Disqus - Latest Comments for clajoie

Re: Any TV spectrum giveback must be truly voluntary, says NAB chief

clajoie — Wed, 18 May 2011 09:16:52 -0000

Why does the FCC not admit that
the big digital switch was one of the worst ideas ever? Why do we never
hear that there are literally millions of people in the U.S. who do not have tv
now as a result of that switch? We all know it takes at least 2.5 times
the digital power to reach the same distance as analog, and that doesn''t even
take into account the existing terrain or future terrain. I live within
easy antenna shot of 5 tv stations, and simply used rabbit ears to pick them up
on 5 tvs that aren''t on cable. Now, I have to have an

attic antenna, and even that is not reliable. Also,
what about taking a portable tv into the centermost room (in my case a closet)
to keep up with the coming storms floods (which we''ve had many of recently),
when the power goes out...70% of our area was without power

just 3 weeks ago. Will the government controlled FCC
begin offering FREE "net neutrality" internet service AND tv to
those/these areas, so they can control what we see/hear/access?

Jack Parnell

Re: MPEG standards

clajoie — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 10:14:09 -0000

Dear Mr. Cugnini,

First off, I would like to confess my humility in writing this. I am not an engineer, nor a scientist, but I have worked in broadcast and have followed the developments of high definition and digital broadcasting for many years. I hope the views I express are not coming from ignorance, and I apologize if I am off track. This will be something of a rant, but I have not seen much commotion on this topic and cannot understand why. I guess I would really like to know if I am correct. Is there any chance to change this?

To the title of your article; of what value are higher standards and efficiency to broadcast if they are not backwardly compatible with today’s receivers? I do not believe the article mentions compatibility, but it seems to me unspoken that we are talking future equipment here.

I have always felt that to saddle the ATSC with decoding 21 different possible video stream formats is nuts. Wasn’t this idea sold to the production community so that their precious videos could be shot to specs they deemed necessary to the proper visualization of their productions? So what? The consumer electronics industry reply to this was to reform any received signal to the native display of that receiver, which undoes everything the program creator has done. Additionally, it appears to me that stations transmit in only one ATSC format on any program channel. There could just as well have been a single standard for all the good having multiple choices has done.

The next thing that industry (or ATSC or some group) did was to put all the smarts inside each home receiver, saddling us with an unchangeable video codec. As soon as digital broadcasting was begun with MPEG-2, the satellite industry discovered and implemented MPEG-4, greatly increasing the amount of video channels that can be transmitted on any bird. Meanwhile, broadcasters immediately found it difficult to broadcast all they wanted to in their 6-MHz channel allocation. Wouldn’t MPEG-4 be great? With all those receiver chips chiseled in silicon, there was nothing to be done except bit rate reduction and all the undesirable features that entails.

And it turns out that 8-VSB might not be the best transmission solution after all. The real world has turned out to behave less than ideally.

If the ATSC system had been set up with dumb receivers (with those programmable gate arrays mentioned in your article), re-programming from the mother transmitters could have allowed for future growth. Instead, broadcasters and their viewers are stuck, and if changes are made, will be stuck again ($). In an age of constant change and improvement, the industry is married to MPEG-2 just as surely as it was married to NTSC baseband video, while all around others are able to change. Unbelievable.

Dennis L. Goodrich
Project Coordinator
Information Technology Services
formerly Instructional Technology Center
Iowa State University
Ames IA 50011-3243

Re: FCC proposes modernizing funding mechanism to bring broadband to rural America

clajoie — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 13:35:13 -0000

This may help
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.c...

Re: Storage and redundancy

clajoie — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 09:50:41 -0000

Keep an eye out on our new e-book site as we roll out topic-specific content aggregated for purchase, including previous series of Transition to Digital tutorials.

https://www.buypenton.com/P...

Re: Broadcast Engineering launches specialized training

clajoie — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 16:05:26 -0000

Broadcast Engineering's 2009 series of webinars are now available on demand; click the link and scroll down to the bottom to register and find more information about pricing, etc.
https://event.on24.com/even...

Re: Satellite TVRO Part 1

clajoie — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 10:52:15 -0000

Here's the link to Part 5. You can just search "TVRO" on the site and they should all come up.

http://broadcastengineering.com/infrastructure/...

Re: Primacoustic�s low-cost FlexiBooth turns any room into a voice-over booth

clajoie — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:23:13 -0000

"Perhaps this is for you if you do not have as much room."

Re: Satellite TVRO Part 4

clajoie — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:48:43 -0000

Links to ...

Part 3: http://broadcastengineering...
Part 2: http://broadcastengineering...
Part 1: http://broadcastengineering...

Re: Broadcast Engineering launches specialized training

clajoie — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 10:07:33 -0000

I would suggest checking out our series of webinars
https://event.on24.com/even...

Re: Dates and events you need to know

clajoie — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 15:55:57 -0000

Click the industry calendar link under the resources section in the right column for an updated events list.

Re: CloudShield announces applications for IBM BladeCenter PN41 blade

clajoie — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 13:50:35 -0000

From the IBM site: http://www-03.ibm.com/syste...

Re: WTVX-TV goes remote | Four Points Media explored several possible solutions for the new master control scenario before moving forward with the systems integrator's plan � to build the master co...

clajoie — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 14:08:10 -0000

You may want to try posting this question in our Forum to see if anyone has other opinions about this.

http://community.broadcaste...

Re: NFL to attempt live 3-D production

clajoie — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 13:41:40 -0000

Unfortunately, according to the Wall Street Journal, the 3-D game is only being shown at three select theaters in L.A., NY and Boston and is open only to the NFL's broadcasting partners and consumer eletronics company representatives.

http://online.wsj.com/artic...