OfCom kills off HDTV

"Ben" wrote in message

Paul D.Smith wrote:
About ten years ago I was sat in a pub with a friend. He was
fiddling with his new phone, tapping things into the keypad. "What
are you doing ?" I asked. "Oh, I'm sending a text message to
someone". "What a ridiculous pointless idea, who on earth will
bother with that, why not just ring them up FFS !"

(Said the man who bought Betamax, Texas TI-99, and MiniDisc. )


I remember a colleague at university showing me a web browser. I
never tweaked where that might be going either!

No, when I saw my first web browser I was convinced the web would
never displace gopher too!

Does anyone know of any working Gopher sites, so I can see what it looks
like?

--
Max Demian

Max Demian wrote:
"Ben" wrote in message

Paul D.Smith wrote:
About ten years ago I was sat in a pub with a friend. He was
fiddling with his new phone, tapping things into the keypad. "What
are you doing ?" I asked. "Oh, I'm sending a text message to
someone". "What a ridiculous pointless idea, who on earth will
bother with that, why not just ring them up FFS !"

(Said the man who bought Betamax, Texas TI-99, and MiniDisc. )

I remember a colleague at university showing me a web browser. I
never tweaked where that might be going either!

No, when I saw my first web browser I was convinced the web would
never displace gopher too!

Does anyone know of any working Gopher sites, so I can see what it looks
like?


There aren't many left now, there's one at gopher://gopher.quux.org/
that has a few links to other gopher servers. Apparently IE doesn't
support gopher anymore but Firefox works, as does Mosaic (if anyone
still uses it).

Ben wrote:
Max Demian wrote:
"Ben" wrote in message

Paul D.Smith wrote:
About ten years ago I was sat in a pub with a friend. He was
fiddling with his new phone, tapping things into the keypad. "What
are you doing ?" I asked. "Oh, I'm sending a text message to
someone". "What a ridiculous pointless idea, who on earth will
bother with that, why not just ring them up FFS !"

(Said the man who bought Betamax, Texas TI-99, and MiniDisc. )

I remember a colleague at university showing me a web browser. I
never tweaked where that might be going either!

No, when I saw my first web browser I was convinced the web would
never displace gopher too!

Does anyone know of any working Gopher sites, so I can see what it
looks like?


There aren't many left now, there's one at gopher://gopher.quux.org/
that has a few links to other gopher servers. Apparently IE doesn't
support gopher anymore but Firefox works, as does Mosaic (if anyone
still uses it).

And another one here gopher://gdead.berkeley.edu/
See, gopher is alive and well ;-)

In article ,
says...

"Chas Gill" wrote in message
...

I'm not sure I would have bought my HD
ready flat panel if I'd known this a month ago.

Never buy anything in advance of it being able to work. Especialy in the TV
world. My advice on new TVs and this HD ready as been wait for it to start
unless you realy must have a new TV. In the past have been there and got
the T shirt.

All the time the broadcasters were bleating on about how everyone should buy
HD, I just asked myself one simple question - what do I currently watch (even
occasionally) that might be improved by HD? Not much.

Sure, some US dramas would be nice but the quality of those is fine as they
are. As for UK TV, would HD make Eastenders any less depressing? Would my
shares go up more if Working Lunch was in HD? Would Tony Blair lie any less if
the news was in HD? No to all of those.
--

Dom Robinson Gamertag: DVDfever email: dom at dvdfever dot co dot uk
/* http://DVDfever.co.uk (editor)
/* 1125 DVDs, 344 games, 299 CDs, 110 cinema films, 41 concerts, videos & news
/* gears of war, beatles week, ridge racer 2 psp, call of duty 3, jarhead

New music charts - http://dvdfever.co.uk/music.shtml
DVDfever Youtube Channel - http://youtube.com/user/DVDfever

"Ben" wrote in message

Max Demian wrote:
"Ben" wrote in message


No, when I saw my first web browser I was convinced the web would
never displace gopher too!

Does anyone know of any working Gopher sites, so I can see what it
looks like?

There aren't many left now, there's one at gopher://gopher.quux.org/
that has a few links to other gopher servers. Apparently IE doesn't
support gopher anymore but Firefox works, as does Mosaic (if anyone
still uses it).

It works with Netscape (7.2) too.

So what's the difference from FTP (from the user's POV)? Both show
directories and files, and both can show hyperlinked web pages if you want
them to.

--
Max Demian

"Chas Gill" wrote in message
...
Several of you will no doubt be delighted (?) to peruse this little
offering, which says, amongst other things, that the Great British Public
would appear to prefer a wider choice of SD channels than free to air HD
channels, so they aren't bending over backwards to provide for Terrestrial
HD in the big spectrum sell-off (the "Digital Dividend") that will
coincide
with analogue switch off. They appear to consider that HD will, for the
time being, be a premium service that the minority will be prepared and
therefore have to pay for.

This ****es me off.

This is just wishful thinking on Ofcom's part. HD will take over completely
on Freeview. It's inevitable because ITV want to remain primarily
terrestrial but commercials are going HD. ITV will have to go HD on Freeview
if only for the commercials, otherwise their advertisers, who will have made
their commercials in HD, would be forced to go to satellite channels
instead. ITV will not go HD on satellite only because they are not in the
business of promoting the purchase of receivers for Sky Digital.

When Ofcom says something, it's a good indication that the opposite will
happen. Their concept of Freeview was that it had to be financed by
subscription. Subscription is their answer to everything, that and a multi
billion pound windfall from mobile phone companies which is never going to
happen. The commercial reality for terrestrial is ITV for free, the same as
it has been since 1955, and the future of ITV on Freeview is ITV HD.

