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John Mailhot wrote:
> Bob Miller has got to be the single most harmful troll in the world of HDTV. He and his company have made unfounded accusations for years against the work
> that I and thousands of engineers and scientists have done for the Grand Alliance system. Believe me, we looked at every possible modulation and coding method, and our
> system worked best from the earliest prototypes, to the first OTA tests and broadcasts ten years ago.
So it stopped working best after the first ten years. In 1998 it was no
longer best. No longer second best. It was no longer a modulation that a
country interested in the best would even consider. It had to be forced
through the system using every trick in the book. Fraudulent and secret
test. Threats and intimidation, you name it and 8-VSB proponents did it.
Maybe the thousands of engineers should have had an open mind and looked
at what the rest of the world was doing with COFDM technology that was
invented right here in the US. And I suggest that you did NOT look at
all the modulations available with any great scrutiny. Professor
Emeritus William Schreiber was the head of the MIT Advanced Research Lab
during the creation of 8-VSB and is an engineer and was intimately
involved with and participated in the contest to build a digital TV
modulation.
He invited all involved to a convention he organized on COFDM and had
all the top scientist working on COFDM worldwide attend. Few if any of
those working on 8-VSB or from the FCC came.
You can read about him here.
http
/www.wfschreiber.org
Here is a letter he wrote to Congressman Edward J. Markey back in 2000
31 July 2000
Hon. Edward J. Markey
2108 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington DC 20515
The recent hearing re COFDM vs “8-VSB”
Dear Congressman Markey:
You may recall that I appeared before your subcommittee at the start of
the HDTV Inquiry. At that time, I was director of the MIT Advanced
Television Research Program. Of the various things that I said, the one
that got the most attention was “HDTV is not about pretty pictures; it
is about jobs and money.” Although we are much less worried today about
jobs or money, the shift that is underway in terrestrial TV broadcasting
from analog to digital is still very important for the future health of
our economy as the importance of information technologies grows.
The FCC was quite correct in deciding that over-the-air (OTA)
broadcasting must shift from analog to digital. In my opinion, there is
no other way to provide the spectrum that is needed for all the
wealth-creating wireless services that we hear so much about. The
current NTSC system, using 50-year old technology, is simply too
wasteful of spectrum, requiring an allocation of 67 6-MHz channels to
provide no more than 20 programs of mediocre technical quality to each
viewer. By using digital transmission and the best current technology,
it would be possible to provide 20 HDTV programs to each viewer in the
country with an overall allocation of only 20 6-MHz channels.
Alternatively, for lower technical quality, but still higher than that
of NTSC, we could allocate even a smaller amount of spectrum.
Although the FCC deserves a lot of credit for understanding this aspect
of OTA broadcasting, it made a serious blunder (no kinder word suffices
here) in accepting the “8-VSB” modulation method that was proposed by
ACATS. This error was partly technical and partly political. Reed
Hundt placed much too much faith in the “free” market’s ability to
design TV standards that would properly serve the public interest,
convenience, and necessity. The design of the system was left entirely
to the industry, without adequate supervision by the Commission. In
particular, the Commission failed to insist on realistic testing. As a
result, we have a system that is too unreliable to be used. While this
is not the only reason for the failure, so far, of the transition to
digital broadcasting, it is a problem that absolutely must be solved for
the transition to be successful enough so that analog broadcasting can
be turned off without a public outcry.
I was most interested in what transpired at the recent hearing. While
one demonstration surely is not sufficient to conclude anything, there
have now been many demonstrations of the ease of reception of COFDM (the
system demonstrated by Sinclair) under many different kinds of
conditions. There have been many other examples that clearly indicate
the difficulty of receiving the 8-VSB transmissions on simple antennas,
especially in downtown areas. A number of those testifying in favor of
8-VSB gave false and misleading statements on these matters that were,
unfortunately, not challenged by members of the Subcommittee. It should
be borne in mind that the system approved by the FCC was submitted by
ACATS in 1995 -- more than five years ago. One would think that any
problems in receiver design would long since have been found and fixed
if possible. In my opinion, the 8-VSB scheme will never work well
enough, no matter how much time is allowed.
