Mark's Monday memo:
digitaltelevision.com
- Follow-ups:
- Sinclair and the "magic" or "miracle" decoder chips - According
to sources at Sinclair, neither Motorola nor NxtWave has yet provided a
receiver for (nor even scheduled) testing in Baltimore.
By the way, I may have mischaracterized Conextant's chip last week
based on the reference to 8-VSB and COFDM in their press release. It
does MPEG-2 decoding but requires demodulation of 8-VSB or COFDM RF
signals prior to the chip.
- Sinclair's petition - Pappas Telecasting is not waiting for tests
of the "magic" chips. They announced Thursday that they "will be
joining with other broadcasters in filings with the FCC and with the
relevant committees of the US Senate and the US House of Representatives
to inform them of the serious failings of one aspect [modulation] of the
DTV transmission system adopted by the Advanced Television Systems
Committee ("ATSC") and subsequently by the FCC in December 1997." [much
deleted]
"Recent announcements of "miracle equalizer chips" claim to solve
the problems with 8VSB seen in the Baltimore tests. However, to the
best of our knowledge, these 8VSB receiver chips have yet to be
incorporated in any set-top receivers, or even to be tested under
real-life conditions. Common sense would also tell us that similar
improvements are likely to be made in COFDM technology, so that the
performance advantage of COFDM may well be maintained."
It is likely that Sinclair will not wait much longer, either.
Sinclair will hold a satellite videoconference on the DTV reception
issue October 7th, 2:00-4:00 PM (ET) on Telstar 4, Transponder 17
(4040MHz), 6.8/6.2 audio, from its WBFF studios. "Intention is to
inform interested parties of the results of the Baltimore tests and
[Sinclair Broadcasting Group's] intention to file FCC petition the
following day. Other interested parties are expected to join Sinclair
petition and/or file own petitions." There will also be a webcast
(http://www. sbgi.net/dtv).
- DTV and birds - Today's "Science" section of The New York Times
reiterates the American Ornithological Union's concerns, expressed at a
conference at Cornell University, about the effects of DTV transmission
towers on the flight paths of birds.
- U S West's 270 Mbps HDTV -
- Yesterday's Television Digest characterized it as
"uncompressed HDTV at up to 270 Mbps," VERY impressive considering that
SMPTE's serial-digital version is roughly 1.5 Gbps (there are 1,000 Mbps
per Gbps). Does anyone else remember when Vyvx called 45 Mbps video
uncompressed?
- KIRO-TV, the U S West recipient, reported that the
"uncompressed HDTV" was actually 16:9 Rec. 601 SDTV, upconverted at the
station. Oh, well.
- 2006 - Gabriel Baltaian of ABC sent me the following: "I have
been predicting for a couple of years now that NTSC will be dead as a
doornail within 18-24 months of the arrival of the paperless office."
- Sega Dreamcast - 514,000 consoles sold in the U.S. in two weeks,
according to the company.
- Joke time: "SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 27, 1999--In a
breakthrough report, Cahners In-Stat Group
[http://www.cahnersinstat.com] expects that by the end of 2000, more
than 50 million U.S. households will be able to pick-up an 8-VSB signal
from a local digital terrestrial broadcast station."
Perhaps they meant to say "in areas covered by" rather than "able
to pick-up" (http://www.instat.com/catalog/cat-dt.htm). Having 50
million U.S. households able to pick up DTV signals would require DTV
receiver sales to accelerate to more than twice the rate of ordinary TV
set sales within the next three months or so. Uh-uh.
- Just when you thought 5.1-channel sound was all you had to worry
about, Lucasfilm THX announced Friday "THX Surround EX" for home theater
applications. The first theatrical Dolby Digital - Surround EX movie
was "Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace." The first home video
release with EX sound will be "Austin Powers - The Spy Who Shagged Me."
According to the press release, "THX Surround EX is an enhancement to
digital sound that decodes a back surround channel in a film soundtrack
allowing for dramatic 360-degree surround sound effects that are
smoother and more accurately placed either directly behind or directly
beside a viewer." Understand? Good. Now please explain it to me.
- Many media outlets have noted that the latest edition of Consumer
Reports says, in the words of Monday's Electronic Media Online, "digital
TV purchase can wait." The magazine notes that "testing this summer in
Baltimore revealed serious problems with some receivers in urban areas,"
and "your ordinary TV set will be fine for a long time." Although I
have not yet seen the story in print in Consumer Reports, I am
intimately familiar with it (I wrote it).
