[opendtv] Re: Mortgage stuff
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2008 08:55:34 -0400
At 7:18 PM -0400 3/18/08, Manfredi, Albert E wrote:
The IETF membership is similarly vendors and service providers, each
with their agendas.
This is true for any industry and the standards organizations that
serve it. That was not my point.
Most industries are not able to get the government to appoint a blue
ribbon committee to create a standard, and then have the government
mandate that standard in a consumer electronics product that almost
everyone is expected to buy.
What better way to create long term cash flows than to get the
government to let your industry create a standard, then issue
a mandate to deploy this standard in every new TV.
When necessary, the govt does the same thing with the Internet
Protocols. See, for example,
http://www.antd.nist.gov/usgv6-v1-draft.pdf
which specifies the IPv6 mandates for govt networks. (This is an opus
still in progress.)
There is a huge difference between the government mandating the
design of products that you and I may buy, versus the government
acting as a large customer of a technology. I have no problem with
the government behaving like any other customer in an open
marketplace. I do have problems when the government tells me that I
have to buy something I don't want or need to get a product that i do
want.
The govt is the spectrum administrator, so it is well within its purview
to specify what slices get used by what services, and how
interoperability is to be achieved.
While this is certainly a "right" that they exercise, it is less
certain that they do a good job as the spectrum administrator. There
have been MANY groups that have analyzed the proper way to allocate
scarce spectrum resources. The prevailing view is that the FCC is an
archaic bureaucracy that is doing a very poor job, and that the
marketplace would do a far better job of allocating these resources.
There have been many groups and even politicians, who in recent years
have suggested that the FCC has outlived its purpose and should be
"de-commissioned." This is not to say that there is no need for some
of the things that the FCC is doing today, only that the industries
using spectrum resources could do these jobs far more efficiently. Of
greater importance, with a market driven approach to spectrum
allocation you would not see a huge chunk of the most valuable
spectrum assigned to applications that only a small percentage of the
population uses. Nor would it take decades to find spectrum for
applications that the public would use.
The current auction driven model for spectrum allocation is also
seriously flawed, as it amounts to little more than indirect taxation
- the successful bidders must either tie up huge amounts of working
capital or borrow money for the spectrum, then the consumers get
stuck with the bill. The government gets a large chunk of cash to
SPEND up front, and the cost of the service is encumbered for decades
to pay for new government largesse.
True enough, if people let themselves get suckered into proprietary,
incompatible systems, at extra cost to themselves, the govt should not
prevent that. However, **whether you like it or not**, the govts of this
and other countries have seen a greater benefit to come from providing
the FOTA TV and radio services, compatible with all TV and radio
receivers. And as long as they are the spectrum managers, they have the
responsibility to establish interoperable standards.
Responsibility? I'd call it irresponsible, and propaganda. The
politicians understand the value in having tight coupling between the
government and the organizations that use the spectrum to deliver the
kool-aid. Funny how it is that all it takes is the incessant drumbeat
of the mass media to affect consumer attitudes about things like the
economy. We now have the most medicated population in the history of
the world thanks to the collaboration of the pharmaceutical industry
and the politicians, and the mass media to push the drugs...
That's simply lack of understanding. How do you think IP packets are
carried over ANY OTHER media? They are always layered over some L2 (Link
Layer) network structure. MPEG-2 TS is the L2 structure used for many
radio and satellite RF links. Whether you think you need an IP layer
over that is another matter. In this case, since the signal is
BROADCAST, the IP layer gives no added functionality. Just takes up more
overhead. Adding the IP overhead might give the advantage of an
interface with upper layer applications which expect an IP layer below
them. That's all.
Yes Bert, we all understand this. That's why there are standards with
direct mappings of IP packets into the MPEG Transport stream (MPEG
Systems). You don't need another standard that requires you to use a
less efficient mapping and the use of additional intellectual
property in order to deliver IP packets using the designated link
layer.
Even if you encapsulate H.262 or H.264 compressed frames in an IP
packet, e.g. for IPTV, does that mean you don't owe royalties to MPEG?
That's not the point. The point is that you are paying to use MPEG
Systems (TS) and A-90 forces you to reduce efficiency and pay
additional royalties for something that is redundant.
You are wrong. I already posted the HD modes used by the French TF1
network. They include 1080 at 60i.
Great! There is no reason for a modern display not to be able to
support virtually any frame rate and raster size. But this does not
change the reality that we are NOT moving toward global standards for
OTA transmission and receivers.
And yes, it is getting easier and easier for PROGRAMMABLE hardware
to emulate multiple standards. This will not prevent the promulgation
of regional standards,
What you are missing is that new TVs and PVR are run by CPUs. The
programs running these CPUs can be updated in principle, and some are
upgradeable in practice. I can upgrade my old and new Philips DVDRs/PVR,
for example. The programs are stored in flash. The ONLY consideration
there is whether the manufacturer sees any advantage to this.
Not the only consideration. The question is whether these upgrades
can deliver anything new in terms of applications and services. Your
Philips DVDR is never going to support h.264, but they may be able to
provide updates that will make the arcane menuing system less obscure.
For example, Apple and its little toys. Should they be considered
throw-away? Many times, the answer is yes.
Funny you should mention this. I know of no company that has done
more to protect the investment in their products by delivering viable
migration paths when it is necessary to go though fundamental changes
in the platform. And I have seen REAL benefits in improved
functionality for most of the toys I have purchased from Apple - even
my iPOD mini. But this pales in comparison to the potential for new
devices like the iPhone and iPOD Touch. Both have seen MAJOR upgrades
in functionality, thanks to the fact that they are built atop a
powerful computing platform that can support new applications and
services.
Regards
Craig
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