US ATSC conversion: with 700 some odd days until NTSC is turned off, you would think that US TV stations would run a dayly counter...

Dolby Stereo in DVB-T is coded in AAC -- well, at least in ATSC it is.

The net increase in bandwidth per channel-audio-stream would probably be no
more than 10%, for Dolby support.
For a lot of programming, it just is not needed.

YLE, and others -- are probably avoiding Dolby as most programming does not
justify it.
With time, and more bandwidth -- it will come. There are studio switching
issues too...
When it does come -- Finland will probably be better off than Australia.
Australian broadcasters did a lot of homework before the DVB-T switch ...
thus the temporary advantage.

I would hardly call it bit starved. With a 23Mbps transport stream you
won't get more than a 13-15Mbps HD video channel plus a 6-7Mbps SD video
channel plus a 1.5Mbps video programme guide plus multiple dolby digital
and MPEG audio streams.

whining

I envy you Australians. In Finland we have in each DVB-T multiplex (or
transport stream) five or six SD channels, 2-3 Mbps each

There's no dolby on any channel, probably because the only carrier company
in Finland charges so much for bandwidth, and I haven't seen even plans on
starting HDTV.

GMAN wrote:
In article , davmel wrote:
GMAN wrote:
In article , davmel
wrote:
The light years you speak of are an indication of how old and already
obsolete the ATSC system is. But don't worry it will only be a matter of
time before the standard is just a foot note in history just like the
long list of USA centric communications standards.
At least the USA was out there seting standards, unlike Australia.
We do set standards but ONLY after we have collaborated with other
countries as part of international standards organisations. We're not
arrogant enough to think that we're more important than everyone else
and as soon as we set a standard everyone else will follow.
Even after Vietnam and Iraq the USA still thinks it can rule the world
on it's own.... Some hard lessons still need to be learned.
I agree, we need to stay home and let the rest of the world GO TO HELL!!!!

Yes, I think the Iraqi's would certainly prefer hell right now to the
civil war bloodshed they're currently experiencing.

What the hell was up with your country allowing Nazi's to keep US and
allied prisoners of war on your Aussie soil in WWII?

WTF are you on about? We kept German & Japanese POW's on our soil during
WWII. Why would we keep our own and allied forces as POW's inside our
country?????

David wrote:

Besides USA bashing, exactly WTF is your overall point supposed to be?


In case it got lost, my point was that perhaps the conversion/adoption
of digital TV would have been accelerated globally if more countries
participated in an international committee to determine the best
terrestrial digital TV standard rather than developing their own format
for domestic use.
Oh well, no use in crying over spilt milk, the sooner crappy analogue
NTSC transmissions in the USA are switched off the better.

"davmel" wrote in message
...
David wrote:

Besides USA bashing, exactly WTF is your overall point supposed to be?

In case it got lost, my point was that perhaps the conversion/adoption of
digital TV would have been accelerated globally if more countries
participated in an international committee to determine the best
terrestrial digital TV standard rather than developing their own format
for domestic use.
Oh well, no use in crying over spilt milk, the sooner crappy analogue NTSC
transmissions in the USA are switched off the better.

And what about crappy PAL analogue transmissions here in Australia. Haven't
the cut off dates now been extended indefinitely?

On Thu, 2 Feb 2007, Yeechang Lee wrote:
I think part of the reason more European TV viewers aren't up in arms
about how the continent overall is about a decade behind the US in
over-the-air HDTV (and at least several years behind in
cable/satellite HDTV) is that European reports on HDTV adoption almost
never talk about the US experience.

It is a fundamental part of the European psyche, brought about by the
trauma of two world wars, that Europe is superior to the US. Reality is
too much for them to handle. Europeans can not compare themselves to the
US, other than to reinforce their feeling of superiority.

"Those Amazing Kangaroos!"
Reminds me of those American fools who think that all British TV
programming is as good as (and is of the same genres as) what appears
on Masterpiece Theater.

Tell me about it. I'm not sure which is worst: limey TV or kangaroo TV,
but they're both equally bad. Leave aside flickery PAL. The programming
has poor production values, and low-brow (or no-brow) material that makes
Hollywood look like a pinnacle of culture by comparison. Not only that,
they pay a tax to the national broadcaster for the privilege!

Think about PBS. Now remember that what PBS has is the cream of the crop.

-- Mark --

http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.

"Jukka Aho" wrote in message
i...
R Sweeney wrote:

Interestingly, the DVB organization is run exclusively by the European
Broadcast Union and DVB standards can only be approved by the European
technology agencies to become "world" standards.

This would seem to be a bit Euro-centric and not global at all... but
then again, we all know Europeans can't be imperialists can they?

http://www.ebu.ch/members/members_associate.php
http://www.ebu.ch/members/members_active.php (Israel, Egypt, Jordan,
Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, ...)

--
znark

The quote was "run by".

Like ATSC, DVB has "foreign" members - but they don't run things.

The DVB staff members are employees of the EBU and changes to standards need
only be approved by EU standards bodies to enter the DVB standard.

"davmel" wrote in message
...
David wrote:

Besides USA bashing, exactly WTF is your overall point supposed to be?

In case it got lost, my point was that perhaps the conversion/adoption of
digital TV would have been accelerated globally if more countries
participated in an international committee to determine the best
terrestrial digital TV standard rather than developing their own format
for domestic use.
Oh well, no use in crying over spilt milk, the sooner crappy analogue NTSC
transmissions in the USA are switched off the better.

