ATSC certainly is neither closed door nor is it anything but consensus driven. The question is more a question of who is involved (and when), and whether those with "direct and material interest" are taking their seat at the table t0o drive the required consensus. I suggest that most Broadcasters never took their seat at the table when it mattered most (by and large thinking their interests were being looked after by others). They are paying for that now.
At the same time, Broadcasters are NOW at the table, and for that reason, I believe ATSC Mobile DTV WILL be a success.
On 2/3/2009 1:42 PM, Manfredi, Albert E wrote:
Craig Birkmaier wrote:HUGE DIFFERRENCE! The ATSC process was closed to paying members and operated without the benefit of any real FCC oversight. It was driven by the desire to protect the TV industry from the obvious competitive impact of emerging technologies. Many WRONG decisions were made that still need to be corrected. The IETF operates in a far different fashion, via consensus, not closed door meetings.Okay, I will grant that this is a huge difference, if the ATSC is closed door and does not depend on consensus. Whether FCC oversight should be part of the equation is another matter, though. I don't think it should. If FCC staffers want to participate in the ATSC as individuals, though, that should be just fine, IMO.And they typically codify existing practices that have become defacto standards, rather than trying to control the direction of new technology. And most important, they have never gone to the politicians to MANDATE any technologies and force them upon consumers...No doubt, you're referring to 8-VSB and MPEG-2. Yeah, I sort of agree. Although TV was an established service that everyone already depended on, back in 1991, whereas the Internet grew out of nothing. The situation now is not so different, though. You won't see any rapid migration away from Ethernet, for instance, or even from IPv4, because the Internet has become something that households depend on. There would be a huge backlash if someone tried to make all PCs and networks obsolete overnight.And predictably, the ATSC standard is now largely becoming irrelevant as is TV broadcasting in the U.S.(It's very relevant to me. It's the only way I get TV, aside from low-bandwidth, low-quality Internet TV.) I doubt ATSC has much to do with this "relevance." I think the problem is that even before talk about DTT started anywhere, i.e. even before 1991, the US was being cabled up for subscription TV. I don't think that DTT usage is limited in the US *by* the ATSC standard. More like, people are willing to spend the money for MVPD dependency. And MVPDs use other (very similar) protocols in their walled gardens. I think where you come from is that ATSC might be preventing the TV frequency bands from being grabbed by other, competing interests, that have nothing to do with TV distribution. Bert----------------------------------------------------------------------You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways:- Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at FreeLists.org- By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line.
-- Regards, Mark A. Aitken Director, Advanced Technology =================================== "What you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are standing; it also depends on what kind of a person you are"
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