djo7613@blake.acs.washington.edu (Dick O'Connor) (10/06/89)
Sorry if I missed the discussion on this, but I just got back from a week in Illinois (596 articles in comp.sys.ibm.pc...read? Right.) and had to catch-up on a lot of assuredly fine postings. But while I was there, the big news was the sale of Zenith Data Systems to Groupe Bulle, a French (?) computer company that I believe owns Honeywell also. So, is there any further information? Are they still to be called ZDS? Will there still be a Zenith nameplate, or will the new line be called BULLEstations? What is/will be the reaction of US federal government purchasing agents, who have gone for ZDS products in a big way during the past few years? And why would Zenith Electronics sell off the only cash cow they have (ZDS made pretty good bucks over the years) and keep the TV division, which, as I understand it, has been losing money in recent years? PLEASE don't tell me Sony is about to buy *them* also! :) I hope "Moby" Dick O'Connor ** DISCLAIMER: It would Washington Department of Fisheries ** surprise me if the Olympia, Washington 98504 ** rest of the Department Internet Mail: djo7613@blake.u.washington.edu ** agreed with any of this!
khg@neabbs.UUCP (KING.HAN GAN) (10/14/89)
Zenith's computer division was bought up by Groupe Bull, a french company which also owns Honeywell (or at least part of it). Strangely enough, Bull's corporate logo is a green tree. Bull is now Europe's largest computer company. Apparantly Zenith wanted to concentrate on TV's, especially Hi Def TV. Zenith is by now the last (major) US maker of TV's. I can't really understand why they did this. Zenith's TV division's been losing money for years (selling the computers has now wiped out their debt). But Japanese and European manufacturers already have working HDTV and Zenith still has to develop theirs. I should think their *too late* for HDTV. The first HDTV satellites are alredy in the sky (over Japan), In Europe HDTV studios are already in use and the Olympic Games in Spain (1992) will be broadcast in HDTV (at least in Europe). In the US, HDTV hasn't even started ... King Han Gan - Rotterdam, The Netherlands
eb2e+@andrew.cmu.edu (Eric James Bales) (10/16/89)
>But Japanese and European manufacturers already have >working HDTV and Zenith still has to develop theirs. I should think >their *too late* for HDTV. HDTV recquires a wider bandwidth which is not available in the US due to use of the bandwidth by companies, cellular, etc. So a method of producing an HD picture has to be developed which will fit in the existing bandwidth or one that is only slightly larger, AND that same signal must also be compatible with the old type of signal because there isn't room for transmitting two signals for each station (or companies/government don't want to make room :-). Zenith is only slightly behind right now, and could pass the Japanese with a concerted effort on their part. -Eric Bales- Carnegie Mellon Disclaimer: I know nothing!
campbell@redsox.bsw.com (Larry Campbell) (10/16/89)
In article <8ZCCaG200WI9MMD0YQ@andrew.cmu.edu> eb2e+@andrew.cmu.edu (Eric James Bales) writes:
- HDTV recquires a wider bandwidth which is not available in
-the US due to use of the bandwidth by companies, cellular,
Sorry, but this is a stupid remark. Bandwidth is restricted only if you
insist on broadcasting over the airwaves. Most people receive TV via cable,
where bandwith limits are not an issue. And most people watch movies on
VCRs, where bandwidth -- again -- is not an issue.
No one really cares about watching "Family Feud" on HDTV. What people want
on HDTV are movies, which are usually delivered on tape (or CD in the near
future). Roll over, Zenith, here comes Sony.
The American consumer electronics industry *deserves* to die.
--
Larry Campbell The Boston Software Works, Inc.
campbell@bsw.com 120 Fulton Street
wjh12!redsox!campbell Boston, MA 02146nelson@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Russ Nelson) (10/16/89)
In article <1465@redsox.bsw.com> campbell@redsox.bsw.com (Larry Campbell) writes:
The American consumer electronics industry *deserves* to die.
Zenith clearly disagrees with your conclusion. If they *had* agreed, they
would have sold off the consumer electronics and kept ZDS.
--
--russ (nelson@clutx [.bitnet | .clarkson.edu])
Live up to the light thou hast, and more will be granted thee.
