[opendtv] Re: News; Dish to Expand HD Roster, Offer 1080p Movies

  • From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2008 08:03:01 -0400

At 5:39 PM -0400 8/2/08, Albert Manfredi wrote:

Craig Birkmaier wrote:


 While broadcasters fiddle with M/H...
You have GOT to be joking, Craig. That is, if you're implying that somehow transmitting 1080p is something OTA broadcasters can't do? 

Not the implication.
The real story here is that for HD enthusiasts, OTA broadcasting is every bit as limited as it was before broadcasters went digital and HD, which was supposed to keep them competitive. Other than sports, broadcasters are still delivering the same stuff that was losing audience share to the multichannel services before HD was available.
So now broadcasters are focusing on mobile and hand held, which does little more than support place shifting with the same tired old content. From a technology perspective they continue to fall behind the services that are delivering the vast majority of TV bits. 


 > Dish won't reveal what bit rate it will transmit 1080p//24

 movies at;
Maybe, but broadcasters have been able to do this already now for 10 years, right? And every single ATSC receiver out there can decode this, including the very first ones sold back when, without needing any recent software update.
Sorry, but I don't think you will find many true 24P streams coming from broadcasters. It's not the limits of the compression standard, it is the way in which they built their physical plants for HD. Any station that is 1080i converts EVERYTHING to 1080i for emission. Stations that are 720P typically convert everything to 720@60P. And both are limited by MPEG-2. 




 Blu-ray movies are usually encoded at bit rates ranging
 from 16 to 24 megabits per second.


And that they can make it fit within the 19.39 Mb/s channel.
The satcasters are not limited to 19.39 Mbps, however, it is unlikely they will allocate as many bits to a 1080@24P movie as is possible with Blu-Ray. By the way, Blu-Ray is capable of these higher bit rates, but it is not clear that the movies that are being released are encoded at this high a rate. With MPEG-2. 1080@24P movies can be delivered with excellent quality at 10-15 Mbps.
That's why broadcasters can now spend time thinking up other tricks, likle M/H f'rinstance.
You are close. Broadcasters may have little other than M/H in terms of audience in a few years. 

Regards
Craig


----------------------------------------------------------------------
You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways:
- Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at FreeLists.org 
- By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word 
unsubscribe in the subject line.

Other related posts:

  1. Home
  2. opendtv
  3. Archive
  4. 08-2008