So... which came first ATSC or DVB?
The ATSC was established in 1987.
The DVB didn't even start organizing until 1991.

Now... who was it that didn't join the HD party already in progress to for
"form a concerted pan-European platform to develop digital terrestrial TV"
separate from North America?

YES... it was the Europeans who decided NOT to go along and instead have an
all European solution... just like they did in the NTSC(1950 color) /
PAL(1963) / SECAM(1956) days.

"Mark Crispin" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 2 Feb 2007, Yeechang Lee wrote:
I think part of the reason more European TV viewers aren't up in arms
about how the continent overall is about a decade behind the US in
over-the-air HDTV (and at least several years behind in
cable/satellite HDTV) is that European reports on HDTV adoption almost
never talk about the US experience.

It is a fundamental part of the European psyche, brought about by the
trauma of two world wars, that Europe is superior to the US. Reality is
too much for them to handle. Europeans can not compare themselves to the
US, other than to reinforce their feeling of superiority.

"Those Amazing Kangaroos!"
Reminds me of those American fools who think that all British TV
programming is as good as (and is of the same genres as) what appears
on Masterpiece Theater.

Tell me about it. I'm not sure which is worst: limey TV or kangaroo TV,
but they're both equally bad. Leave aside flickery PAL. The programming
has poor production values, and low-brow (or no-brow) material that makes
Hollywood look like a pinnacle of culture by comparison. Not only that,
they pay a tax to the national broadcaster for the privilege!

Think about PBS. Now remember that what PBS has is the cream of the crop.

-- Mark --


It's amazing, Europeans refuse to go along with previously existing North
American standards or to even collaborate in them, and they are heroes.

The US refuses to abandon preexisting standards work to accept
European-centric standards, and they are bent on world domination.

This is just not rational thinking.

On Tue, 6 Feb 2007, R Sweeney wrote:
It's amazing, Europeans refuse to go along with previously existing North
American standards or to even collaborate in them, and they are heroes.
The US refuses to abandon preexisting standards work to accept
European-centric standards, and they are bent on world domination.
This is just not rational thinking.

That's Europe for you.

They did the same thing with satellite navigation. First the EU demanded
that the US give up GPS to international (meaning European) control.
When the US demurred, they went to the Russians and demanded that the
Russians turn over GLONASS to them so they could make a GPS-killer out of
it. When the Russians also said no, the EU embarked upon their Galileo
program to be both a GPS-killer and GLONASS-killer.

The satellite navigation community, being a sort that says "the more the
merrier" on satellites (more data, better fix), has had no particular
problem. People use dual GPS/GLONASS systems now. But now the Europeans
are refusing to release the necessary Galileo technical specifications so
that manufacturers can start producing tri-system receivers, and are
hinting that these specifications may require per-receiver license fees.
Both the US and the Russians have open, free specifications for the
civilian signal.

Let's not forget the longstanding foofaraw of Internet governance. The
main reason behind the European attacks on ICANN is not about any
malfeasance of ICANN, but rather that they don't own ICANN. They'd be
quite happy if ICANN were in an ITU office in Geneva. Among other things,
the Europeans are upset that they can not ban certain entities and certain
content from the Internet; and they feel that by controlling ICANN they
could acquire the power to do so.

It should be noted that the US *has* used European standards when they
made sense. GSM is an upgrade to TDMA (although some of us would say "not
enough of an upgrade") and it made sense to replace TDMA with GSM. Then
again, Japan leapfrogged GSM to go to UMTS...

-- Mark --

http://panda.com/mrc
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to eat for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.

Mark Crispin wrote:
On Tue, 6 Feb 2007, R Sweeney wrote:
It's amazing, Europeans refuse to go along with previously existing North
American standards or to even collaborate in them, and they are heroes.
The US refuses to abandon preexisting standards work to accept
European-centric standards, and they are bent on world domination.
This is just not rational thinking.

That's Europe for you.

They did the same thing with satellite navigation. First the EU
demanded that the US give up GPS to international (meaning European)
control. When the US demurred, they went to the Russians and demanded
that the Russians turn over GLONASS to them so they could make a
GPS-killer out of it. When the Russians also said no, the EU embarked
upon their Galileo program to be both a GPS-killer and GLONASS-killer.

The satellite navigation community, being a sort that says "the more the
merrier" on satellites (more data, better fix), has had no particular
problem. People use dual GPS/GLONASS systems now. But now the
Europeans are refusing to release the necessary Galileo technical
specifications so that manufacturers can start producing tri-system
receivers, and are hinting that these specifications may require
per-receiver license fees. Both the US and the Russians have open, free
specifications for the civilian signal.

Let's not forget the longstanding foofaraw of Internet governance. The
main reason behind the European attacks on ICANN is not about any
malfeasance of ICANN, but rather that they don't own ICANN. They'd be
quite happy if ICANN were in an ITU office in Geneva. Among other
things, the Europeans are upset that they can not ban certain entities
and certain content from the Internet; and they feel that by controlling
ICANN they could acquire the power to do so.

It should be noted that the US *has* used European standards when they
made sense. GSM is an upgrade to TDMA (although some of us would say
"not enough of an upgrade") and it made sense to replace TDMA with GSM.
Then again, Japan leapfrogged GSM to go to UMTS...


The US is just as bad (anyone for metric?)