A recession now appears more than 2 years away -- John D. Mathon, 4 Oct 1989.davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) (10/16/89)
In article <8ZCCaG200WI9MMD0YQ@andrew.cmu.edu>, eb2e+@andrew.cmu.edu (Eric James Bales) writes: | HDTV recquires a wider bandwidth which is not available in | the US due to use of the bandwidth by companies, cellular, | etc. So a method of producing an HD picture has to be | developed which will fit in the existing bandwidth or one that | is only slightly larger, AND that same signal must also be | compatible with the old type of signal because there isn't | room for transmitting two signals for each station (or | companies/government don't want to make room :-). That's the problem, the FCC. One company produced a prototype which used two channels, one of which could be viewed by a conventional TV. It was reportedly rejected because it took too much bandwidth. Another showed a system to do HDTV in a conventional channel. It was rejected because a conventional TV can't receive (or at least can't view) the signal. The problem is like trying to develop a version of compress which will let "cat" view the file, too. As long as the FCC wants to keep compatible with a standard developed 50 years ago (or more), we will waste time and effort trying to make a compromise. If we developed a new standard we could add error correcting, too, and have really better pictures. It is interesting to note that for TV the government says "we can't make the old stuff obsolete," and for cars they say "cars designed for unleaded gas are old anyway, they'll just be scrapped a little earlier." -- bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen) "The world is filled with fools. They blindly follow their so-called 'reason' in the face of the church and common sense. Any fool can see that the world is flat!" - anon
davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) (10/17/89)
In article <1465@redsox.bsw.com>, campbell@redsox.bsw.com (Larry Campbell) writes: | Sorry, but this is a stupid remark. Bandwidth is restricted only if you | insist on broadcasting over the airwaves. Most people receive TV via cable, | where bandwith limits are not an issue. And most people watch movies on | VCRs, where bandwidth -- again -- is not an issue. What an elitist yippie attitude. About 40% of the people in the country don't have cable TV, or any chance of getting it in the near future. And there are a lot of people who can't afford to pay $30/month to get it if it was available. There are even more people who don't have a VCR and have no intension of getting one. Don't be mislead by the number of people and VCR's, the people who have one usually have a few. I think between my kids and I we have, maybe, eleven? It will always be cheaper to broadcast signals than to run them by cable, so braodcast TV will always be with us. Not that cable-only HDTV is impossible, but it is only part of the market, therefore the price has to be higher per unit to give a reasonable return on the costs. | | No one really cares about watching "Family Feud" on HDTV. What people want | on HDTV are movies, which are usually delivered on tape (or CD in the near | future). Roll over, Zenith, here comes Sony. I think you missed this boat, too. What do people pay for on pay per view TV? Movies? No, they buy a movie channel for that. Sports! Music! People pay $20-50 per event to see these things, and they would certainly spend the bucks to buy a new TV to see them better. I think that for movies there's a chance that the market won't develop for something better, although if something better is in the home people will use it. Look at the giant flop of commercial movies released on 8mm film. The quality was a lot better than TV, at the time there were a lot of people who had projectors and new ones were reliable and a lot cheaper than VCRs. The whole thing was a total bomb. I really think that without broadcast or cable as a source for programming, most people won't buy a HDTV for movies only. -- bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen) "The world is filled with fools. They blindly follow their so-called 'reason' in the face of the church and common sense. Any fool can see that the world is flat!" - anon
davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) (10/17/89)
In article <NELSON.89Oct15232615@image.clarkson.edu>, nelson@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Russ Nelson) writes: | Zenith clearly disagrees with your conclusion. If they *had* agreed, they | would have sold off the consumer electronics and kept ZDS. I heard that no one would buy CE because it was losing money. -- bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen) "The world is filled with fools. They blindly follow their so-called 'reason' in the face of the church and common sense. Any fool can see that the world is flat!" - anon
eb2e+@andrew.cmu.edu (Eric James Bales) (10/17/89)
>Sorry, but this is a stupid remark. Bandwidth is restricted only >if you insist on broadcasting over the airwaves. Most people >receive TV via cable,where bandwith limits are not an issue. Sorry, but where I live (Akron/Canton Ohio) all homes have cable service available, but only about 40% opt to get it because it is expensive and there are many ( about 12 ) UHF stations which broadcast movies, sports events, etc. that would be nice to view with HD. Also the three networks also regularly broadcast movies. I would like to be able to watch these with HD, as I'm sure would many other people. -Eric Kirkbride- Carnegie Mellon Disclaimer: I said nothing...
