more on The Digital TV Fiasco

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Brad Templeton <btm () templetons com>
Date: June 10, 2005 1:24:33 PM EDT
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Cc: lauren () vortex com
Subject: Re: [IP] The Digital TV Fiasco


On Thu, Jun 09, 2005 at 02:44:19PM -0400, David Farber wrote:

> A really remarkable aspect of the FCC's continuing push to obsolete
> existing consumer televisions is how oblivious most people are
> to the entire process, particularly those persons who still depend
> on broadcast signals for all of their television viewing.

I could not help but remark on the comment about analog TVs becoming
obsolete that the latest digital TVs, only now coming to the market,
are already obsolete in some ways, or planned to be.

Digital HDTV in the USA is done over mpeg-2, at 720p or 1080i
resolution.  Mpeg-2 is already old hat in the computer world, most
people feel that mp4 is close to twice as good, and DirecTV plans to
move to MP4, obsoleting their old boxes.

Today most HDTVs on the shelf are LCD or DLP devices capable of 720p
but not 1080 lines, though the latter are coming.  1080p support is rare
but from an electronics standpoint, there's not reason it could not be
common.

Most people feed their HDTVs with analog component video.  DVI  
connectors
(digital component video) are already vanished from TVs, being replaced
by HDCP, which is effectively a DVI cable with support for copy  
protection.
The forces that be are working hard to have cable and sat boxes only  
output
HDCP, first getting rid of DVI and then even analog, obsoleting many  
of the
HDTVs out there.

The lesson is that this technology moves way too fast to be regulated.
It was a common lament that HDTV was slow to appear because everybody
was waiting for some solid standards to be mandated.   I think it was
the opposite.


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