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FROM THE HDTV NEWS LIST...
Wed, Mar 22, 2000
HDTV NEWS LIST
YOU MAY ACCESS THIS STORY below at /hdtv/brazil.html for your reading convenience.
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The following article appeared exclusively today in HDTV NEWS ONLINE. /hdtvnol.html.
A subscription to HDTV ONLINE supports our primary research on behalf of the DTV movement. Please subscribe today.
John Abel, Vice-president of GEOCAST--the father of multi-media broadcasting--is the featured interview in tomorrow's edition. Don't miss it if making money with DTV is of interest to you.
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BRAZIL REPORT POINTS TO COFDM--ROBERT GRAVES COMMENTS, And Other Things
By Dale Cripps
Following comes on the heels of the FCC's decision to deny Sinclair's COFDM initiative comes the first part of a new report from Brazil's technical body, ABERT/SET Study Group on Digital Television to ANATEL (the FCC of Brazil). The Study group had tested 8-VSB, DVB-T, and ISDB-T. the COFDM modulation scheme and "reached the conclusion that COFDM must be the modulation for the system to be indicated in the near future, at the completion of the tests, as the most appropriate for adoption in Brazil."
Other national markets considering 8-VSB, such as Argentina, could be greatly influenced to follow should Brazil formally adopt this recommendation. Some fear it would be the big domino to fall, toppling all others remaining upright for 8-VSB. The last two dominos would be Mexico and Canada.
The recommendation came as a complete surprise to the ATSC--an unexpected procedure in Brazil's selection process. In an exclusive interview with ATSC's Chairman, Robert Graves earlier today he acknowledged, "It is not good news for us."
The ATSC Chairman has had an increasingly difficult time representing the 8-VSB standard for international use since the outbreak of the Sinclair initiative to include COFDM in the FCC standard began to surface last July. Referring to his efforts in Brazil, Graves sighed, "We expected to be swimming downstream, and it looks like we will have to swim upstream." No one at the ATSC has seen more information than that provided in the press release below."
Graves, however, is not deterred and believes that more data has been taken by the Study Group than was referred to in the press release. "We are anxious to see how that (other data) looks." said Graves. "We will have a strong technical counter argument to this preliminary finding."
The ATSC is clear as to the pros and cons of COFDM. Graves noted from his Virginia office that the data referred to in the press release was taken from UHF band channel 34 at a ten kilometer distance. "That is relevant," he said, "but certainly not comprehensive enough to base a decision."
The advertised superiority of 8-VSB, challenged by Sinclair and most in the COFDM camp, is its coverage--the distance reached using less power. Greater immunity to impulse noise, especially in the VHF band, is attributed to 8-VSB by its developers, though, again, this is challenged by COFDM advocates, and more recently by Peter Smith of NBC (see below). Indeed, the UHF band will be used by Canel Plus in their COFDM OTA pay services launching later this year.
Does data not reported in today's news release suggest a manipulation or conspiracy designed to reach a specific conclusion the Study Group? "No, not at all." said Graves quickly, "I cannot conceive of any such conspiracy. We know the people there very well. They are of high integrity."
Why then this recommendation to ANATEL using only partial data? "I think their test plan was convenient to quote from, and to make a point. We would like to look at the other data and see if we don't see some other points that might be equally relevant."
And what points might they be? "It is not completely surprising that COFDM might perform better in high-signal-strength, high-multipath areas." said Graves, "The question for me is; did they take enough data out at the fringe where our 8-VSB has significantly better raw coverage capability--where multipath is not a big problem? There should be thousands and thousands of locations where 8-VSB keeps on working like the Energizer Bunny...long after COFDM has failed."
Is the fringe area of Sao Paolo large and populated?
"Sao Palo is the second largest city in the world. It is like the metro Los Angeles area." advises Graves.
Zenith recently tested COFDM (DVB version) and found "very serious difficulties" with impulse noise in the VHF frequencies. The ABERT/SET testing used the higher UHF-band channel 34, which would not be subject to this fragility. In a laboratory test injected impulse noise tests may have been conducted. Graves is "anxious" to see the results of those tests.
