Re: is OTA TV doomed?

Bob your correct again,,and I know now I have all but certainly joined
the "flame Bob" club,,LOL

I posted the same observation about 1080i OTA - the dam artifacts
every time anything but the fish moved. PBS seems particularly bad -
but I think that's only because they are really trying to do the full
minimal compression HD. Also noticed it on the Indy 500,,cars looked
like Borg cubes,,LOL

Got my A. H. flamed for saying that,,LOL

Now in fairness, if that's possible here, network HD feeds do not seem
to have to much of a motion problem. i assume that's because they are
"dumb downing" the signal with more compression? My problem with most
network feeds is that they look fuzzy...yes wide screen, pseudo HD,
but still kind of soft.

Anyone want to rationally discuss that? Not claiming to be a god
appointed guru, just curious.

Of course with the 'dumb downing" I suggest that full resolution 480i
wide screen would look better. Get the Lord of the Rings Directors
addition - the extended movie, spread over 2 discs, with all the idiot
nonsense stuff on 2 more discs,,,,

Simply stunning ,,and yes i have compared it to the single disc
version.








Bob Miller <bob@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I wouldn't beat the over compression thing. A 1080i HD signal from the
camera has a bit rate of 1.485 Gbps. That is compressed to 19.34 Mbps
using MPEG2 for a compression ratio of something like 77 times. Thats a
lot of compression. Too much in fact IMO. But that is what you now have
being broadcast on US digital stations.

What would be far better would be MORE compression using MPEG4 which can
half the bits needed while still matching MPEG2's quality. Now MPEG2's
quality as I just said is not that great when forced to squeeze 1.485
Gbps into 19.34 Mbps but if you can do that same poor quality with half
the bits you can also now lower the compression ratio with MPEG4 to
increase the quality. That is still use close to the 19.34 Mbps and have
far better quality than MPEG2 would have.

And of course you could do something higher than half of 19.34 Mbps with
MPEG4 and have better quality than MPEG2 with lots of breathing room for
a statistically multiplexed other program or two.

So over compression isn't the problem. It is using a poor compression
tool to compress more than it can do while also maintaining decent
quality. NO matter how good the compression tool it can be used badly.
The thing is to have the best tools. We don't

The thing is to use the best tools and match them to the restrictions
you have. We don't. Our 6 MHz channel which can handle 19.34 Mbps
demands better than MPEG2 compression to deliver decent quality 1080i HD
programming.

You don't have to know anything more than how to turn on your set and
watch any high action sports shot in 1080i to see that this is true.

Bob Miller

AZV14@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Bob

Not to get involved with the technical issue that you seem to be
constantly flamed for, but your economic model is right on the mark.

I am not saying the you will have no HD OTA, you may have some, but
its going to be few and far between. The station manager that shuts
off the 4 sub channels so 3 percent of his audience can see Tom
Cruises nose hairs better is not going to last long. Not especially
when that HD feed is going to Sat and Cable systems to be sold as a
premium service.

I have an OTA HD tuner, I like most of what I see when its being done
correctly. However, when 480i is done correctly, its not that big a
difference.

The problems, that most have never seen 480i done correctly. DVD
movies, and Sat and Digital cable are HORRIBLY compressed. The are
digital only because they are ones and zeroes, not because they are
DVD 480i quality. For some reason, studios seem to feel that instead
of just putting the movie on a DVD at the highest quality possible -
they have to include all sorts of useless menus, directors comments,
out takes, intakes, overtakes, and previews of ten other equally badly
produced forgettable movies.

Both St and Cable could bring you 50 channels of true 480i DVD
'quality" video,,instead they give you 500 channels of macro blocking
fuzzy(fill in the expletive) highly compressed. Why - the market
demands lots of channel -even if you never watch 90 percent of them.
Fact is,,JQP really could care less about what the picture looks like.







Bob Miller <bob@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

AZV14@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Thanks, but your never going to get through to Matt,,

He is one of those techno junkies, who thinks that since he bought a
TV with an HD capable OTA tuner, he deserves free HD. The free HD OTA
is nothing more than the OTA broadcasters test driving the technology,
untill 2009, when the other 98 percent of their audience goes away,
and thier digital broadcast has to turn a profit, and work reliably.

The only way they can hope to survive, is to use all 5
channels,,,,that means no HD.

Using his model - the cable and sat companies, with 500 channels, need
500 times the staff to sell ad space,,,,ROTFL,,,,,,,hell they would be
the biggest employers in the world at that rate,,LOL


According to him we should only have one local broadcast channel. All
the others would cost too much to operate. Or is their some magic that
makes it different if there are different owners? What if there were ten
channels in a market all doing well and then one guy bought them all. To
bad for him since it would be all down hill from there.

The reality is that in a competitive market to maximize profits or just
to stay in business you would have to maximize both content and quality
of content to compete. Neither you or your competitor would do much of
what is done if it were not for the competition. It would not make sense
to add content or increase quality if you didn't have to because of the
competition. And you surely wouldn't lower prices.

That means that the business that stays in business does whatever it
takes and the one that does it best is copied by the others. If that
means more HD content thats what it will be, if it means more SD content
then that is what it will be. And then there is the political
consideration.

My take is that at the present HD wins because of the political
realities. After broadcasters get or lose multicast must carry and the
digital transition is over is when we will begin to see the true colors
of broadcasters as they try to survive in a radically different world.

That world looks like one SD channel in MPEG2 and the rest of the
spectrum devoted to a combination of SD, ED and HD content in MPEG4
delivered via subscription. The mix will be dictated by who makes the
most money. Whatever that winning model is everyone will copy. If you
look at other countries where there is some semblance to this you can
see some patterns. Australia, HD and SD but no extra quantity of SD.
What wins? So far SD at about 60% to 40%.

In the UK where they have lots of free SD but no free HD they have a far
higher take up rate than Australia which suggest that when you have both
SD and quantity you have a winner. No country has both yet, that is the
choice of SD in quantity or HD.

Broadcasters have limited bandwidth and the choice of selling HD to
cable while broadcasting a lower resolution and more programming to more
devices using their spectrum. That is what I think they will do.

Bob Miller
"Elmo P. Shagnasty" <elmop@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <12fhiq340cf8s92@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"Matthew L. Martin" <nothere@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

and have five times as many commercials to sell. More
commercials require more sales people to sell.
No, Matthew, you miss the point completely.

They have 5 times the AIR TIME to offer advertisers. One sales call
takes care of ALL of an advertiser's needs. You want your spot on one
channel? Or on all channels? There's a sliding scale.

You so badly want this not to happen that you stick your head in the
sand AND make ludicrous statements like "5 times as many commercials to
sell".



.

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