[opendtv] Re: THE END. [AMPEX] Quantegy asset sale
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 11:29:31 -0500
At 4:27 PM -0500 2/21/08, Manfredi, Albert E wrote:
For upgradeability, which you seem to tout a lot, digital devices,
including computers, become obsolete as fast as analog devices do. If
there's the advantage of some amount of upgradeability via software
updates, that is often trumped by hardware limitations. Like CPU speed,
bus speeds, memory limits, not to mention support for whole new
architectures. Especially so in the trendy sorts of little boxes you
mention so often (game consoles, iPods, etc.), essentially throw-away
items.
Yes, analog still exists in many products. But more and more it is
taking a back seat to digital approaches. For example, most receiver
(demod) chips digitize the analog waveform IMMEDIATELY, then do all
of the required processing in the digital domain. This makes it MUCH
easier for a "software radio" to support multiple modulation
standards.
I think our disagreement has more to do with expectations about the
ability to upgrade devices after they are sold. My experience with
video codecs, for example, is that it is now relatively easy to add
support for new codecs .
It is ALSO my experience - Apple centric as it is - that the need to
upgrade PCs has slowed SIGNIFICANTLY. The marketplace seems to agree
with me, considering the widespread resistance among Microsoft users
to upgrade to Vista.
As I tried to relate in one of the previous messages, CPU performance
is not as critical a factor today, since they are already so
powerful. This is also true for GPUs, which handle many of the video
decoding and display functions. I might also add that these GPUs are
now commonly used in digital TVs and cable/DBS set-top boxes.
Bottom line, I think it is reasonable to predict that we can now make
very sophisticated programmable receivers with PVR functions and the
ability to pull TV content from the Web for less than $300. These
devices should easily handle software upgrades for 3-5 years, perhaps
longer. I don't think that is a huge price to pay for an open
platform that will stimulate innovation, and hopefully allow OTA
broadcasting to thrive once again.
Compare iPods and their 40-year-old predecessors, the cassette deck with
ear plug. Not so different. Yes, the iPod is more convenient, but both
provide you with recorded music-on-the-go and make you feel stylish.
Neither is meant to have a long life span. Their primary missions are
identical.
An interesting comparison. More so than any other format the music
industry pushed, audio cassettes DID allow for music owner to create
their own compilations. In those days it meant you needed a cassette
recorder and a source (another cassette or your turntable). But this
capability was largely lost with the introduction of the Audio CD,
which the music industry believed would be a much more difficult
format to copy. They were correct from a CE perspective, but were
blind-sided when the recordable CD became a staple of personal
computers. Ripping CDs became commonplace, and some people did make
their own compilation discs, however the 650 MB capacity limited the
number of songs you could get on a disc using the Audio CD
compression format.
It was the audio portion of the MPEG-1 video compression standard
that changed this. MP3 allowed the size of an audio file to be
compressed enough to enable folks to carry around very large
libraries of music, which begat the iPOD (which supports MP3 and AAC
and now h.264 video).
There is NO COMPARISON between the audio cassette and iPod in terms
of the user experience.
Cassettes are/were linear, and you needed to search, often for
minutes to find a specific track. There was NO metadata - you had to
write the names of the songs on the case, then FF or rewind to find
stuff. There was no "shuffle" so you could listen to the same
playlist/library in random order.
And cassettes players did not evolve into VHS players, or offer the
ability to view your digital photo collection.
The iPod continues to expand capabilities riding the Moore's Law
curve. Music...photos...games...video...now web surfing (iPod Touch)
and the iPhone.
This is not all about fashion...it is about making your content
accessible anywhere, anytime.
And non-PC-centric systems can be built to be at least as upgradeable as
PCs are. Maybe they won't be "jack-of-all-trades" like PCs are, but
sometimes being "masters of some" is far preferable to "masters of
none." The demise of the HD-DVD being the perfect example. Makes no
difference whether you were playing those on a media center PC or in a
separate HD-DVD player. Either way, you have to switch out the hardware.
Why switch out anything? Both the players and the drives still work.
The ONLY thing that has changed is that you will not be able to buy
pre-recorded titles for these devices.
I agree that all kinds of "embedded systems" can be developed using
the same core technologies. I MOST DEFINATELY DO NOT want to hook up
a PC to my TV. But I do expect that there will be all kinds of
products to hook up to a TV that will compete with the purpose built
devices the CE industry has been pushing for decades. It remains to
be seen if Apple TV will be successful in this new market space. I
strongly believe it will, because of the ecosystem that Apple has
built around it, the iPods and the iPhone.
In short, it's all a matter of perspective.
You keep repeating this.
Try looking at the world through the eyes of someone who is a
teenager or in college. I think you will find that they have a
completely different perspective than yours.
THESE are the new consumers that are driving the market. My soon to
be 22 year old daughter and her boyfriend (both in college) have a
65" DLP RPTV, HD Cox cable and PVR, and a PS3 in their apartment. And
she has a 32" LCD panel TV in the bedroom.
By the way, her boyfriend bought the old 4:3 HDTV to use with a PS2
or Xbox - it is still working in his room at his parents house, where
he rarely hangs out these days.
;-)
Regards
Craig
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