Re: FCC Orders All TV's To Have Digital Tuners By 2007

[dan.strassberg@att.net]

The issue is quite complex. Garrett brought up the part 
that relates to royalties on patents and the effect 
those royalties will have on the cost of DTV receivers.

But there are a couple of other things to think about. 
For example the only FCC-approved over-the-air 
transmission system, 8VSB, has never been shown to 
produce adequate reception in built-up areas where most 
residents have no way of installing rooftop antennas on 
tall masts. The Eurpoean DVB digital-TV system, which 
has been a technical success, though a commercial 
failure, uses a scheme called OFDM. OFDM is not subject 
to the reception problems of 8VSB but 8VSB proponents 
claim that OFDM requires higher-powered transmitters, 
which would be totally incompatible with the allocation 
plan that was worked out for 8VSB.

Meanwhile, 70% of the American public gets its TV 
signals via cable or from direct-broadcast satellites. 
Despite the fact that I have neither cable nor satellite 
TV myself, I have maintained for over a year now that 
over-the-air TV in the US is dead and that the only 
people who don't seem to realize that it is dead are the 
over-the-air TV broadcasters.

You don't need a receiver that can decode 8VSB to get 
HDTV from cable, because, as I understand it, the cable 
industry has not adopted the NTSC's recommended cable 
standard--16VSB. The idea behind 16VSB is that it is 
similar enough to 8VSB that it would cost little extra 
to build receivers that could decode both types of VSB 
signals. But the cable industry has been pushing for a 
different modulation scheme--64QAM, I think.

Why should Americans be required to spend $250 extra for 
each TV receiver they buy so that they can get receivers 
that fail to get a viewable picture from terrestrial TV 
stations the set owners will never try to receive over 
the air? And all this for the purpose of enriching TV-
set manufacturers located where--Korea? Malasia? This 
isn't even a give-away to American companies, for 
Heaven's sake. But the trade organizations that pushed 
the whole concept through Congress and the FCC--_they_ 
ARE American.

The US government has been accused of doing a lot of 
dumb things, and maybe, in the overall scheme of things, 
this digital TV fiasco isn't one of the dumber things. 
But it sure seems to me to be one of the dumbest ideas 
ever to emanante from the world's most inept regulatory 
body (the FCC, if I haven't made myself clear).

--
dan.strassberg@att.net
617-558-4205
eFax 707-215-6367

> Assuming that digital TV is beneficial to the industry, and I happen to 
> believe DTV will ultimately prove to be a pretty damn cool thing....then 
> JP's view is a remarkably short-sighted view of the process.  Did the 
> public want to pay extra for catalytic converters in their cars?  No, 
> probably not...but it's a damn good thing they're mandatory - they make the 
> inherently "dirty" internal-combustion process at least somewhat cleaner.