[opendtv] Re: Post on alt.tv.tech.hdtv of interest today
- From: Bob Miller <bob@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 07 Apr 2005 01:02:58 -0400
I don't know Pat but others from Harmonic and MPEGIF have contacted me
the last few days on the subject.
A note on conversations I am having. Everybody wants receiver standards
and or to be able to use COFDM and MPEG4. Virtual consensus. But
everyone is still afraid to raise their hand unless everyone else does.
No one wants to be tarred and feathered like Sinclair.
Congress therefore thinks broadcasters are happy with what they have.
Actually broadcasters seem to be just scared s**tless of Congress just
as they were in 2000. Maybe they should be.
But am making progress.
Worries are the same as five years ago.
If they talk modulation they get hit with charge of delaying the
transition. I think the delay is 8-VSB and the solutions is anything but.
They say that in the asking for MPEG4 they risk Congress taking back
spectrum because they don't need so much. That was true for MPEG2 also.
And I don't think there is much risk of Congress wanting to go that far.
They just want to get the transition over with and MPEG4 could help. And
the Congress we have today is not the one we had in 2000 nor do they
seem to see the issues that same and there are new dogs in this fight
who have new ideas, want the transition over with and have the means and
money to fight.
And each broadcaster has at least one other problem. But this can be
done, at least real hearings on real problems.
One thing I have suggested. If MPEG4 was allowed obviously all current
receivers become obsolete so we could then talk modulation. If COFDM and
MPEG4 both were adopted the US could do what Australia is doing,
multicast SD and HD versions of the same content. OZ was criticized for
doing this because it is inherently inefficient.
The thing is that the multicast with MPEG4 would be more efficient than
the current MPEG2 HDTV single cast. That is the SD and HD multicast
would take up no more room and most likely much less room than the one
HD signal does with MPEG2 and offer better quality and more headroom at
the same time.
And if we did COFDM and MPEG4 and multicasting of an SD and HD of same
content we could use very inexpensive COFDM SD receivers as the
converter boxes the House is talking about. Right now in quantity those
COFDM converter boxes would cost something less than the $50 retail
price of some SD boxes in the UK. France has $70 retail price SD COFDM
STB's for sale days after they started broadcasting COFDM SD. Who knows
how cheap they will get over the next year or so.
Least expensive HD COFDM receivers would not be that much more
expensive. Probably for as little as $100 to $120 retail.
And over some period of time we could probably more easily retire the
"same program" multicast idea than we are now retiring NTSC. And over
that same period of time MPEG4 will mature into a codec capable of 4
times that of MPEG2. (got that from Harmonic a while back)
The cost of 10 million SD COFDM converters being contemplated in
Congress would be about one third the cost of the contemplated LG
promise of $100 8-VSB converters in 2007. If we can even rely on a
company, LG, that just dropped out of the STB 8-VSB market altogether to
make any such converter. Maybe in fact LG would be more happy making
COFDM converters since they are happier making COFDM HD boxes for OZ
while dropping 8-VSB receivers in the US. Could we hope for such logic
to prevail?
Today not 2007 you could most likely buy 10 million COFDM converters for
$35 each or is it possible even less? That would make Congress's
subsidized program cost a lot less. 10 million at $100 is $1 billion
after all while 10 million at $35 is $350 million. And Congress would
not have to send a installation technician with a rotorized 30 foot
antenna along with those $35 COFDM converters like the would have to
with those $100 LG converters.
Of course that would be a perfect post Iraq contract for Haliburton. The
LG converter antenna installation contract that is.
Bob Miller
Ron Economos wrote:
>The ATSC TSG/S6 group is actively working on
>H.264 and VC-1. Maybe you should contact
>Pat Wadell of Harmonic/Divicom to avoid duplicated
>efforts?
>
>Ron
>
>Bob Miller wrote:
>
>
>
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