- Electronic Engineering Times reported last week (Sunray Liu) on
preparations in China for a DTV shootout and an October 1 HDTV broadcast
of 50th Anniversary celebrations. According to Haitao Zhang, deputy
minister of the State Administration of Radio, TV, and Film, China's
Academy of Broadcasting Science is "developing HDTV standard of our own"
and "has generated the encoder, decoder, modulator, and multiplexer...."
The Chinese system is to be evaluated along with the European DVB-T
and ATSC systems. According to EE Times, "The Academy's approach was to
separate fixed and mobile receiving, dividing the Chinese 8-MHz HDTV
channel into 6- and 2-MHz bands. The larger channel is used for fixed
reception; the smaller one handles data-oriented mobile receiving."
- Columbia TriStar TV is planning a "network" to serve secondary DTV
multicast channels. It will be "retro" with "classic" sitcoms.
According to a report in yesterday's Television Digest, the "Screen Gems
Network" will start out at one hour of programming a day, increasing to
two the second year.
- Sales to U.S. dealers of (mostly non-H/DTV) projection TVs grew 10.1%
for the first 36 weeks of 1999 over the same period in 1998.
Direct-view grew 5.4% in the same period, driven primarily by TV/VCR
combo sales, which grew 41.2%. Projection sales may soon climb faster.
Wal-Mart has begun to carry projection sets (50-inch Magnavox for
$1,399, 52-inch RCA for $1,499). Target stores are still not carrying
projection TVs.
- A report in Larry Bloomfield and Jim Mendrala's Tech Notes (#41) from
Roy Trumbull at KRON in San Francisco notes problems with transmitter
plumbing that can affect DTV worse than NTSC. There's also an
interesting discussion of whether or not 720p should be considered an
international HDTV program exchange format. Both reports also appear in
this current SCRI Insider Report, available if you fill out a survey
(http://www.scri.com/sub/sc_newscur.html).
- Satellite news:
- It looks like there is actually some movement on the
reconciliation of the House and Senate versions of the Satellite Home
Viewer Act rewrite. Will wonders never cease? It's not that the
legislators themselves have yet met, but some of their staff have.
- DirecTV's "Live" service will provide 24 channels of programming
to airline passengers on certain Alaska Airlines, Jet Blue, and Legend
flights. The reception equipment is being provided by a joint venture
of Harris and Sextant.
- Despite the offer of free hardware and programming from EchoStar,
according to AT&T, more than 1,100 new customers chose cable instead.
Given the source, I'd take these figures with a grain of salt.
- Senator Conrad Burns of Montana proposed legislation to deliver
local signals via satellite in the smaller markets that might be ignored
by DirecTV and EchoStar. It would give non-profit groups funding for
the purpose. Yesterday, Edward Fritts, president of the National
Association of Broadcasters, made a near-identical proposal.
- After a series of delays, EchoStar V was finally launched last
week. It is to help make possible a 500-channel service.
- DVD news:
- Toshiba has actually DELIVERED the consumer electronics
industry's (as opposed to companies like DVDO's) progressive-scan output
DVD player, the SD9100 (suggested retail $1,999.95).
- Sales to U.S. dealers of DVD players for the first 36 months of
1999 grew 326% over the same period in 1998.
- A headline in yesterday's Consumer Electronics newsletter about
the Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association (CEDIA)
convention in Indianapolis last week: "HDTV Quiet Amid DVD and Projector
Hype at CEDIA."
- Besides Toshiba, Onkyo (Integra Research brand) also introduced a
progressive-scan-output DVD player at CEDIA.
- Western Digital has formed an alliance with C-Cube to get the former's
hard drives into personal video recorders (PVRs).
- Cable news:
- Denver now joins Dallas as an AT&T Cable market with more than
100,000 digital subscribers.
- ABC's new show "Once & Again" airs on the Lifetime cable network
three days after it airs on ABC-affiliated broadcast stations.
- WBNS (CBS) in Columbus, Ohio, says it will pull itself off Time
Warner Cable (TWC) systems when its retransmission agreements expire
(soon) because TWC doesn't carry the WBNS-affiliated Ohio News Network.
This is seen as possibly being very good for TWC-competitor Ameritech
New Media.
- The National Cable Television Association (NCTA) is planning a
Digital Cable Programming Festival in October in Washington. I have yet
to figure out what makes digital programming different from any other
kind.
