[opendtv] Re: Why can't we get the story straight?
- From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "OpenDTV (E-mail)" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 18:55:36 -0500
My personal take on the govt interest in the DTV
transition is that the most legitimate govt interest
is the one that emerged after 1991: i.e., the reduction
of spectrum which needed to be dedicated to a viable
OTA TV system. As long as retaining OTA TV is the
policy, then the transition to DTT is justified.
But of course cable is out of scope of this govt
policy, so they transition for their own interests.
Craig Birkmaier wrote:
> You might want to consider how 16VSB came about -
> this modulation standard was developed specifically
> for cable as a way to develop dual DTTB/Cable
> receivers.
Yes. That was described clearly in an article in the
August 1994 issue of the IEEE Transactions on
Consumer Electronics, by Robert Hopkins. According to
this article, in January of 1994 the Grand Alliance
tested 8-VSB against 32-QAM for OTA use, and 16-VSB
against 256-QAM for cable use. For reasons that have
been stated on here many times, mostly that the VSB
receivers had the better equalizers, n-VSB won out.
> The cable industry said thanks, but no thanks,
> there are more efficient and cheaper technologies
> for the protected spectrum of a cable system.
Cheaper, maybe yes, for royalty reasons. More
efficient? Both 256-QAM and 16-VSB can fit 38.8 Mb/s
in the 6 MHz cable channels. At the time, cable
systems were just starting to deploy 64-QAM, so the
only objection must have been royalty payments, not
by any means "efficiency."
In any event, as soon as Broadcom and others came
out with combination 8-VSB and QAM tuner chips, ca.
2000, the whole cable modulation issue became a
non-issue. Both physical layers were now compatible
with ATSC receivers. Case closed.
> As i have been arguing with Bert for some time now,
> the NTSC model, with big high powered sticks,
> leaves vast geographic areas where the spectrum
> cannot be re-used because of potential interference
> between markets. This fact is perceived as a huge
> BENEFIT by broadcasters, as it limits competition
> (from potential new broadcasters).
I still think you're missing the big picture, but
never mind for now.
The important point is that you're jumping from one
discussion to another. The DTT transition is of
interest to the govt TODAY for perfectly legitimate
reasons. If *broadcasters* aren't too excited about
it, it might very well be for the reason you say.
With DTT in place and NTSC off the air, more OTA
broadcasters could take to the airwaves. So even if
broadcasters fear this, from my own point of view,
and that of any TV consumer out there, the FCC
efforts to speed the transition along should be
welcomed. So I completely fail to understand why
you oppose sensible ideas such as the Ferree plan.
And by the way, the existing FCC ownership cap rules
for local markets will encourage this, because they
prevent the four major networks from buying up any
other local stations unless at least eight stations
exist in that market.
> European interests settled on the embrace and
> kill strategy. "We'll do our own HDTV system thank
> you very much." They did, they "proved" that there
> was no market for it, and they killed HD in Europe
> for another decade.
>
> Much the same was expected in the U.S.
Perhaps by you. Not by me. The Japanese and Euro HD
systems were not meant to be a new standard to
replace all TV broadcasting, and to offer higher
quality image potential much as FM radio did for
audio (i.e. quality limited only by each
*receiver*, not by the transmitted signal). Instead,
MUSE and HD-MAC were meant to be parallel TV
systems, coexisting with standard TV, luxury systems
only. I think that was their problem. They depended
on immediate purchase of expensive sets to be viable.
And I think that no matter what motivations
broadcasters might have had to support HD, e.g.
squatting on spectrum as you suggest, history is
proving that HD for the masses can be a commercial
hit, *if* it's done right.
I think the longer we delay NTSC shutoff, or the
longer broadcasters fail to offer anything other
than HD as the difference between their NTSC and
their ATSC signals, the more likely it will be
for ATSC to suffer the same end as HD-MAC. It must
not be seen as *only* an HD outlet.
Bert
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