There will be great pressure for space on terrestrial after analogue switch
off because of the changeover to HD on terrestrial, and many channels like
TMF and The Hits may be paid to close to make room for ITV4 HD etc. We will
see 3 HD channels statistically multiplexed on each multiplex (more than 3
for HD quiz and shopping channels which will use excessively low bitrates as
they do today), and the whole of the UHF spectrum which has been reserved by
Ofcom for sale to Father Christmas's imaginary mobile phone operator will be
bought by ITV and their commercial rivals instead to provide badly needed
7th and 8th Freeview multiplexes for more HDTV.

Another total spanner in the works of Ofcom's plans will be 3D HDTV. With
companies like Disney investing in "Digital 3D" Cinema because of the
commercial success of IMAX, we will have 3D Blu-Ray Discs and 3D HD DVDs by
the time analogue switch off is completed. Flatscreen technology (unlike the
CRT) is easily adapted to Disney/IMAX 3D, so by 2012 the latest TV's will
not be "HD Ready", but "3D ready". People will wear their non-coloured,
polarising, IMAX-style Disney 3D glasses with the same enthusiasm with which
they wear their iPod headphones today. Against this background we will
launch 3D HDTV.

Development will follow a similar pattern to today's HD. First to arrive
will be Sky Movies 3D, showing 3D cinema releases on subscription, then Sky
Sports 3D, then the BBC will have to wake up, start a BBC 3D "Trial" and
refit studio TC1 with 3D cameras. There will also be a major incentive for
Sky's free-to-air "Babe" channels to be among the first to go 3D. Last but
not least, ITV will go 3D when they can't put it off any longer. The one
blessing will be that MPEG4 encoding of 3D, a pair of very similar HD
pictures for the left and right eyes respectively, will need little more
bitrate than HDTV without 3D, so there will be enough room on Freeview for
all BBC and ITV channels in 3D.

Camerawork in 3D is significantly different as it requires an awareness of
maintaining the actual size of an object. Zoom needs to be used less, and
when it is used the left and right camera lenses have to be moved a long way
apart, in the same ratio as the zoom. The first 3D TV productions are likely
to include a lot of people who look like little dolls or 50 foot monsters
because of people getting this aspect of 3D production wrong.

On Wed, 20 Dec 2006 12:56:38 +0000, Richard Oliver
wrote:

About ten years ago I was sat in a pub with a friend. He was fiddling
with his new phone, tapping things into the keypad. "What are you doing
?" I asked. "Oh, I'm sending a text message to someone". "What a
ridiculous pointless idea, who on earth will bother with that, why not
just ring them up FFS !"

On the Orange and Vodafone PCN/GSM trials I took part in in 1993 we
didn't think SMS would take off either. How wrong we were - mind you I
don't tend to use the service myself.

I remember being shown a maze game on a very early desktop computer
with a tiny green screen, and marvelling at the amount of time and
effort it must have taken somebody to produce something so admittedly
amusing but completely pointless. The demonstrator was convinced that
games were what was going to sell computers to the masses, so that was
what most of the programmers would be workng on. I thought he was
crazy.

Rod.

Chas Gill wrote:

This ****es me off. I wonder what the "HD Ready" manufacturing and retail
cohorts will have to say about it?

http://www.dtg.org.uk/news/news.php?...lass=0&id=2139

--
Andy

On Wed, 20 Dec 2006 22:36:58 -0000, "Stephen"
wrote:

When Ofcom says something, it's a good indication that the opposite will
happen. Their concept of Freeview was that it had to be financed by
subscription. Subscription is their answer to everything, that and a multi
billion pound windfall from mobile phone companies which is never going to
happen. The commercial reality for terrestrial is ITV for free, the same as
it has been since 1955, and the future of ITV on Freeview is ITV HD.

I've often wondered how anybody could convince themselves, never mind
convince anybody else, that millions of people would be willing to pay
for something which for several decades they'd been receiving free.

If it had meant the abolishment of the licence fee so we'd pay a
subscription instead, there might be a valid argument to consider, but
subscription television had to be paid for *as well* as the licence,
and there was no hint of any intention of changing this. Effectively
we'd be paying twice. Personally, apart from buying a DTTV receiver
cheaply at a computer fair (when the official price of one was even
greater than the most expensive ones are today), I never bothered with
digital television until it became available on the same basis on
which most broadcasting has been available in the UK since it began.
We could have had digital television about 5 years sooner without this
debacle.

Rod.

Chas Gill wrote:
Several of you will no doubt be delighted (?) to peruse this little
offering, which says, amongst other things, that the Great British
Public would appear to prefer a wider choice of SD channels than free
to air HD channels, so they aren't bending over backwards to provide
for Terrestrial HD in the big spectrum sell-off (the "Digital
Dividend") that will coincide with analogue switch off. They appear
to consider that HD will, for the time being, be a premium service
that the minority will be prepared and therefore have to pay for.

This ****es me off. I wonder what the "HD Ready" manufacturing and
retail cohorts will have to say about it? I'm not sure I would have
bought my HD ready flat panel if I'd known this a month ago. Ready
for what? Years of having to pay through the nose, that's what!

If you want to know more/wish to have your say follow this link
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/ddr/

Bah Humbug!


It hasn't killed off HDTV on Freeview, I think they're merely making the
broadcasters bid for the new spectrum if they want extra spectrum for HDTV.


--
Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - Digital Radio News & Info

Find the cheapest Freeview & DAB prices:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/fr..._receivers.php
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