- Why off-air reception is important department: At a single North
Carolina cable system, Multimedia Cablevision of Tarboro-Rocky Mount,
Hurricane Floyd knocked out 28,000 subscribers.
- News Corp. is selling NDS to Tandberg for about $279 million. Aside
from its interests in DTV, NDS is also involved in personal video
recording (the technology behind XTV).
- Broadcasting and Cable magazine reports that ex-FCC, ex-Intel lawyer
Paul Misener has been hired by Sarnoff to defend the 8-VSB transmission
system.
- End of an era: JVC is planning to cease TV production in Japan by the
end of this year. I'm pretty sure they were the first Japanese TV-set
manufacturer, starting in 1928 or so. Production will move to Thailand.
Meanwhile, Philips will join Sony in having JVC build D-VHS
machines for its brand. And, like JVC, Hitachi is putting MPEG-codec
capability into its D-VHS machines. [DiViT: I sent Mark this news<g>]
- Remember Westinghouse? Even if you do, chances are that you don't
remember T-COM, Westinghouse's late-'60s plan to broadcast TV from
tethered "aerostats" (blimps that are designed to stay in one place).
They flew over the Bahamas and Korea in the '70s.
Well, now it's DaimlerChrysler, the European Space Agency, and
balloonist Per Lindstrand, who just completed a 10-month study on using
"stratospheric airships" to deliver television, radio and data to
Europeans. Well, I guess they'll be higher than T-COM's 10,000 feet.
- First came intelligent toilets department: The Saks Fifth Avenue
department store in New York (Fifth Avenue store, 9th floor) is
featuring "La Casa Prossima Futura" (the home of the near future, for
those of you not pretentious enough to use Italian) through October 9.
Highlights: An apron that delivers WebTV (that's from the press
release), "Emotion Containers" associated with images, a bathroom mirror
with entertainment programming, and an "Interactive Tablecloth" that
"provides power to... glasses...." Just what we've all been missing at
dinner: powered glasses! As one can readily tell from the exhibit's
Italian title, it's being provided by Netherlands-based Philips.
Upcoming Dates (DTV and non-DTV):
- Through September 30, Beverly Hilton, Digital Hollywood, Victor
Harwood, vharwood@digitalhollywood.com
(http://www.digitalhollywood.com).
- September 29-October 1, Meydenbauer Center, Bellevue, Washington,
Electronic Media Expo, Earl Fleehart or Sue Lutgen, 425 271-6855
(http://www.emexpo.org).
- September 30, Marriott Marquis, New York, Global Convergence
Summit, Richard Rodrigues, 212 512-4630.
- September 30-October 1, West Des Moines Marriott, Iowa, 5th
annual Iowa DTV Symposium, Marcia Wych, marcia@iptv.org, 515 242-4139
(http://www.iowadtv.org).
- October 1, London, BKSTS Digital Compression for Television
course, 011 44 171 242-8400 (http://www.bksts.com).
- October 1, Harris "Center of Excellence for Digital Technology"
Open House, Dave Burns, 800 622-0022.
- October 3-6, Universal City, California, VidTranS 99, 608
278-8291 (http://www.swonders.com/vidtrans).
- October 4-6, Marriott Wardman Park, Washington, D.C., "Digital
and Interactive TV, Ron Berg, rberg@ibcusa.com, 508-804-5615
(http://www.ibcusa.com/2289).
- October 5, National Techies Day (http://www.techiesday.com).
- October 5-9, Makahuri Messe, Chiba, Japan Electronics Show,
pao@eiaj.or.jp.
- *October 11, Louisiana State University, Representative Billy
Tauzin's "New Millennium Summit."
- October 12-13, Lisbon, DVD Conference Europe '99, 011 44 1582
607-744 (http://www.undansol.co.uk).
- October 14, NAB, Washington, ATSC Implementation Subcommittee
meeting, 202 828-3130 (http://www.atsc.org).
- October 14-15, Milan, SMPTE International Conference, Franco
Visintin, fvisintin@usa.net, 011 39 2 423-6740
(http://www.smpte.org/conf/Milancf.html).
- October 14-18, Milan, 10th International Audio, Video,
Broadcasting, Motion Picture and Telecommunications Show, IBTS 99
(http://www.assoexpo.com/ibts/index.html).
- October 18-19, Le Meridien Hotel, London, Digital Set-Top Boxes,
011 44 171 453-5495 (http://www.ibctelecoms.com/), Ron Berg,
rberg@ibcusa.com, 508-804-5615 (http://www.ibcusa.com/2289).
