Reception Breakthrough  

European labs keep improving OFDM capabilities. Just a few months ago diversity chips were introduced that will improve COFDM reception by from a reported 6 to 9 dB. Now Nokia reports futher improvemants using a technique they have been developing called Partial Response Signalling that adds another 5 dB. Remember the one big advantage that 8-VSB claimed was a lab report that showed COFDM suffered from a 2 to 4 dB disadvantage. This was never shown in the real world however though an open invitation to do so stands in Toronto. I wonder what the reality of combining both the Partial Response and diversity breakthroughs would mean to the overall increase in receptablility of OFDM technologies?
http://www.eet.com/story/OEG20010829S0035

One of the frustrations of testing 8-VSB in Toronto is the impossibility of getting the latest 8-VSB receivers. They will only be supplied under conditions of non-disclosure or the promise not to directly compare them with COFDM receivers. We ourselves will have an 8-VSB tuner for the DVT-A1 PCMCIA card in October and will be able to directly compare it to the DVT-A1 with a COFDM tuner.

I think they have had the same problem in Argentina getting 8-VSB receivers.

Not talking about the US standard. The world is a big place. HDTV will be delivered with a different standard in most if not all other countries. This forum is not just about the US. Interested parties from Europe, China, Australia and many other places frequent this forum.

This is pertinent info on what is happening in other countries.

That's OK by me but I thought that the AVSFORUM is a "HDTV International" forum. Most of the products are sold internationally, you have a world clock under services at the top of the site, the issues of cable and satellite span the globe and you might be surprised how many visitors from around the world lurk here even though they are often imtimidated from posting by some members.

It also makes sense that if you want to promote HDTV you should want to see as much activity around the world as possible.

I don't see any conflict at all. The US has chosen 8-VSB. That's fine but most other countries have chosen DVB-T and some are still in the process of making a decision.

Even in the US it is acknowledged that 8-VSB has major problems since they are trying to fix it as soon as possible. I would like to see other countries not make the same mistake that the US did. Other than that I am fine with 8-VSB in the US as I have said many times.

The fact that COFDM DVB-T is improving should be seen as a plus by anyone advocating HDTV since it makes it cheaper to deploy HDTV around the world. Where is there a conflict in that? It seems to me that it is simply good HDTV news.

Zyg,

Unfortunatly anything that you learn at the FCC site is not reliable. The FCC is deficient in its ability to test or monitor current technology. The current Chairman has admitted as much to Congress and asked for more funds to bring it up to date. Because of this and Congressional pressure the FCC is not able to do it's job. It has ignored what is happening in the rest of the world and made decisions based on undue influence by industry organizations and individual companies such as Zenith.

What you "learned" in the document that you mention can be unlearned if you are interested in the reality of the current situation. The 8-VSB modulation scheme has no advantages over COFDM. It does have many disadvantages.

In other countries where the interest of the public where championed first COFDM has been chosen.

I would like to know what you think of the differences between these two modulation schemes after looking at a few sites listed here.

Australia http://www.365broadcast.com/dtv_reso...#_Toc437081523

Mexico http://web-star.com/hdtv/DVB-T20Mexico.html

History ending with re-affirmation of 8-VSB in US http://web-star.com/hdtv/cofdmvs8vsb.html

The organization that has successfully championed the DVB standard for Cable, Satellite and Terrestrial broadcasting around the world. http://www.DVB.org/ http://www.dvb.org/news/index.html

Internationally there is no contest. All countries that have chosen COFDM DVB-T are content. All countries that have chosen 8-VSB are either still testing or have active opposition to 8-VSB. These include the US, Canada and S. Korea. Canada and S. Korea are testing COFDM and 8-VSB. S. Korea because it is the home of Zenith which ownes the PR on 8-VSB.

Canada will delay and delay and then either allow COFDM, switch to COFDM or re allocate it's TV spectrum to something different like datacasting. IMHO.

S. Korea is probably the only country to stick to 8-VSB to the end with the US.

Europe went for HDTV earlier and failed. They then set up the DVB group to co-ordinate the DTV transition and develop standards for what turns out to be most of the countries in the world who have chosen a DTV path so far. The fact that some of the early countries to go digital have opted for not doing HDTV does not close the doors on them switching to HDTV in the future since DVB-T allows for HDTV. In fact later countries who are opting for DVB-T are considering HDTV or have adopted it like Australia for example. I fully expect that Europe will adopt HDTV later. If the US allowed DVB-T that would happen much sooner. We would immedialtely become the leader in the DTV transition and all other countries would follow. That would mean HDTV worldwide much sooner.

As for Zenith having to much influence on the testing that the NAB and MSTV did from August of 2000 till November I would refer you to the test results that detail the involvement of Zenith in the tests and you be the judge. They admit what they did right in the test results. The rest I will send to you privatly or this thread will be cut.

Don is right if I get no response I will not post. BTW I am not commenting on the US standard or what we don't have in the US. I am trying to talk about what is happening in other countries since most of the world is going a different way. If HDTV is to succeed it will need to be more widespread than just the USA. At least the more widespread the better I would think.

Quite often in response I get statements like Don's "stop waisting his time on a subject that no one cares about". It is like a secret code meant to intimidate other who might be interested in responding from doing so by implying that Don speaks for "the group" and the group is not interested. How Don knows this I don't know. I do know that people are interested because I have quite a number who contact me privately and most tell of not wanting to respond on AVSFORUM because of this "understanding". Many are not Americans.

Even those who do respond here often feel compelled to apologize for being interested in what I have to say. Quite intimidating.

So I ask the question again, is this a parochial US forum or an International Forum on the promotion of HDTV?