ms6b+@andrew.cmu.edu (Marvin Sirbu) (03/07/90)
Before anyone jumps all over the US delegation to CCIR, they ought to be sure they understand all aspects of this issue. For example, Poynton claims the delegation rejected the recommendations of the ATSC on this issue. In previous years, the ATSC position has been dominated by the television networks and video producers. They don't care very much how a standard affects the US computer or consumer electronics industry-- simply having any standard helps them to export video productions. The US is in the midst of a major study led by the FCC on appropriate standards for HDTV. Within the next year, at least half a dozen proposed systems will undergo extensive comparative testing. It makes perfect sense for the US to delay taking a position while this process is underway. Marvin Sirbu Carnegie Mellon University
poynton@vector.Sun.COM (Charles A. Poynton) (03/07/90)
I'm encouraged to see Marvin Sirbu's note and what might be the beginning of a discussion here. I'll follow this posting with my HDTV/ATV Glossary. > ... Within the next year, ... It's been pushed back. Testing won't begin until September 1990. Faroudja's SuperNTSC is up first. The complete suite of tests will take about a year, 'til about Sept. 1991, then the process of deciding commences. > ... half a dozen proposed systems will undergo extensive comparative testing The ATSC has a dual role. The ATSC advises the FCC on standards for _domestic_ Advanced Television transmission, *ATV*. Consumer entertainment. The ATSC advises the US CCIR National Comittee on standards for *HDTV* studio production and _international_ program exchange. It's HDTV production equipment that's applicable to the computer industry. This has little or nothing to do with entertainment. The CCIR delegation is addressing only HDTV production and exchange. The testing of domestic terrestrial transmission systems is irrelevant to international exchange. > ... the ATSC position has been dominated by the television networks ... The ATSC has been dominated by broadcasters. Remarkably the interests of the computer industry are beginning to be acknowledged by them. Also, there is an increasing awareness among broadcasters that they can make use of computer technology, so much so that the ATSC agreed six months ago to officially endorse square pixels! However the representative from the Media Lab encouraged the State Department to nix that position at the last CCIR meeting: despite ATSC's endorsement, the U.S. offered no position on that issue. Now the ATSC is in a position to promote a two megapixel HDTV production standard internationally. Frame rate and interlace are not on the agenda: the sole issue is picture format. The three choices on the table are: (a) 1920x1080 [2 Mpx], (b) 2048x1152 [2 1/4 Mpx] or (c) do nothing for four more years. > ... They don't care very much how a standard affects the US computer ... HDTV equipment will not be embraced by the computer community until it is standardized. The BROADCASTERS on the ATSC reached agreement on 1920x1080 -- two megapixels -- and square ones at that! What's ironic is that the US CCIR delegation perceives that the COMPUTER INDUSTRY is against this proposal! Wild. > ... It makes perfect sense for the US to delay ... Although the interests of some U.S. organizations are best served by delaying the adoption of the technology, the computer industry needs to exploit it. We can contribute to acceptance of a standard that will give U.S. computer manufacturers access to the display technology of the [near] future, or we can sit around for four more years and watch certain other nations continue to work feverishly to build computers with great big high-quality displays. These nations progressed from building the majority of our television sets to providing virtually ALL computer displays. They progressed from providing the vast majority of DRAMs to supplying a huge fraction of our PC-class computers. Now they want to computers. BIG computers. Workstations. Mainframes. The meaning of HDTV in the United States is not the "rejeuvenation of the domestic consumer electronics manufacturing industry." It's the continued health of the COMPUTER industry. Let's not botch this one. Sayonara [sp?], C.
poynton@vector.Sun.COM (Charles A. Poynton) (03/07/90)
I wrote:
> Now the ATSC is in a position ...
The ATSC already agreed. The **United States** is in a position ...
Sorry!
C.
mikemc@mustang.ncr-fc.FtCollins.NCR.com (Mike McManus) (03/10/90)
In article <132618@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> poynton@vector.Sun.COM (Charles A. Poynton) writes: > The meaning of HDTV in the United States is not the "rejeuvenation of the > domestic consumer electronics manufacturing industry." It's the continued > health of the COMPUTER industry. Let's not botch this one. Amen. We can't afford to sit around and be followers. It's bad enough that we've lost our advantage of being a nation that produces a large chuck of the world's technological advances, but to now say we should sit around and become followers instead of leaders... Ooh, makes my skin crawl! (Sorry for the commentary, but I had to get my $.02 in...) -- Disclaimer: All spelling and/or grammer in this document are guaranteed to be correct; any exseptions is the is wurk uv intter-net deemuns. Mike McManus (mikemc@ncr-fc.FtCollins.ncr.com) NCR Microelectronics 2001 Danfield Ct. ncr-fc!mikemc@ncr-sd.sandiego.ncr.com, or Ft. Collins, Colorado ncr-fc!mikemc@ccncsu.colostate.edu, or (303) 223-5100 Ext. 360 uunet!ncrlnk!ncr-sd!ncr-fc!garage!mikemc
mfolivo@sactoh0.UUCP (Mark F. Newton) (03/11/90)
Well, I would suggest that we use the MUSE system. Why wait years
and years for a system that hasn't even be finalized, and settle
for something that will most probably be inferior. (re: American
MTS system. Japan had theirs before ours, and we got stuck with
Zenith's system, and they got rich.)