COFDM advocates say that the impulse noise issue is also not as advertised, and point to recent statements made by NBC's Peter Smith, where he was quoted in Internet forums and magazine articles saying the issue is "bogus." New and more robust COFDM chips are reportedly capable of handling greater impulse noise--enough to nullify the advantage claimed by 8-VSB. Others say that is highly unlikely due to the number of carriers used in COFDM, and the payload requirement in a 6 MHz environment.
While the purpose of this article is not a technical discusiion, but rather a report on how things are going with competiting technologies under consideration, it serves to further the understanding by noting that many from Europe do believe that COFDM and the DVB development is one of the most elegant feats of engineering ever done, and provides an uncanny flexible system that should find use anywhere in the world. Dermot Nolan, one of the most vocal supporters of COFDM, points to the fact that DVB-T operates scalably in 6, 7 or 8 MHz channels and designed for use in the 50 Hz & 60 Hz worlds. DBS operator Echostar uses the formats for interlace or progressive, for DVB audio or Dolby, and the chip for doing all of that (and in cable too) is down around $7.
Sao Paolo is very heavily congested with respect to spectrum. Graves explains the problem: "No matter which system they choose every bit of spectrum they can find to make DTV work there will be needed. They can not afford to give up the VHF spectrum as a 'home' for DTV channels during the transition. Our own test make us think that it is questionable whether DVB-T would work at all in VHF in a 6 MHz channel with a bit rate that is sufficient to get HDTV. If a car goes by the TV quits working. Or, if your neighbor turns on a vacuum cleaner, it quits. Even where they are exclusively in UHF in the UK their are anecdotal stories where this occurs." concludes Graves.
Always more than just technical:
Beyond the technical arguments for 8-VSB other compelling economic and marketing advantageous may beckon. "HDTV is absolutely essential in Brazil," said Graves flatly, "and, there will not be the same kinds of economies of scale for HDTV equipment on the production or receiver side should they choose DVB.
Is not the display now more independent, even separated from the electronics? Aren't the differences merely a bit of silicon?
"The DVB folks will say that. 'Oh, it doesn't matter. It's just a MPEG 2, main-profile at high-level chip." responds Graves. "What that overlooks is the fact that all of the functionality is being defined on fewer and fewer chips. When someone decides to include HDTV capability, they will do so first for the ATSC standard, and second, if at all, for the other standards."
Why?
"Because the other standard is not being used for HDTV. A few years may change due to Japan's moving to T-DTV. They will likely do HDTV, or at least put out receivers capable of handling it. But they don't plan to launch their service until late 2003. Their broadcasters are complaining that that date is too early," answers Graves.
In a related item, and as noted above, NBC tested both 8-VSB and COFDM for their own knowledge and come up with the same conclusions as did Sinclair--it doesn't work well in dynamic multipath environments. Graves doesn't question the voracity of the NBC test other than he wonders out loud why the latest Zenith receiver, certainly an improvement over all commercially available receivers (and itself soon-to-be commercially available) was not used in making the NBC evaluations.
In a chance meeting with NBC's Peter Smith at a Sony press conference in New York TV engineer and author Mark Schubin, learned last week that the tests had been conducted, and with even technical support from 8-VSB supporters. The tests were conducted by NBC and General Electric Corporate Research and Development. The DVB equipment, loaned by an independent party, There is currently only one source of 6 MHz DVB-T equipment; namely that supplied by DVB vendors, as sanctioned by the DVB project office. The tests were done in Philadelphia, mostly as a reality check for NBC.
The COFDM was reported by NBC to provide better reception in multipath environments than did 8-VSB (a point few on either side argue over any longer). Smith was quoted in "Film and Video Magazine" saying that he supports "the shortest solution with the minimum of upheaval." He sees a great deal of lead time--two-to-five years--to bring 8-VSB reception to COFDM equivalency. Sinclair's Nat Ostroff said to HDTVNEWS that "as far as a delay is concerned I am sure that the one caused by the ultimate failure of the consumer to take up DTV will be a much more serious delay than the short debate over the modulation." Ostroff deflects any criticism that his actions are the cause of any delay, "What about the lack of any real DTV-to-NTSC converters on the market? It is these kind of issues that killed the goose. Not Sinclair's cry in the night."
