[mythtv-users] DTV: It Has Begun

Allen Edwards allen.p.edwards at gmail.com
Tue Sep 9 03:49:23 UTC 2008


On Mon, Sep 8, 2008 at 8:47 PM, Allen Edwards <allen.p.edwards at gmail.com>wrote:

> If  you all really want to know the driver for ATSC was PBS and FOX.  They
> came late and had, in most markets, frequencies the led to poor reception.
>  They were the drivers behind the early work.  The goal was digital
> reception that wasn't subject to snow and other quality issues.   There was
> also the feeling that if they didn't improve reception OTA, that cable would
> take all their market.  Another of the driving companies was Zenith.  They
> felt that they needed something new or they would be out of business.
> If you remember, the early competition was between standards proposed by
> Zenith and standards proposed by General Instruments.  Zenith proposed 8VSB
> and their own encoding system.  GI proposed QAM and MPEG.  The final
> specification, as you know, is one from each, 8VSB and MPEG.  There was also
> a spec war between the two with one proposing 720p and the
> other proposing 1080i.  The final spec allowed either and almost any
> resolution.  So, it was opened up from an original HDTV race to just DTV
> with lots of options.
>
> Well, things took way longer than they expected, Zenith doesn't exist in
> its original form and GI doesn't either.
>
> At some point, the government realizes that they could cram all the
> stations into less spectrum with the new format and sell off the parts that
> were better used by other services.  I think that came later.
>
>
> Allen
>
>
Oh, and I almost forgot:

Portable TV:
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2855063&cp=&sr=1&kw=portable+tv&origkw=portable+tv&parentPage=search

Allen
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