Digital OTA broadcasting using COFDM started in Britain in November
1998, the same time as in the US. Nearly one million subscribers now
use the service and there have been few complaints. That penetration,
taking account of the different populations, is 100 times greater than
in the US.
It is not as if COFDM was unknown to the American system proponents.
The FCC as well as the system proponents in the Grand Alliance were
fully informed about the advantages of COFDM -- about its much better
performance in the presence of multipath (ghosts), its ability to
support single-frequency networks that would completely solve the
problem of finding spectrum for LPTV stations, and its ability to
provide more service in a given spectrum allocation than single-carrier
systems such as 8-VSB. For a variety of reasons, all specious, ACATS
turned down COFDM.
In order not to make this letter too long, I have placed in an appendix
some material relating to the history of COFDM and my own involvement in
it. For the sake of full disclosure, I should say that I have some
patents in the field, assigned to MIT, but I do not expect to make any
money from them, no matter what happens to digital broadcasting in the US.
I would like to get the substance of this letter into the hands of Mr.
Tauzin and whoever on his staff is following this matter, and I solicit
your suggestions as to how to do this.
Sincerely
Appendix: Some OFDM History
I first heard about OFDM on a trip to Europe in the late 80s, and called
it to the attention of the chief engineer of the FCC on my return. OFDM
was invented at Bell Labs in 1965, and the “C” (coded) was added, by
CCETT (a French government lab.) in the middle 80s. By that time, it
had been tested for audio in Europe and Canada with good results.
Virtually all the labs then working on it had come to the conclusion
that it was the right system for DTV broadcasting because of its good
multipath performance. When I first described it to the FCC point man,
he said that such a system could not possibly work. (A famous
mathematician once “proved” that FM was impossible because it has an
infinite spectrum.) Eventually, however, the FCC changed its mind and
directed ACATS to investigate COFDM, which it reluctantly did.
I was sufficiently impressed by the possibilities of COFDM that I
decided to take two more PhD students after my formal retirement from
MIT in 1990. The project was funded partly by Scitex, an Israeli
company for which I had been a consultant, and partly out of patent
royalties due me at MIT, i.e., out of my own pocket. Eventually, the
two students, Mike Polley, now at TI, and Susie Wee, now at HP,
simulated a complete system. It was a multiresolution system with three
levels of quality, using both OFDM and spread spectrum. The base-level
signal -- about NTSC resolution -- had a 6-dB threshold. It worked with
0-dB echoes, and is described in my paper “Advanced Television Systems
for Terrestrial Broadcasting,” Proc. IEEE, 82, 6, June 1995, pp 958-981.
I have a few copies of a complete report, including this paper and the
two theses, for anyone who is seriously interested.
The group I was then working with at MIT decided that it would be useful
to have a meeting of all those working on the subject as a means of
informing the FCC and the various DTV system proponents of this new
technology, then relatively unknown in the US. We had the assistance of
Ken Davies of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp and Gary Tonge of the
Independent Broadcast Authority in the UK in organizing the meeting and
inducing the Europeans to come. All the American system proponents were
invited as well as the FCC. The meeting was held at MIT in October
1992. Every lab in the world working on COFDM was represented, but
almost no system proponents or FCC people came. I still have a number of
the refusal letters; they were all “too busy.”
The next year, a committee representing ACATS did go to Europe in
accordance with the FCC directive. My opinion is that they were simply
going through the motions and were fully determined to find nothing that
would change their development plans. One of the stated reasons for the
turn-down was that their own system had already been fully developed,
and COFDM was in its infancy, to the extent that no equipment could be
purchased to be tested under US conditions. Now, seven years later,
some of the VSB proponents are asking us to wait while it is further
developed. VSB was approved by ACATS in 1995, so one would think that
in the ensuing four years, whatever work needed to be done to eliminate
its problems would have been done by now.
