC will require transitional STBs, or new TVs and 
recording devices.
 
> But the telcos DID NOT use their copper plants to compete with cable;
 
Yes they did. Verizon used ADSL over voice grade cable to compete with cable 
broadband. Other telcos *also* used their voice grade twisted pair to compete 
with cable TV distribution, via switched IPTV services (Uverse?). As I already 
explained, the telco voice grade copper is very bandwidth limited. compared 
with coax.
 
> FIOS is a cable competitor. Yes, it can deliver high speed broadband
> only, just like a cable system, but first and foremost it is a TV
> service, and you are perhaps fortunate to live in one of the few
> areas of the country where there is a third MVPD option. It is
> unfortunate, however, that this third competitor has done NOTHING
> competitive to help control the cost of MVPD service.
 
But Craig. There's hardly any incentive, until perhaps just this past year, for 
any new entrant to lower its rates significantly, compared with incumbent 
MVPDs. Why should they? As you keep repeating, the overwhelming majority of 
consumers happily cave in to their demands. They'd be stupid to charge much 
less than MVPDs. Telcos are upgrading their plants, but this takes large 
capital expenditure.
 
Bert
                                           
 
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