[opendtv] Re: Mortgage stuff
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2008 08:15:48 -0400
At 2:52 PM -0400 3/19/08, Manfredi, Albert E wrote:
Craig Birkmaier wrote:
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.
Yes, I agree that there is a difference when the govt is the customer.
But you seem to miss continuously that the govt *is* responsible when it
becomes the manager of a resource.
Sorry, I don't buy this. That's tantamount to saying that the
government is responsible when a tree is cut down on leased land in a
National Forest or a lease to an industry to extract minerals or oil
from Federal lands.
For virtually ALL new spectrum grants/auctions, the FCC has placed no
restrictions, or only minimal restrictions on how the spectrum is to
be used.
Is the FCC telling DirecTV and Dish Netowrks how to build DBS receivers?
Is the FCC telling the cable industry how to build STBs? And yes the
FCC has been trying unsuccessfully for more than a decade to get the
cable industry to open up the market for these boxes.
Is the FCC telling the telcos that they must use GSM or CDMA or TDMA?
- They DID place a requirement on the C-block of spectrum just
auctioned, requiring the operators to allow any device to attach to
new networks in this spectrum.
The REALITY BERT is that the only spectrum that the FCC has set
standards for device attachment is FTA radio and TV, and this has not
always been successful - e.g. AM Stereo.
Why are the politicians and regulators so concerned about controlling
the standards for these services.
Please don't try to convince us that this an altruistic attempt to
assure interoperability. It IS an effort to assure the politicians
that they have a medium to promote their agendas to virtually 100% of
the population. It IS an effort to have a degree of control over the
operators in this medium. And it IS an easy way to help fund
campaigns - "so you want us to let you set a standard, and then
mandate that everyone use it."
Sorry Bert, but your arguments are rather hollow...
Furthermore, FCC is not telling you to buy an integrated set. The reason
you can only find integrated sets, as I already predicted eons ago (and
of course you didn't believe me then either), is that the cost/price of
adding the ATSC/cable receiver is minimal, and that given this fact,
might as well market only integrated models. And most consumers probably
prefer it that way. Only you, and a few others, are happy to be charged
on a monthly basis for the privilege of using unnecessary proprietary
receivers.
Sorry Bert, but the FCC DID mandate ATSC receivers in any device that
can receive FTA broadcasts; integrated TVs, STBs, DVRs et al. The
companies building TV have no choice in this - they are trying to
sell new TVs.
Why are there so few full featured ATSC STBs and DVRs on store
shelves? Because the market for these devices is so small. So you are
correct, the FCC cannot force you or I to buy something, but they CAN
dictate design features in these devices. Then it is up to the
marketplace to decide.
MOST of the marketplace has decided that FTA TV is NOT what they want.
If youy understood, you would have seen that layering IP over MPEG-2 TS
is simply adding unnecessary overhead. And by the way, please show me
where IP by itself has any notion of synchronous delivery of packets, as
MPEG-2 TS does.
Give it up Bert. You are losing this one.
1. If you want to get IP packets into an ATSC receiver, you have NO
CHOICE but to encapsulate them into the MPEG-2 TS. Ther is no other
transport.
YOU are making the assumption that these packets contain synchronous
video. A-90 assumes that the purpose of a data broadcast standard is
to deliver something OTHER than MPEG-2 video, for which there is
already support.
YOU suggested that A-90 can be used to build new services that can be
delivered via the ATSC standard. But A-90 requires additional
encapsulation of IP packets BEFORE they can be carried via MPEG-2 TS.
This is a contributing factor to why A-90 has not been used to
develop any new services. That being said, there are many reasons why
data broadcasting has not become a viable market - the most important
being that you cannot reliably deliver data to things that move with
8-VSB.
How much can be upgraded is purely a matter of the appliance, and
NOTHING TO DO with whether it's an Internet appliance or a TV appliance.
That was my only point. There's no reason at all why the Philips
DVDR/PVR can't be updated to H.264, assuming its CPU is fast enough.
Bad assumption.
Regards
Craig
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