Terrestrial Switchoff - sorry to labour the point but...
 

"Steve Thackery" wrote in message
...
Richard Russell wrote:

The key word there is "broadcasting". You can argue that a
unidirectional 'one source to many destinations' service isn't
necessarily most efficiently delivered using the same
transport medium
as bidirectional, point-to-point, services.

That's exactly what I would argue. The TCP/IP (or UDP/IP)
stack is a
dreadful choice for broadcast of any data, because TCP(UDP)/IP
is
designed from the bottom up for point-to-point (client-server)
non-real-time communications.

Using it for one-to-many real-time broadcasting is massively
wasteful
and inefficient. Multicasting was bodged on at a later date,
but it is
indeed a bodge - it swaps the parallel transmission of the same
data
over the same pipes for the transmission of the same data from
multiple
sources.

Of course, it can be done, as we all know - point-to-point
voice-over-IP and video-over-IP have been on the go for a long
time,
despite the poor match between the data (real time) and the
medium
(non-real-time). iPlayer is a great example of how well you
can make
that work, despite the unsuitability of the medium. If you
throw
enough spare non-real-time bandwidth at the problem, it works
well
enough to be effectively real-time.

BUT - putting aside the theoretical niceties ("If we'd known
you wanted
broadcast, we'd have designed it differently,"), the fact is
that the
internet is all-pervasive and *will* do the job, even if it's a
poor
fit. Therefore I reluctantly agree that it does make sense to
use the
internet for broadcast, despite the fact that it offends my
engineering
sensibilities at every level.

--

Yes but....

In practice if the Interweb becomes the medium of delivery surely
two things will happen:-
1. Viewing will drop so dramatically that the broadcasters will
loose so much income they will be unable to continue;
2. Most 'viewers' will probably still watch the same things at
the same time as they always have.

The great advantage of one-to-all - be it terrestrial or
satellite fed - is that it gives structure to viewing which most
people I would suggest find acceptable and/or preferable. OK now
and again there is inconvenience that programmes clash or they
are on when you are out (remember the one about the Irish
VCR.....?) but surely that is why god invented VCRs and PVRs?

Finally, much of this 'drive' for net viewing I would suggest is
coming from personages resident within the M25 which gets all of
the perks more quickly than anywhere else - higher speeds, FFTC
and eventually FTTH, 4G etc - which are not easily available to
the vast majority of the country and certainly not to those who
live off the beaten track. Until such time as some system
architecture is available that can give a clean uncontested feed
of at the very least 2Mb to every home then I would suggest that
net viewing will not take off to any serious extent and that
existing methods will continue.


--
Woody

harrogate three at ntlworld dot com

Terrestrial Switchoff - sorry to labour the point but...
 

On Tue, 19 Mar 2013 11:52:33 +0000, lid wrote:

For those who haven't yet seen the Ofcom consultation on future mobile
broadband spectrum.

"The 694-790 MHz band is expected to become a key band for mobile
broadband"

and references to studies at 470 - 694 MHz.

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/bin...-mobile-bb.pdf

Please Mr Ofcom, can we have our Bands I & III back?

--
Graham.

%Profound_observation%

Terrestrial Switchoff - sorry to labour the point but...
 

On Wed, 20 Mar 2013 07:31:55 -0000, "Woody"
wrote:

Yes but....

In practice if the Interweb becomes the medium of delivery surely
two things will happen:-

No-one is saying that! Satellite is there to serve viewers who want
immediate real-time viewing - apart from the minority of those who
can't receive it.

1. Viewing will drop so dramatically that the broadcasters will
loose so much income they will be unable to continue;

What a strange assumption. TV is far too important to the majority of
viewers for them to give up so easily. And satellite and internet
broadcasting are actually cheaper for the broadcaster than terrestrial
transmission.

2. Most 'viewers' will probably still watch the same things at
the same time as they always have.

As has been discussed elsewhere, this old model of TV watching is
rapidly breaking down. People want to watch their own choice of
material at the time that suits them. iPlayer and YourTube are
increasingly popular, especially for the younger generation.

The great advantage of one-to-all - be it terrestrial or
satellite fed - is that it gives structure to viewing which most
people I would suggest find acceptable and/or preferable. OK now
and again there is inconvenience that programmes clash or they
are on when you are out (remember the one about the Irish
VCR.....?) but surely that is why god invented VCRs and PVRs?