Another question arose within the Washington legal community last week as to whether this GE/NBC report made its way into the official records of the FCC. Was it considered formally or informally prior to the unanimous vote by the Commission to reject the Sinclair initiative? Any reports or comments presented to the FCC must be made available to those in the opposition of an issue. So far no such report has surfaced in or out of the FCC. Reliable sources who claim to have seen the report say it is 64 pages in length.
While the FCC denied the Sinclair petition, the regulator said in the same breath that the entire DTV roll-out will be reviewed in their biannual review of DTV due to begin next month. (this review is about a year late by some reckoning.) Rather than being discouraged by the FCC denial, COFDM advocates said they were delighted with the decision since it provoked this broader review of the whole DTV roll out, which they believe is far better an exercise than one focused strictly upon the modulation question.
Sinclair's Nat Ostroff claimed a victory for their part in inching the indoor antenna issue into the upcoming FCC review. Another new issue relating to mobile applications may also be a part of the review's agenda.
Internet forum leader, author, and technical iconoclast, Craig Birkmaier, has long railed against the ATSC standard as one that is long ago obsolete with technology rooted in old, closed, and dark protective thinking designed to "prop up the institution of broadcasting during that fifth estate's declining years. In his view the broadcast business models under discussion now are inadequate due to the 8-VSB standard, which fails to serve up the potential digital banquet inherent in the amount of spectrum under broadcast control. "The stage is now set," he says while sweeping away with one hand the existing digital DTV efforts, "for the real game. There will be ample opportunity to provide all the evidence we need to set the DTV transition on a more productive course. We don't need more victims, we need to start developing consensus on a new path that leads away from the digital cliff."
Speaking of mobile applications, John Abel, Vice-President of Geocast is not a forceful advocate for any mobile applications of the DTV signal, though he is certainly one of the world's leading advocates for data broadcasting. In an extensive interview to be published tomorrow he offers in HDTV NEWS ONLINE that portability is more in line with the vision of the major companies he is now engaging in talks, such as AOL/Time-Warner.
Martin Jacklin in Europe offers a little different perspective, "Without suggesting you tell the FCC how much you need to watch Seinfeld while you roller skate through Central Park, perhaps we should consider one obvious fact from the world of telecoms: mobile devices will no longer be made with less functionality than a cell phone. They will always have a back channel. Maybe the video will only be used on demand. 2 Mb/s makes a healthy bit pipe for next generation streaming media. This could be a vast array of services. Perhaps by the time everyone has a "Watchman", CNN will be running a realtime streaming version of its core service."
Jacklin reports that in DVB-T demos in December 1997, a Seven Network van received crystal clear widescreen images with a commercial decoder in an area where GSM coverage was impossible. DVB-T has been found to deliver 12 Mb/s to moving receivers (Reimers in Germany), and about 4Mb/s to a car moving at 300 km/h (RTL tests).
Bob Graves offers that mobile applications using 2-VSB is certainly workable, though less-than backwards compatible. But he quickly questions the pay load that one may achieve when delivering both standard TV and mobile applications simultaneously. He does speculate that during daytime TV little more than 4 Mb/s could be used for a TV program, allowing the rest of the channel's bits and overhead to be devoted to the mobile applications, which could include audio services and a host of community-based informational services. John Abel points out in our recent interview that there will be opportunistic data that can be drawn not only from one stations unused spectrum portions, but from all stations within the area of the receiver.
One must marvel at the courage of manufacturers to continue putting out product when there is so much uncertainty in the air.
While not endorsing either side, and keeping his mind and options open, Mark Schubin intimates in his comments to me that there is no uncertainty that a good dose of industry unity wouldn't cure.
He reminds all that the Sinclair petition specifically stated that the implementation schedule must not be changed. Clearly Sinclair sought inclusion of COFDM, not the elimination of 8-VSB.
The petition also did not require set makers to produce COFDM receivers
Hmmm. The conclusion one draws from this connection Mark makes is: Don't make and sell any COFDM receivers. Are broadcasters going to market their own COFDM receivers? Will they send signals, even if they can by law, to a zero universe of receivers? Of course, the skittishness inherent in competition would never permit such a unity of purpose...or would it?
