8-VSB -- CAN IT BE FIXED?
By now most know that a troubling question has been raised in the minds of many broadcasters over the utility of 8-VSB, or at least the receivers made today using that modulation scheme. The concern is that under certain conditions (indoor reception with microreflections) the current 8-VSB receiver will likely do poorly when contrasted today with current COFDM receivers. Even when a high strength signal is present the vexing microreflections (especially when moving) cause faltering, or even failure with these 8-VSB receivers. If the receivers are not made considerably better, say critics of 8-VSB, in combating these common terrestrial conditions, many new DTV set owners will have no choice but to install far more elaborate outdoor mast-type or, where possible, attic antenna systems.The only alternative would be to acquire cable or DBS connections, or rely upon prerecorded programs (like DvD). These alternative either slow the market penitration, or invite the viewer away from broadcasting services.
David Smith, President of Sinclair Broadcast Group said this "marginal reception" is not good business for his 59 TV stations and their audiences. He has thrown down the gauntlet to the industry, saying, "Fix 8-VSB, or replace it."
Many experts throw up their hands crying, "Who can fix it? It's not in the cards with a single carrier scheme." But that may not be as true as it was once thought with Moore's law dishing blow after blow to old concepts. But the iconoclasts among us would claim there is no hope for 8-VSB ever being competitive to COFDM (and whatever system tomorrow brings).
The alternatives to not fixing it, of course, is that we learn to live with what it can do now and depend on it getting better in the future or it gets overthrown--replaced by something else. To do that would mean an inevitable time-penalty stretching out years before us. No one disputes that it will be 3 to 6 years before enough agreement can be reached for a new standard to gel. The financial cost can be estimated into the hundreds of millions of dollars, and the public will have to be told very carefully that something so new and so wonderful has happened that they had best put everything they had in mind for the electronic life on hold until we get it all sorted out to everyone's satisfaction. Hello, customers...are you there? hello? .
Since there are no independent variables we must think this issue through very carefully before anyone picks up pitch forks and marches on to Washington.
Go to /hdtv/cofdmvs8vsb.html and click on Mike Tsinberg's (he is leading Toshiba's DTV section) name. He was good enough to share his knowledge and industry insight as to why the 8-VSB has shown itself in the markets performing as it has, and is. He says that it can be "fixed" with the right attention paid to it by CE industry engineers. Read it carefully, evaluate it to see if Mike is not suggesting some action to be taken, and then make your comments known to me here via return Email with your permission to republish them on the web pages. .
While on that page you may also want to read Ed Williams (PBS) thorough report on the Baltimore demonstrations linked off that same page. Ed Williams, you all know, was responsible for much of the transmission test in Charlotte for the ATSC/8-VSB system, and of late has been supporting the Harris DTV demos and education seminars running about the nation..
Until next time,
Dale Cripps
PS
I know that many of you have not wanted to dignify these efforts made by Sinclair with any formal response. Better just stay quiet and let the little whirwind die out for lack of an opponent. That is a fine strategy when you have things blowing your way--when you enjoy a growing chorus of visible supporters in praise of your cause. But there are a finite number of players in broadcasting, and if you had won them all over in the past, you must now realize a shrinking congregation. I have talked to many group broadcast organization since my visit to Baltimore last Friday. Without exception they are expressing to me a new and, in their minds, serious set of concerns raised solely by what they have seen in those demonstrations. THEY ARE OPEN MINDED. No one is being emotional or childish. But some are concerned enough to have already suspended DTV equipment purchases thatwould be affected by the modulation scheme. Whether those first steps will lead to the doorstep of the FCC is in the hands of those who support and can demonstrate superiority for 8-VSB in the environments claimed by these
broadcasters as important to them. You can deny these market conditions, claim they are mischaracterized, or were not even part of the original bargain struck...Whatever is your strategy to succeed, now seems a good time to dust it off and play the trump card.
Dale
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