William F. Schreiber, 13 July 1999
> For years, Sinclair and Miller
> conducted a massive disinformation campaign to cast doubt on the
> public about the performance of the 8-VSB system, hinting that it
> doesn't really work and that anyone buying HDTV equipment would be
> screwed as soon as the FCC reversed itself and made COFDM the new
> standard.
MASSIVE? Where did that come from? I have posted factual and specific
information period. Massive what?
And I take umbrage at the suggestion that I "hinted" that 8-VSB doesn't
work. I doesn't work. The simple proof is that few manufacturers have
deemed it wise to get into the business. Pace for one thought it foolish
to get into the 8-VSB business and is now getting out of the COFDM
receiver business because it is so successful (the COFDM receiver market
not Pace). Few retailers stock or advertise 8-VSB receivers, the FCC
felt compelled to MANDATE them and this by a Republican administration
that supposed to believe in less government involvement in business. And
few consumers buy them.
That being said the latest 5th gen receiver, the first that should ever
have been sold, could turn this around. After only seven years of having
a modulation that does not work we have one that works minimally OK.
That is if anyone will make them. LG now suggest that there is no market
for OTA stand alone receivers so they are not going to make them.
There has NEVER been any HINT in what I have said. I have stated flatly
that 8-VSB doesn't work.
HDTV equipment is NOT necessarily 8-VSB equipment. 89% of Americans buy
their TV and HDTV from cable or satellite. Around ONE% receive OTA DTV
HDTV. So at least 89% of Americans can buy an HDTV monitor and connect
it to cable or satellite with NO 8-SVB involvement. So at best my
"massive" campaign to discredit HDTV could only involve a maximum of
some 7 to 8% of Americans who still rely on OTA (2 to 3% have no TV at
all). And only then if the have the money or inclination to consider
HDTV at all. My massive campaign probably only affects a couple of
percent at best. And then only if they read Newsgroups on the Internet.
But thanks for the Massive compliment.
You don't think that OTA DTV is a disaster in the US? They think that it
is in Australia and they have sold 5 times the number of receivers as we
have in 7 years in only 3.
The CEA which was very instrumental in installing 8-VSB in the US now
ignores OTA completely. Take a look at their latest BS.
http/www.ce.org/shared_files/resources/HDTV-Brochure_2005final.pdf
>
> There is just no demand for mobile video, HDTV or otherwise.
How could there be a demand for something that no one is selling? NTSC
has never worked very well fixed let alone mobile. The fact that anyone
made portable NTSC receivers was on the off chance that you could get
something ghostly.
> For 20 years LCD televisions have been available for under $100. When was
> the last time you saw someone walking down the street watching one?
Again who in their right mind would want to watch a flaky NTSC signal?
85% of us gave up on NTSC even for fixed reception in our homes.
> The law and common sense procludes the driver of a vehicle from
> watching TV...Automobile installation of TV is usually banned from
> being installed where anyone in the front seat can see it. So are
> the kids in the back seat demanding to watch Jay Leno or sports?
> No, they are watching kids programs on DVD.
I don't know of anyone who advocates that drivers watch TV so who are
you arguing with? The simple fact is that most vehicles will have DTV
installed in the back seat in a few years and for those that don't
portable TV sets, DVD players and all manner of mobile devices will
offer DTV reception all over the world as well as in the US. Why fixate
on the one place that NO one advocates that people watch TV mobile when
there are hundreds of applications where mobile DTV is desirable. I'd
like to watch DTV on an airplane, bus, boat or at the beach.
Qualcomm, Crown Castle, Sirius and XMRadio have all announced that they
will have national mobile DTV networks. There are others. Here is a
recent story on Qualcomm's bid.
http/www.cedmagazine.com/ced/2005/0105/01cc.htm
Bob Miller
>
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