eb2e+@andrew.cmu.edu (Eric James Bales) (10/17/89)
>As long as the FCC wants to keep compatible with a >standard developed 50 years ago(or more), we will waste >time and effort trying to make compromises The original standard forcolor television was also acompromise. The developers had to fit the information for color pixels in between the black and white information so that everyone wouldn't have to buy new TVs and they admitted at the time that this would cause decrease in the picture quality. At the time, no one cared. They just wanted color television. I also would rather have a slight decrease in picture quality to allow for compatibility with the old system, but not TOO much of a decrease :-). -Eric Kirkbride- Disclaimer: I didn't think that people would actually READ this!!! "I have a firm belief that all computers are the children of Satan...", Shannon Cline
mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu (10/18/89)
I fail to see where the problem with bandwidth for HDTV lies, other than with the FCC. There are 81 channels available, 6 MHz each. Around here the following ones are used: 3, 12, 15, 17, 22, 27, 55. Hmmmm --- that leaves 74 channels free. Say we use only UHF channels for HDTV, and take 18 Mhz for a channel. 15 could expand to 14-15-16, 17 to 17-18-19, 22 to 20-21-22, 27 to 26-27-28, etc. That is 23 channels with 18 mhz each. A good HDTV transmission scheme would use FM instead of AM so that the capture effect would allow stations to be closer together (both in frequency and space.) Besides - have you ever looked at the spectrum of the air with a spectrum analyzer? I have - and, except for broadcast bands, CB, ham bands, and things like taxi bands - there is GOBS of free space. Vast areas of the upper reaches of the spectrum are completely empty. Doug McDonald
joel@cfctech.UUCP (Joel Lessenberry) (10/18/89)
you may not be aware of the fact, but there exists an international
organization ICC i think, which allocates the RF spectrum to
individual countries for their use, and keeps some portions for
international services. The last time I saw the allocation
chart, every thing below about 2.5 gigs was all spoken for!
As for widening existing channels, the FCC provides channel
spacing, both logical and physical, to maintain a stations
liscensed area of coverage with as little interference as
possible.
There are some fascinating problems when it comes down to
analysing intermod caused by second, third, etc. adjacent
channels.
joel
:
Joel Lessenberry, Distributed Systems | +1 313 948 3342
joel@cfctech.UUCP | Chrysler Financial Corp.
joel%cfctech.uucp@mailgw.cc.umich.edu | MIS, Technical Services
{sharkey|mailrus}!cfctech!joel | 2777 Franklin, Sfld, MItoma@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Tom Almy) (10/18/89)
In article <110200016@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu writes: >I fail to see where the problem with bandwidth for HDTV lies, other >than with the FCC. There are 81 channels available, 6 MHz each. >[...] Say we use only UHF channels >for HDTV, and take 18 Mhz for a channel. Well first not all channels are available. Stations using the same channel have to be a large distance apart, and even those using adjacient channels must be well separated. Most areas have used most if not all of their possible channels. The lets consider a "moral" issue. The radio frequencies are limited. Is this a good use of bandwidth? A six megahertz TV channel has room for 30 FM radio channels or 600 AM radio channels. Is the information content of one 18Mhz HDTV station worth 1800 AM radio stations? And just think of all the ASCII data that could be transmitted over that bandwidth -- you could continuously transmit all the news services for instant retrieval. I bet you could transmit the entire contents of the Sunday New York Times in the time of a single High Definition Ty-De-Bowl commercial. Tom Almy toma@tekgvs.labs.tek.com Standard Disclaimers Apply
davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) (10/18/89)
In article <110200016@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu>, mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu writes: | Besides - have you ever looked at the spectrum of the air with a | spectrum analyzer? I have - and, except for broadcast bands, CB, ham | bands, and things like taxi bands - there is GOBS of free space. | Vast areas of the upper reaches of the spectrum are completely empty. The available frequencies are partitioned by international agreement, then subdivided by the FCC. Just because *you* don't see anything there doesn't mean it's available. -- bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen) "The world is filled with fools. They blindly follow their so-called 'reason' in the face of the church and common sense. Any fool can see that the world is flat!" - anon
goldstein@delni.enet.dec.com (10/19/89)