- October 19-20, RAI Center, Amsterdam, Streaming Media Europe
1999, Alex Daniels, 011 44 171 400-9595, confdesk@firstconf.com
(http://www.streamingmedia.com).
- October 19-21, Marriott Hotel West, Madison, Wisconsin, SBE
National Meeting and Broadcasters Clinic, 608 255-2600
(http://www.sbe.org/).
- October 19-22, Long Beach Convention Center, Digital Video
Conference & Exhibition, 415 278-5300 (http://www.dvexpo.com).
- October 20-22, UCLA campus, Los Angeles, "Compression for Digital
TV," Marcus Hennessy, (310) 825-1047, mhenness@unex.ucla.edu
(http://www.unex.ucla.edu/shortcourses/).
- October 24-28, Palm Springs, EIA/CEMA Fall Conference, Lisa
Fasold, lfasold@eia.org (http://www.CEMAcity.org).
- October 25-26, Bradford, England, BKSTS trip to the National
Museum of Photography, Film, and Television, 011 44 171 242-8400
(http://www.bksts.com).
- October 25-29, UCLA campus, Los Angeles, "Charge-Coupled Devices,
Cameras, and Applications," Marcus Hennessy, (310) 825-1047,
mhenness@unex.ucla.edu (http://www.unex.ucla.edu/shortcourses/).
- October 26-28, Orange County Convention Center, Orlando, Eastern
[cable television] Show, 404 255-1608 (http://scta.com/files/54.htm).
- October 28, American Film Institute, Los Angeles, NATPE ETC, 310
453-4440 (http://www.natpe.org).
- October 28-29, La Posada Resort, Scottsdale, Arizona,
International Recording Media Association (IRMA) 1999 Technology &
Manufacturing Conference (formerly known as MOMS), 609 279-1700
(http://www.recordingmedia.org/momsforumidx.html).
- November 3, Wiley, Rein & Fielding, Washington, ATSC Technology
Group meeting, 202 828-3130 (http://www.atsc.org).
- November 5-6, Beverly Hilton, Surround 2000, Margaret Sekelsky,
mmsekelsky@aol.com, 516 944-5940 x.14 (http://www.surroundpro.com).
- November 8-10, KolnMesse, Cologne, Infocomm Europe, 800 659-7469,
011 49 221 821-2409 (http://www.infocomm.org/europe/europe.html).
- November 10, Washington, D.C., MSTV 13th Annual DTV Update
Conference (http://www.mstv.org/scdx.htm).
- *November 16-18, Wembley Conference Centre, London, Digital Media
World (http://www.digmedia.co.uk CAUTION: This site makes my browser
crash).
- November 18, Sony Music, New York, ATSC Implementation
Subcommittee meeting, 202 828-3130 (http://www.atsc.org).
- November 19, Sony Music, New York, ATSC Executive Committee
meeting, 202 828-3130 (http://www.atsc.org).
- November 19-22, Marriott Marquis, New York, SMPTE convention, 914
761-1100 (http://www.smpte.org).
- December 1-2, Washington (D.C.) Convention Center, Government
Video Technology Expo 1999, Michael Silbergleid, 212-996-3709(until
Sept. 8), 212-772-3522-phone (beginning Sept. 9),
silbergleid@silverknight.com (http://www.GVExpo.com)
- December 1-3, 1999, UCLA campus, Los Angeles, "Multimedia
Standards and Applications," Marcus Hennessy, (310) 825-1047,
mhenness@unex.ucla.edu (http://www.unex.ucla.edu/shortcourses/).
- *December 6-8, Los Angeles Convention Center, Digital Content
Creation, dccinfo@advanstar.com, 800 331-5706, 203 882-1300
(http://www.dccexpo.com).
- *December 7-9, San Jose Convention Center, Streaming Media West
'99, 800 814-3459, +44 171 400 9595, confdesk@firstconf.com
(http://www.streamingmedia.net/streamingmedia/west/contact.html).
- December 10, Embassy Suites USF, Tampa, International Workshop on
Digital and Computational Video (http://ee.eng.usf.edu/DCV99/).
- December 14-17, Los Angeles Convention Center, the Western [cable
television] Show, 510 428-2225 (http://www.cct-assn.org/westernshow/).
- *December 16-17, Monterey Conference Center/Monterey Marriott,
Califonia, 16th Annual Flat Information Displays Conference, 408
360-8400 (http://www.stanfordresources.com/conf/conf.html).
* - new or revised listing
TTFN,
Mark |