Finally, much of this 'drive' for net viewing I would suggest is
coming from personages resident within the M25 which gets all of
the perks more quickly than anywhere else - higher speeds, FFTC
and eventually FTTH, 4G etc - which are not easily available to
the vast majority of the country and certainly not to those who
live off the beaten track. Until such time as some system
architecture is available that can give a clean uncontested feed
of at the very least 2Mb to every home then I would suggest that
net viewing will not take off to any serious extent and that
existing methods will continue.

Yes, satellite will be there for *almost* everyone.

Terrestrial Switchoff - sorry to labour the point but...
 

wrote in message
...
On Wed, 20 Mar 2013 07:31:55 -0000, "Woody"
2. Most 'viewers' will probably still watch the same things at
the same time as they always have.

As has been discussed elsewhere, this old model of TV watching is
rapidly breaking down. People want to watch their own choice of
material at the time that suits them. iPlayer and YourTube are
increasingly popular, especially for the younger generation.

I never thought I'd admit this, until I got Windows Media Centre on my PC,
which changed my viewing habits. I now very rarely watch anything as it's
broadcast. Even if I do watch nearly-live, I start watching late (if it's a
programme on a channel with commercials) and then skip the commercials as
I'm watching it on time-slip. I've probably not seen a commercial at normal
speed for several years now.

Any programmes that I've recorded to watch later, I pass through VideoReDo
to remove the commercials and continuity spam, especially if it's a
programme I want to keep in my library to watch again and again.

Terrestrial Switchoff - sorry to labour the point but...
 

On 19/03/2013 13:23, Dickie mint wrote:
On 19/03/2013 13:21, Tim+ wrote:
"NY" wrote:
wrote in message
...

None of these are suitable for people who are mobile (canal boats,
caravans) in areas of sparse population where there is no mobile
coverage.

Plenty of caravans, canal boats etc. with satellite dishes.

Tim

Couldn't resist posting this:

http://noproblem.org.uk/blog/sky-sat...th-no-problem/

Richard

A "Bill" has posted on the Noproblem blog that the page contains errors.
Sue has asked where the errors are. Could "Bill" also post them here?
The blog page was written by a non technical person for other boaters
who asked her to, and who was simply passing on what she'd found to work!

Richard

Terrestrial Switchoff - sorry to labour the point but...
 

On Tue, 19 Mar 2013 20:05:05 -0500, "Steve Thackery"
wrote:

The TCP/IP (or UDP/IP) stack is a
dreadful choice for broadcast of any data,
[...]
BUT - putting aside the theoretical niceties ("If we'd known you wanted
broadcast, we'd have designed it differently,"), the fact is that the
internet is all-pervasive and *will* do the job, even if it's a poor
fit. Therefore I reluctantly agree that it does make sense to use the
internet for broadcast, despite the fact that it offends my engineering
sensibilities at every level.

Technological development seems to work like evolution. There's no
central agency that understands it or would have the clout to organise
a complete scrap and re-design, so new things are mindlessly tacked
onto whatever is already there, the motivating force being local
self-interest. Anything that either doesn't work, or works so well
that it expands too rapidly for continued resources to support it will
become extinct.

Rod.

Terrestrial Switchoff - sorry to labour the point but...
 

"NY" wrote in message
o.uk...
wrote in message
...
On Wed, 20 Mar 2013 07:31:55 -0000, "Woody"
2. Most 'viewers' will probably still watch the same things at
the same time as they always have.

As has been discussed elsewhere, this old model of TV watching is
rapidly breaking down. People want to watch their own choice of
material at the time that suits them. iPlayer and YourTube are
increasingly popular, especially for the younger generation.

I never thought I'd admit this, until I got Windows Media Centre on my PC,
which changed my viewing habits. I now very rarely watch anything as it's
broadcast.
[...]

I've probably not seen a commercial at normal speed for several years now.

Both of those have applied to me since 1988 when I bought my first VCR. And
a fortiori since 1991 when I bought my second (to be used concurrently).

--
Max Demian

Terrestrial Switchoff - sorry to labour the point but...
 

In article , David.WE.Roberts
wrote:
On Tue, 19 Mar 2013 11:52:33 +0000, nemo wrote:

For those who haven't yet seen the Ofcom consultation on future mobile
broadband spectrum.

"The 694-790 MHz band is expected to become a key band for mobile
broadband"

and references to studies at 470 - 694 MHz.

