[opendtv] Re: News: DTV Boxes Could Cost $1 Billion

  • From: Bob Miller <bob@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 27 Jul 2004 18:28:34 -0400

Manfredi, Albert E wrote:

>John Golitsis wrote:
>
>  
>
>>Are you going to resurrect this point and your position when
>>the performance
>>of 7th generation chipsets trounce this 5th generation?
>>    
>>
>
>Yes, that is the question to ask.
>
>The simple fact is, no apologies need to be made for choosing
>this 8-VSB scheme *for OTA DTV*. This isn't cellular or
>microcellular technology here, where range is always short,
>and power always ample for the range to be covered.
>
>The FCC knew this back in 2001, when they had to make a
>decision. And they saw how much improvement there had
>been from 1st to 2nd gen receivers. So they made a decision
>to stay the course, which turned out to be the right one.
>
>We could go on wasting money with comparison tests, but
>surely it must have occurred to some folk that John's
>question above might come to haunt them?
>
>Bert
>
The fact that in the middle of 2004 we finally have an adequate 8-VSB 
receiver that will be available by 1/1/2005 doesn't make the decision to 
stay the course in 1/1/2001 the correct one. We still will be saddled 
with a modulation that is far behind COFDM and that hasn't and never 
will have the advantage of the world scale that COFDM will have.

The decision taken then was the wrong one and it will forever have been 
the wrong one. We have wasted five years, it is as simple as that.

And I suggest that the cost to the US in many other ways will be high. 
In retrospect this will be seen as a turning point in how others see us 
technologically. The danger that Congress saw from the HDTV technology 
that the Japanese demonstrated to them so many years ago that started 
our HDTV adventure has now been realized in the US being stuck in a 
technology backwater.

The results from the test we did in New York, with the receiver I am now 
using to watch HD, were amazing ONLY in relation to how bad all previous 
8-VSB receivers were. It came as a surprise only because we were waiting 
for something less, sometime in an indefinite future, from Linx. It is 
amazing because it works and will ensure the success of the DTV 
transition in the US. It is wonderful in that if COFDM didn't exist this 
5th generation receiver first tested by Sinclair would represent a 
seminal event in the history of OTA Television. A birth after sixty 
years of labor.

We can now expect higher sales of this receiver (percentage wise) in the 
US than sales of COFDM receivers in the UK or Berlin. That means 3 
million sold in the fourth quarter of 2005 and more than 12 million in 
the year 2006. Offers of free receivers will appear in the coming year. 
The cost of an 8-VSB receiver from USDTV with subscription is already 
down to $19.95.

If you remember we proposed to Congress that if COFDM were allowed in 
the US in 2000 we would offer free COFDM receivers then. It will happen 
with 8-VSB now. Unfortunately five years later. And you call that the 
right decision?

8-SVB in no way is worthy of sharing the same planet with COFDM.
 
 
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