Schubin adds a caveat to this formula: "Make 8-VSB work." There are 120 stations or more transmitting 8-VSB right now with more added all the time. "On the other hand,' he says, "there are zero stations transmitting COFDM in the U.S. There are some number of thousands of 8-VSB receivers. There are zero COFDM in the U.S. If we posit say two years for the FCC to work out the details of the petition, then 8-VSB would have a five-year lead on COFDM. If these "miracle" chips and fourth-generation receivers do what is claimed of them, the 8-VSB lead would be insurmountable, and there would never be COFDM in the US. Of course, if 8-VSB takes longer than another two years to get fixed...."
This issue has certainly drawn the sharpest dividing lines in the industry since the HDTV production standard split into two camps in the 80s--one being the US/Japan version, the other European. The lines of battle have been clearly drawn now for the modulation war--a war that has yet to begin in earnest, but we all hope ends very quickly. In the eighteen years I have followed this industry not one step forward was met with anything but an obstruction.
The most sanguine among us at this point must begin to question the stability of the 8-VSB in light of the Chinese water torture the COFDM advocates are delivering to it. One day it may give way from the undermining and the erosion. There could be a move to something else. Is it necessary to have global economies of scale to serve the consumer best? Or, is competition still a healthy factor in capitalism? We can point to things which are universally standardized and provide utility year after year, even progressing on their own initiatives. Film might be viewed in this way--always the same from camera to camera, and projector to projector throughout the world. It has lasted for 100 years and still going strong--the medium still of billion dollar blockbusters like "Titanic." But electronic cinema was born to give film a run for its money, and as Mike Tsnberg of Toshiba said to us recently, "It may prove that the more simple 8-VSB offers more room and encouragement for outside invention and growth because of its apparent weaknesses. In the end this was the case with NTSC, which benefited from so many outside contributions that it has been a viable system for 50 years, and more."
Clearly an inclusion or substitution in our standards cannot be done without pain. Just as clearly there are people who believe the pain they endure from the slow ramp-up of DTV sales in the US is curable with this change in modulation. What we cure is very important. Attacking the symptoms may not solve the entire problem, While there are many who point to the slow market penetration of DTV as being tied directly to the modulation scheme, there are as many other analysts who disagree and lay it to other causes--mostly to the expense of the receiver and lack of programs.
I agree with this last assessment, and add to it that the consumer electronics industry has not geared up in mind and body to fulfill the market stimulation's needed for a true transition. Reaching that is a bigger task than anyone had calculated it to be. It also requires in this day innovation that focuses upon the real needs of the changing markets in the DTV target audience. If those real needs are not addressed and the technology advances are merely opportunities to leap frog your competitors through constantly forcing change in your marketplace customers, your end will come sooner than you had expected it.
What slow growth is tied to the lack of compelling programs fitted in composition to the medium the cost of the equipment is burdensome. In a nation of several millionaires it should be evident that cost alone is not the cause of market ambivalence.
Why did the industry go off in this expensive direction of promoting HDTV first? Why not some of the lower resolution solutions?
At this year's CES the integrated receivers were about $1000 more than those without decoders. Outboard decoders are now running anywhere from $700 to $1000. If those were removed from the list price and given away, would the acquisition of the big screen HDTV ready HDTV displays go any faster? Unlikely since only one in ten were sold with a receiver in the first place. Why? Not because of reception problems, but because of lack of programming in their area. The people bought the expensive displays for playing their DvD collection. They benefit from the slightly improved performance from upconverted standard NTSC signals, which is 100% of the time. DVD is what is driving the market more than the SuperBowl, though everyone I know who saw the SB has not taken their set back to the store for a refund. .
Note from the editor...