In article <110200016@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu>, mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu writes... > >I fail to see where the problem with bandwidth for HDTV lies, other >than with the FCC. There are 81 channels available, 6 MHz each. >Besides - have you ever looked at the spectrum of the air with a >spectrum analyzer? I have - and, except for broadcast bands, CB, ham >bands, and things like taxi bands - there is GOBS of free space. >Vast areas of the upper reaches of the spectrum are completely empty. This newsgroup is busy enough without digressions into HDTV and spectrum managemement! PLEASE! For the record, there are only 67 TV channels in the US: 2-36 and 38-69. There never was a Channel 37 (reserved for radio astronomy) and the channels 70-83 were reallocated to mobile, including cellular telephone, years ago. Much of the "empty space" is reserved for military use, including the huge 225-400 MHz military aviation band. I'm sure that it's a pathetically inefficient use of spectrum, but they've got the power. And in any case, it's not relevant to pc's. <end correction of digression>
johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us (John R. Levine) (10/19/89)
In article <110200016@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu writes: >I fail to see where the problem with bandwidth for HDTV lies, other >than with the FCC. There are 81 channels available, 6 MHz each. >Around here the following ones are used: 3, 12, 15, 17, 22, 27, 55. Well sure, you're in central Illinois. Where I grew up in New Jersey, with a pair of rabbit ears you can pick up channels 2,3,4,5,6,7,9,10,11,12,13, 17,29,48,52,56, and bunch of other UHF channels that I forget. In much of the country the VHF spectrum is full. There's a fair number of free UHF channels, but just to cover New Jersey, a small and not particularly hilly state, they need four separate transmitters on four separate channels. If they allocate three UHF channels at a shot for HDTV, the UHF spectrum will fill up instantly. If you go to high enough frequencies, there's unallocated spectrum, but such frequencies propagate even worse than UHF, so you'd need even more closely spaced transmitters. NTSC video stinks, but finding spectrum space for anything else will be a major problem. Satellite broadcast on a small number of channels (which avoids the line-of-sight problem and also much of the air attenuation problem) may be the only possibility. -- John R. Levine, Segue Software, POB 349, Cambridge MA 02238, +1 617 864 9650 johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us, {ima|lotus|spdcc}!esegue!johnl Massachusetts has over 100,000 unlicensed drivers. -The Globe
gillies@p.cs.uiuc.edu (10/20/89)
Just because Zenith CE is losing money doesn't mean they cannot turn it around. I read that Zenith practically invented (color?) television. It's gone from our collective memory now, but Zenith used to be as amazing in television as Cray is in computers. They were always the most innovative company, and that is still evident, in light of their 14" flat-screen color monitors.
toma@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Tom Almy) (10/20/89)
In article <75800071@p.cs.uiuc.edu> gillies@p.cs.uiuc.edu writes: >I read that Zenith practically invented (color?) television. It's >gone from our collective memory now, but Zenith used to be as amazing >in television as Cray is in computers. They were always the most >innovative company [...] Well I speak from experience, having repaired TV's for spending money in the 60's (which means I repaired TV's made in the 50's and 40's too). As far as B&W TV is concerned, by far the most advanced early TVs were made by DuMont. In about 1967 I saw a working 1945 DuMont "teleset". This set had all its original tubes including a 15" DuMont manufactured picture tube (typical sets at the time were 5" or 7", or projection sets intended for bars). The set had no vertical or horizontal hold controls because it didn't need any (net people familiar with old TVs will appreciate the significance of this). I saw an early 50's DuMont. It too was very overbuilt. As far as I know (and I don't really know at all!) they went out of business because they couldn't be price competitive with the sets of the day that used half as many tubes. Disregarding the abortive CBS color system which involved a spinning color wheel in front of the screen (YES!), color TV as we know it was invented by RCA, with the first "compatible" color TVs, with 15" screens, appearing in 1953-54. I saw a '54 21" model ($1500 purchase price at the time) by RCA that had 70 tubes. You could heat a house with it! When other manufacturers joined in, they simply copied the RCA design -- once you knew how to repair an RCA color TV, you could repair them all, *except* for Zenith. Zenith sets were completely different, which as far as I was concerned made them a real ***** to repair. The one thing good about them was that they didn't seem to break down often. Zenith continued to use I-Q axis color demodulation long after RCA abandoned it for cheaper, less satisfactory, methods. But on the other hand they continued to use the "hand-crafted chassis" (read "point to point wired") long after other manufactures switched to circuit boards. Tom Almy toma@tekgvs.labs.tek.com Standard Disclaimers Apply (I should note that many, many years ago my employer, Tektronix, and DuMont were competitors in the scope market)