Billions spent on competing systems, and for what? Pride?
Selfishness? Come on, even some of the major Japanese manufacturers
(Matsushita, Sony, Toshiba, for example) built their TV sets in
American facilities.
Money spent, while we have to wait on the wayside, while Japan
begins HDTV broadcast satellite (BS) service.
OUr companies should save the money, and come up with better and
less expensive HDTV sets, rather than spend money onsomething
completely different, thus making early HDTV sets incredibly
expensive, as the US companies try to recoup development costs,
thus making the sets very unpopular.
Sure MUSE is not perfect, but Sony and NHK surely has made the
system expandable, it's available *now*. By the way, I believe NHK
and Sony is working on an NTSC compatible MUSE system.
--
Mark Newton-John
(ames att sun)!pacbell! \ Sakura-mendo, CA
ucdavis!csusac! - sactoh0!mfolivo
uunet!mmsac! / the good guys!pshen@atrp.mit.edu (Paul Shen) (03/13/90)
In article <2694@sactoh0.UUCP> mfolivo@sactoh0.UUCP (Mark F. Newton) writes: >.... >OUr companies should save the money, and come up with better and >less expensive HDTV sets, rather than spend money onsomething >completely different, thus making early HDTV sets incredibly >expensive, as the US companies try to recoup development costs, >thus making the sets very unpopular. >.... You are right. We have to develope low cost HDTV sets. But this will be possible, only if we knows about the detail of the technology. It is doubtful that we can easily get them from them. After the cold war, the only market can keep our semiconductor industry running is the consumer market. I don't think we can afford to lose it. +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Email: pshen@atrp.mit.edu | Paul Shen | | Address: MIT, 36-665, Cambridge, Ma 02139 | Tel. (617) 864-3210 | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
wen-king@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu (King Su) (03/13/90)
In article <1990Mar13.023805.24765@athena.mit.edu> pshen@atrp.mit.edu (Paul Shen) writes: >In article <2694@sactoh0.UUCP> mfolivo@sactoh0.UUCP (Mark F. Newton) writes: >>.... <>OUr companies should save the money, and come up with better and >>less expensive HDTV sets, rather than spend money onsomething <>completely different, thus making early HDTV sets incredibly >>expensive, as the US companies try to recoup development costs, <>thus making the sets very unpopular. >>.... <You are right. We have to develope low cost HDTV sets. But this will be >possible, only if we knows about the detail of the technology. It is <doubtful that we can easily get them from them. After the cold war, >the only market can keep our semiconductor industry running is the <consumer market. I don't think we can afford to lose it. Does anybody really believe that we (US) can get to keep an edge on a new technology if the product can't be manufactured cheaply here? If the Japanese can make HDTV sets with higher quality and at a lower cost, I would think that in as little as 2 to 3 years after we developed our technology, the Japanese would be in the position to flood US market with their HDTV sets. Our HDTV manufacturing industry, already heavily burdened by the large initial R&D investment and hindered by low consumer demand (due to high prices), will certainly collapse in no time. This kind of thing has happened several times in the past. What we need now is to spend money to improve our manufacturing capabilities. If we can make them cheaper and better than the Japanese, the Japanese certainly will move their manufacturing base (and thus technology) to US. It is the manufacturing sector that brings real cash to shore up the economy, not the royalties from R&D. -- /*------------------------------------------------------------------------*\ | Wen-King Su wen-king@vlsi.caltech.edu Caltech Corp of Cosmic Engineers | \*------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
roc@crg5.UUCP (Ron Christian) (03/14/90)
In article <14248@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> wen-king@cit-vax.UUCP (Wen-King Su) writes: > It is >the manufacturing sector that brings real cash to shore up the economy, >not the royalties from R&D. Exactly. Why spend R&D bucks when a standard already exists? It's money spent for little long term gain. The American company that embraces an existing standard will be first to market in America, and will be less far behind in the world market. The companies that futz around trying to reinvent the wheel will be, at least on the world market, introducing product that competes with earlier, more firmly intrenched standards. No single American company is big enough to compete effectively in this fashion anymore. We lost the race to invent an HDTV standard. We got started too late. Let's face up to that and see what we can do about getting product out. Ron
thant@horus.esd.sgi.com (Thant Tessman) (03/14/90)
