A European Perspective on Sinclair's FCC Initiative and the 8VSB vs. COFDM Debate

by Dale Cripps
Friday, October 29, 1999

What is the European view of Sinclair's initiative with the FCC? We asked one who has been in the forefront of the HDTV and DTV movement in Europe for the last 15 years. He too requested anonymity, suggesting again just how "sensitive" the issue has become. - Dale Cripps

COFDM really is a more robust modulation scheme and it enables mobile reception. The FCC process has taken too long. If ATSC had been introduced in 1995, then I think that the silicon fix (i.e. add powerful equalizers) might have worked...you were still ahead. Now that 7 years have elapsed since USA first brandished digital HD, and COFDM is in the market, it is too late to implement 8VSB. The US public should have the best system available.

This would either be DVB-T or the Japanese ISDB system. Both use COFDM. What prevented them from being combined into a single standard was time-to-market: British needed to ship product.

The Japanese system is still paper so DVB-T represents the best choice on time-to-market.

As you know, TV manufacturers tend to be European or Japanese/Korean. Chip producers tend to be American or Japanese/Korean/Taiwanese. Both sets of players will produce product for any standard.

From a regulatory perspective, one also needs to reflect on the consequences of adopting a technology which will allow broadcasters to offer mobile TV as a free-to-air service. It should probably be a pay service, given that all other mobile services are high-value transactional services paying heavy spectrum prices. State-promoted free-to-air digital terrestrial TV projects in Europe may fail to meet their original intention, to prolong the analog market structure, and switch to mobile service provision, using spectrum they were given gratis.

The bargain whereby US broadcasters got 6MHz to do HD, then didn't have to do it looks better and better with COFDM...

General view from Europe is that FCC/ATSC has presided over a digital version of the MAC strategy. Too long, too cumbersome, too late. We have been there, done that, purchased the T shirt in 1992. Now it's onwards and upwards with DVB.