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/bin...cfi-mobile-bb/
summary/cfi-mobile-bb.pdf

Try to look at this another way.

The frequencies which are currently being inefficiently allocated to a
single data stream - TV - can be repurposed so that they can carry
mobile data which can, of course, include TV programmes if the user so
desires.

So stop being so selfish - the frequencies can be used far more
effectively if they are assigned to mobile operators.

You are all so last decade.

You mean you'll be paying all our mobile charges to watch TV on our
mobiles? How 'mobile' are the ones with a screen bigger than 27 inches?

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

Terrestrial Switchoff - sorry to labour the point but...
 

Dickie mint wrote:

Couldn't resist posting this:

http://noproblem.org.uk/blog/sky-sat...th-no-problem/

Richard

A "Bill" has posted on the Noproblem blog that the page contains errors.
Sue has asked where the errors are. Could "Bill" also post them here?
The blog page was written by a non technical person for other boaters
who asked her to, and who was simply passing on what she'd found to work!

Richard
It was me.

The main fault is that the writer was obviously unaware of Freesat, so
she writes as if satellite = Sky and Sky = satellite. So you have to
have a Sky receiver. You have to have a Sky card. You have to pay Sky at
least £20. This is all completely wrong. People who don't want to
subscribe to Sky are much better off getting a normal Freesat box. If
they get a Freesat recorder they can watch their stash of programmes
where there's no dish signal. A Sky box will only play back if it's
getting permission from Sky all the time via the dish. This is important
for boaters because it can save erecting the dish.

Quote: "The biggest problem is that Sky program the digibox with the
regional programs that are at the address where you had the card sent
to!!" A Freesat box lets you alter the channel list by simply putting in
a different post code.

She says she has a 12V Sky box. Yes, these are available but often at a
stupid price, and running them from the spike-infested 12V boat supply
is asking for trouble. Far better to have a small inverter (ideally a
pure sine wave one), then you can use any receiver or recorder you like.
Most boats these days have an inverter anyway.

A major howler: "Some dishes come with the correct angle set from the
vertical…. … the first time you set up will take a little patience, but
once that angle is set you will never have to change it again." yet she
lists her travels as being all over the UK. The elevation angle varies
very significantly across the country.

Lining the dish up as described by means of a Skybox is a bit of a
pantomime! No mention of the small cheap meters that are available, some
of which now give the satellite ident.

Bill

Terrestrial Switchoff - sorry to labour the point but...
 

On 20/03/2013 13:57, Bill Wright wrote:
Dickie mint wrote:

Couldn't resist posting this:

http://noproblem.org.uk/blog/sky-sat...th-no-problem/

Richard

A "Bill" has posted on the Noproblem blog that the page contains errors.
Sue has asked where the errors are. Could "Bill" also post them here?
The blog page was written by a non technical person for other boaters
who asked her to, and who was simply passing on what she'd found to work!

Richard
It was me.

The main fault is that the writer was obviously unaware of Freesat, so
she writes as if satellite = Sky and Sky = satellite. So you have to
have a Sky receiver. You have to have a Sky card. You have to pay Sky at
least £20. This is all completely wrong. People who don't want to
subscribe to Sky are much better off getting a normal Freesat box. If
they get a Freesat recorder they can watch their stash of programmes
where there's no dish signal. A Sky box will only play back if it's
getting permission from Sky all the time via the dish. This is important
for boaters because it can save erecting the dish.

Quote: "The biggest problem is that Sky program the digibox with the
regional programs that are at the address where you had the card sent
to!!" A Freesat box lets you alter the channel list by simply putting in
a different post code.

She says she has a 12V Sky box. Yes, these are available but often at a
stupid price, and running them from the spike-infested 12V boat supply
is asking for trouble. Far better to have a small inverter (ideally a
pure sine wave one), then you can use any receiver or recorder you like.
Most boats these days have an inverter anyway.

A major howler: "Some dishes come with the correct angle set from the
vertical…. … the first time you set up will take a little patience, but
once that angle is set you will never have to change it again." yet she
lists her travels as being all over the UK. The elevation angle varies
very significantly across the country.

Lining the dish up as described by means of a Skybox is a bit of a
pantomime! No mention of the small cheap meters that are available, some
of which now give the satellite ident.

Bill


Be gentle with her! Her blogs are very interesting and amusing. The
problem is that the page was written pre Freesat, around 2003 I think,
and she hasn't updated it.
With a suggestion of how it should read, she probably will!

Richard