[opendtv] Re: Let them eat cake (and ATSC while they're at it)
- From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "OpenDTV (E-mail)" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 15 May 2005 18:35:18 -0400
Bob Miller wrote:
> > Matter of fact, the lower power of Euro TV, especially
> > in countries like the UK, France, and Italy, where 10s
> > of KW are all you're going to get for UHF TV, creates
> > a whole business segment that we don't have here.
> > Antenna installers.
>
> 8-VSB with current receivers needs antennas at any power
> level.
Bob, this constant overstatement does not help your cause.
> The fact that we don't have a viable antenna installer
> business only attest to the failure of 8-VSB in the US.
No, it attests if anything to a failure in OTA TV. Antenna
installers, or "antennisti" as they're called in Italy,
have had to exist originally for PAL. Over here, unless
your apartment complex happens to have a central antenna
system, it's typically up to each homeowner to figure it
out. And usually they can, if they're so inclined.
All I'm saying is that you're making a far bigger deal of
this antenna business than reality supports. The supposed
ease of reception, with multiple low-powered repeaters, is
mostly propaganda. It's a lot more interesting to talk
about REAL WORLD problems and REAL WORLD solutions than to
be subjected to constant propaganda. For example, I'm a
lot more interested in hearing how people truly deal with
TV reception around the world than to hear BS nonsense
about how easy it supposedly is. It ain't anything like
the propagandists on this list have been saying.
> > So now, in her condo, they are debating whether to
> > install a central antenna system. And yet they are
> > only a few miles from the repeaters that feed the
> > North part of Rome.
>
> Yet they are considering a central antenna. Sounds like
> a few more may take up TV or DTV now that they have
> approved funding for an additional 1.4 million receivers
> at a subsidy of 70 Euros.
No doubt there might be some converts to OTA if the
central antenna is finally installed. But the interesting
thing is, but I have to verify this, that would be a
requirement by law. FOTA TV reception is supposed to be
provided, and her condo does not permit individual roof
antennas for each apartment. So installing the central
system is, she tells me, mandatory, or risk a fine.
> France will begin a subscription service using MPEG4
> and COFDM. This one I am very interested in.
Again, you're overstating how cool this is.
The H.264 codec is *only* used for HD in France. Which
means that in *practice*, confound it Bob, you're not
hardly gaining anything.
What's so interesting about a scheme that forces the
simulcast of HD and SD, just so lower cost receivers get
service? The simulcast takes up almost *exactly* as much
room as the single MPEG-2 HD broadcast, and sometimes
takes up more spectrum.
At the same time, there's nothing to say ATSC can't
introduce H.264. It's just another transition, though,
and not required for HD over here.
Bert
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