In article <1990Mar13.023805.24765@athena.mit.edu>, pshen@atrp.mit.edu (Paul Shen) writes: > In article <2694@sactoh0.UUCP> mfolivo@sactoh0.UUCP (Mark F. Newton) writes: > >.... > >OUr companies should save the money, and come up with better and > >less expensive HDTV sets, rather than spend money onsomething > >completely different, thus making early HDTV sets incredibly > >expensive, as the US companies try to recoup development costs, > >thus making the sets very unpopular. > >.... > You are right. We have to develope low cost HDTV sets. But this will be > possible, only if we knows about the detail of the technology. It is > doubtful that we can easily get them from them. After the cold war, > the only market can keep our semiconductor industry running is the > consumer market. I don't think we can afford to lose it. This isn't the place for this, but I can't stand it anymore. Reagan's (and now Bush's) protectionist measures benefit the semiconductor industry, but only at the expense of the computer industry as a whole. Who cares if the Japanese are better at building chips? The U.S. still produces the best computers (using Japanese chips) and the best software. The cheaper and better the chips (no matter where they come from) the better the computers we can build. The U.S. shouldn't try to redo what the Japanese have done (and force the consumer to pay for it), but rather should leverage off it. For example, the potential HDTV industry doesn't just stop at building consumer television sets. There is a lot of leveraging that the computer industry, as well as the entertainment industry can be doing right now if it wasn't for the FCC. It was the television industry got the fucking FCC to shoot a lot of new technology development in the foot in order to save their own investments in older technology and get consumers to pay for it whether they wanted to or not. (It's exactly as if the record industry outlawed CDs. The difference is that the record industry didn't have an FCC to do it for them.) The U.S. industries are incredibly innovative when it comes to creating new technology. Almost everything is invented here: the transistor, the VCR, the photocopier, Sony's trinitron technology, all invented in the U.S. Yes, the U.S. has to learn some things from the Japanese about manufacturing, but it isn't what most people think. There was a Scientific American article (sorry, I can't be more specific) that pointed out that a car designed in Japan and manufactured in the U.S. has the same high quality and low defect rate that one built in Japan has. They are very good at designing things with manufacturing in mind. They are also very good at refining technology (which realy is what their HDTV technology is). These are the lessons that need to be learned, and are being learned, from the Japanese. The worst thing the U.S. could do is to set up retaliatory trade barriers because they almost never work to reduce foreign trade barriers. (e-mail me for a more detailed article on this.) Also, government subsidizations of technological development does more harm than good to the economy. And just like trade barriers, all it is is a thinly disguised subsidization of a single industry or even a single corporation, at the expense of the economy as a whole. A much more healthy approach would be to just lower taxes so consumers could afford all this technological development, and investors would be more likely to invest. And as a side-effect, investors would invest based on potential consumer demand. (Gee, what a novel idea!) (By the way, taxes during Reagan's administration went up by 50%, not down.) Canada holds far more investments in the U.S. than Japan does. All this Japan bashing is a government/media fabrication, because the government needs an enemy to use as a scapegoat for what the government itself has done to the economy. thant
gbrown@tybalt.caltech.edu (Glenn C. Brown) (03/15/90)
wen-king@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu (King Su) writes: >[...] Our HDTV manufacturing industry, already heavily >burdened by the large initial R&D investment and hindered by low consumer >demand (due to high prices), will certainly collapse in no time. This >kind of thing has happened several times in the past.[...] Examples?
mikemc@mustang.ncr-fc.FtCollins.NCR.com (Mike McManus) (03/16/90)
In article <2694@sactoh0.UUCP> mfolivo@sactoh0.UUCP (Mark F. Newton) writes: > Well, I would suggest that we use the MUSE system. Why wait years > and years for a system that hasn't even be finalized, and settle > for something that will most probably be inferior. (re: American > MTS system. Japan had theirs before ours, and we got stuck with > Zenith's system, and they got rich.) > > Billions spent on competing systems, and for what? Pride? > Selfishness? Come on, even some of the major Japanese manufacturers > (Matsushita, Sony, Toshiba, for example) built their TV sets in > American facilities. IMHO, your analysis is correct: If we develop our own standard (read => different than the Japanese), then they will not be able to compete in our market (not right away, at least). And just like that, we have a U.S. "monopoly" (of sorts). And no need to go begging to Congress for import restrictions. Gee, isn't that clever! > Sure MUSE is not perfect, but Sony and NHK surely has made the > system expandable, it's available *now*. By the way, I believe NHK > and Sony is working on an NTSC compatible MUSE system. And that's exactly the argument that folks will make, but I don't think it holds up very well. Sure, if you wait a while and let someone else work the kinks out of a new system/standard/process, you can always improve on it later. "Yeah, but then if we just waited a *LITTLE* longer, it could be even better! And a little longer than that... Heck, it'd be damn near perfect!" At which time the pace-setters have long since left you in the dust, and you are left with a "perfect" obsolete system. What a great idea! As a disclaimer, I don't know much about the HDTV standards or controversy, I just have a problem with the "but we must do it ourselves so that it will be perfect..." mentality. -- Disclaimer: All spelling and/or grammer in this document are guaranteed to be correct; any exseptions is the is wurk uv intter-net deemuns. Mike McManus (mikemc@ncr-fc.FtCollins.ncr.com) NCR Microelectronics 2001 Danfield Ct. ncr-fc!mikemc@ncr-sd.sandiego.ncr.com, or Ft. Collins, Colorado ncr-fc!mikemc@ccncsu.colostate.edu, or (303) 223-5100 Ext. 360 uunet!ncrlnk!ncr-sd!ncr-fc!garage!mikemc