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COFDM vs. 8-VSB: The Global DTV Standards War and America's Honor at Stake

Dale Cripps · 2001

Mentioned: Dermot, Dick Wiley, Ross Perot

Summary

Dale Cripps weighs a contributor's argument that COFDM and DVB have effectively won the global DTV standards battle, leaving ATSC's 8-VSB isolated internationally. Cripps calls for an end to the acrimony and urges stakeholders to join the ATSC Modulation Task Force rather than continue attacking the companies and individuals who invested in the 8-VSB standard.

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Indeed I expect that Internet TV will force global harmonization of DTV standards; align or die. I think Microsoft knows that very well.
COFDM is going to be a commodity system, like TCP/IP, which will be integrated in laptops, portable and mobile devices with Windows/Web Browsers/TCP/IP/UMTS services very shortly. I understand one of the demos at NAB will be a PC COFDM DTV card switching between 720PHDTV and mobile DTV seamlessly.#

As to predictions: those in the COFDM countries will simply power ahead and I suspect that those high-tech countries where DTV is configured as a portable/mobile DTV service will be very successful. A departure from current broadcasting but the Internet is turning entire industries upside down now.

You who have been in forum discussion with Dermot must agree this is one of his tamer posts, yet it reveals a certain inner conviction and his version of the truth is unmistakably presented.

I think DVB have now bagged the global DTV standard, but that they do not realize this as they are really a trade association of members. It's rather like GSM: it's the international digital phone standard but Nokia, Ericsson, and Motorola on two different continents are the market leaders. It's my view that COFDM will benefit all and sundry, after all it came from Bell Labs, If the US switches to COFDM, the entire contoversy will simply be forgotten in a year (apart from scholars documenting hitech industries). I have to say that outside the US the entire 8VSB/COFDM controversy is viewed with utter incredulity: the contortions being gone through, the failure to accept the evidence, and the astonishing fact that until recently broadcasters did not speak out in their own survival interest. Most are also surprised that the US, a capitalist economy, simply does not apply the ruthless logic of the market in an expedited fashion. The one major impact of the internal US controversy is that internationally ATSC is dead in the water.

As to regions of the world benefitting from COFDM getting the global nod: 50% of all COFDM chips are made by US companies! The supreme irony.

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Do I give Dermot the last word when his comes with no great sacrifice made--no investment in millions and billions of dollars as have many he has skewered daily in order to get his point across? Or do we thank him for the patience with us? What about Zenith? What about Motorola? What about Sony? What about Panasonic? What about the sincere people who built products to ATSC specifications because the FCC said there was a good stable standard? What about the ACATS process and the outstanding work done all pro bono by Dick Wiley? What about the tireless work from all the committees and sub-committees--much of it unpaid--and what about those who paid the way for the others? What about the honor at stake for America? Is that on the line too? And what about all the rest of the people who have placed so much of their careers at risk for 8-VSB with their loyal patriotism and belief that they were doing what was right for their country and companies? What about the precious time it will take to make any kind of a change within the FCC, and who knows what or who tries to invade an opening in the standard? And what about just the technology of 8-VSB itself? Is it not also capable of fulfilling the TCP/IP vision Dermot, Ross Perot, and so many other forward thinking visionaries hold out as utter gospel for the 21st century?

Join the ATSC Modulation Task Force and help answer these questions. As press, I am not allowed you know. But please, don't throw one more rock--no more name calling to or from these companies and gentlemen and woman involved in this standard. In my eyes everyone has done a noble hero's service in their attempts to do right as they understood it to be. I do not have a villain in my play other than our collective failure. Please help me slay my villian.

Dale E. Cripps