This nation made a conscious choice to deliver HDTV first--to use its absolutely stunning performance as the allure in the marketplace--the big hit attraction that can surmount even bad programming--something a digital data service will never do. Everyone who sees it, wants it. Gary Shapiro has been right on that point. It may not fit your view of the most efficient use of bandwidth, or your software selling ambitions. But it does fit the view that you have to make a strong attraction if you are to be successful in transitioning one of the major infrastructures of our times from one level to another. In the hierarchic of needs the urgent things must be settled first before the motives are set upon other things. The market needs to see HDTV as it is meant to be seen, and they will set their priorities and actualize them with personal resources in due time. Without the faith that such processes are going on you will be rebuilding the business models for DTV every few weeks, and nothing solid will materialize until you feel the warm glow from demand that us beginning to pull your product through the market chains. All movement is met with resistance. The store offers it, the buyer offers it, the signal providers offer it, and the regulatory agencies offer it, your wife or husband offers it. That is as natural as the sun, and the greater the change the more power is required to complete it. Everyone but the few revolutionaries engineering the change offer that resistance, and nothing can overcome it but time and a will to move. And when the revolutionaries work is done, offers those who should know, make sure that their retirement is ample so they are not tempted to come back with their revolutionary habits and destroy what is the only surviving child in the crib. It will never be pretty enough nor smart enough for an engineer, or fanatic father. Nothing is ever good enough, but the world is made turns with decisions that were good enough for their times. That is all we can expect out of this revolution.
Dale E. Cripps
YOUR HDTV NEWS ONLINE REMAINS, AS WE SHOULD, NEUTRAL IN THIS ISSUE. WE DO ENDORSE A QUICK RESOLUTION OF ALL MATTERS IN ORDER TO REMOVE THE OBSTACLES TO DTV EXPANSION.
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ABERT/SET DIGITAL TV STUDY GROUP PRESS RELEASE
BRAZILIAN DIGITAL TELEVISION STUDY GROUP INDICATES COFDM AS THE MODULATION FOR BRAZIL
February 11, 2000
1. On February 11, at 3:00 pm, the ABERT/SET Study Group on Digital Television submitted to ANATEL (the Brazilian Telecommunications Agency ) the first part of the report regarding the Brazilian tests on digital terrestrial television systems. These tests on the existing systems ATSC, DVB-T and ISDB-T, respectively developed in the United States, Europe and Japan, are being conducted by the ABERT/SET Study Group since September 99, under the supervision of ANATEL.
2. This first document only addresses the modulation issue. After an extensive set of carefully performed laboratory and field tests, the Group reached the conclusion that COFDM must be the modulation for the system to be indicated in the near future, at the completion of the tests, as the most appropriate for adoption in Brazil.
3. This definition speeds up the channel allotment planning studies, which are being conducted by ANATEL with the participation of the ABERT/SET Digital Television Group, since they heavily depend on the employed modulation.
4. The main issues which lead to the Study Group's conclusion are: Better delivery of service within the coverage area, equal or superior to the current analogue one;
Higher reception robustness in the presence of multiple reflections, inherent to any off-air reception; Capability of transmitting high definition television signals, which the Group believes to be the future of television;
Mobile reception possibility.
It is important to note that, during the field tests performed in the city of Sao Paulo, only the systems using COFDM modulation succeeded in delivering television pictures to 100% of the sites within a distance of 10 km from the transmitter, using a 2.5 kW average transmission power.
5. Concerning the possible systems using COFDM, it is still necessary to perform additional tests, and to consider market issues, such as the impact of each choice on the Brazilian consumer electronics industry, and the time frame for commercial availability of each system.
6. The ABERT/SET Study Group will be carrying out tests and assessments until April 30, when the Final Report shall be submitted to ANATEL, containing the Group contribution to the decision on the Brazilian Digital Terrestrial Television Standard to be taken by the Agency .
7. From now on, the ABERT/SET Study Group will focus its efforts on the DVB-T and the ISDB-T systems which employ COFDM . Nevertheless, the Group will continue to evaluate the performance of the ATSC system , and its evolution towards complying with the issues mentioned in the above paragraph 4, considered vital by the Brazilian broadcasters for launching Digital Television in Brazil .
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Lessons
In ancient times, a king had a boulder placed on a roadway. Then he hid himself and watched to see if anyone would remove the huge rock. Some of the king's wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked around it. Many loudly blamed the king for not keeping the roads clear. But none did anything about getting the stone out of the way.
Then a peasant came along carrying a load of vegetables. Upon approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the stone to the side of the road. After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded.
After the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been. The purse contained many gold coins and a note from the king indicating that the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the roadway. The peasant learned what many of us never understand.
Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve our condition.
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