St. Louis, MO - HDTV - Page 51

Found this while looking for something else (that's how it works sometimes):

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/periphera...ale-149775.php

At roughly 10 times the price of a conventional USB hub, it doesn't make sense, but it has cool all over it. I agree with the review that says that wires suck -- and in my scenario there will be four connections, so that's really a lot to pay just be rid of just one wire.

The design here is sort of what I'm looking for in terms of protecting the dongle, but it would still be exposed even though the Belkin design would sort of isolate it. For me, the ideal is for the dongle to be permanently connected to the hub, for the simple reason that it's easier to overlook a dongle than leave behind the hub. But I think the risk of damage to either the dongle or hub would be high if I just tossed into a bag with it connected.

I'm probably obsessing too much on worst-case scenarios.

Despite the potential for fun -- "Yes, it's a USB hub AND a salad spinner" -- I'm gonna pass on that idea. I'll probably just get something basic for now and opt a better fix when it hits me in the face.

Thanks again for the suggestions.

YCbCr is digital component video. For example, HDMI provides for either digital RGB or digital component video (YCrCb) output.

Not sure how this came up, but strictly speaking, RGB is considered to be part of the component video class. But I agree that through general use, we've come to unofficially redefine component video to mean YPrPb.

RGB is considered to be component video, because each component making up the overall signal is delivered via its own channel (wire), unlike composite or S-Video, where one or more of the luminance or color difference signals share space in the same channel (wire).

Yes, the Lumagens perform transcoding -- all scalers do.

MLB Reportedly Ready to Forego DirecTV Exclusive

The following story excerpt is from today's TV Predictions newsletter:
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Major League Baseball may be reconsidering a plan to award DIRECTV the exclusive rights to carry up to 60 games a week, including many in High-Definition.

...CNN/Money says one source "familiar with the negotiations" now believes that 'Extra Innings' will be available to all TV providers.

"I'd be surprised if the DIRECTV deal goes through," the source told the web site.

The league reportedly was enthusiastic about the DIRECTV deal in part because the satcaster promised to offer full support for its new Baseball Network in 2009, including widespread carriage. However, CNN/Money says the cable operators are now offering roughly the same deal for the new baseball channel.
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To read the full story, click here

TW, Comcast Reportedly Won't Give In to CBS Carriage Demands

The following story excerpt is from today's TV Predictions newsletter.
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...But the New York Post reports that Comcast and Time Warner, which collectively has nearly 38 million subscribers, will reject the network's demands when their current carriage agreements expire in 2009. Citing sources, the newspaper says the cable ops are not taking the network seriously.

"It's going to be pretty difficult to argue with a straight face that Comcast or Time Warner should pay for what anyone who has a television antenna or an Internet connection can get for free," Sanford Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett told the newspaper.

If both sides maintain their current position, Comcast and Time Warner subscribers could risk losing their CBS signals in 2009.

That's also the year when the nation will switch from analog to Digital TV, which some observers fear will lead to millions of TV viewers losing their signals, at least temporarily.
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To read the entire story, click here

Sony Plans to Offer $600 Blu-ray Player This Summer

What's ironic here is that on the one hand Sony wants to avoid commoditizing the pricing of its "next big thing" as long as it can, but it also wants to end the format competition with HD DVD by winning the numbers game.

If there were a single HD disc format, maybe prices could be kept in the $400 range for another 2 or 3 years. But now, the way things are going, HD DVD and Blu-ray players will be available at $199 by the Christmas 2007 shopping season.

The following is from today's TV Predictions newsletter:
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Sony President Stan Glasgow said today that the company will drop Blu-ray HDTV DVD player prices by 50 percent by year's end. He added that the company will launch a $599 player in mid-summer.

Sony's Blu-ray high-def player is now priced at $999.

Glasgow's comments today are in sharp contrast to his remarks made in a January 17 interview with CNET's News.com. At that time, Glasgow said it could be three years before Blu-ray player prices dropped to $399.
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Jeff,

Yes, the blackout rules apply as they normally would for SD broadcasts, so get Extra Innings isn't likely to yield you additional HD Cards' broadcasts.

One POSSIBLE exception to that rule of thumb would be the fact that WGN and TBS broadcasts are not blacked out when the Cards are playing the Cubs (or White Sox) or Braves, at least on the SD side. However, I am at least a little doubtful that this practice would be faithfully applied for HD broadcasts -- it should, but I think it's a subtle point that is likely lost when the blackouts gets imposed by DirecTV, DISH or whoever else might be distributing MLB EI...

This has nothing to do with ethics.

It's a ton of baloney to suggest that because this programming is free over the air that it can't be charged for through other distribution means. The Riverfront Times provides its editorial articles free to anyone who wants to pick up a copy of its weekly magazine, but that doesn't justify the Post-Dispatch demanding reprint rights to those articles without fees going to the RFT.

If a consumer wants the local digital stations for free, they need only erect an antenna and have the required equipment to receive these signals. On the other hand, if consumers want the convenience of it coming down their cable or satellite pipe with no fuss or muss (and cable/satellite companies see value in providing it in that form), they should expect to pay (charge) for that privilege.

Make no mistake -- I have no special love for either TV broadcasters or cable/satellite companies. But it's clear to me that everyone (including Moffett) is looking at this issue through the lens of "way it's always been" over the last 30 years, rather than the commercial realities.

I've long said that the balance of power lies with cable and satellite, because the locals have more to lose in viewership/ad rates than they have to gain via redistribution fees. But it seems clear now that broadcasters are going to go to the wall on this, and with the CBS network adopting this stance the hammer is definitely tipping in favor of the broadcasters.

This issue isn't going to go away and I still believe that Congressional intervention would be the worst possible outcome. But demagoguery is what our elected officials know best, so I suspect that's what ultimately happens.

If you're getting all the other stations with reasonably strong signals, I wouldn't expect that you'd have problems with KETC.

Two possibilities come to mind (but unfortunately neither of them presents much opportunity for sarcasm ):

* Position your antenna to line up with the KETC tower. Unplug your receiver and leave it unplugged for 5 minutes. Power it back up and re-scan for all channels and see if it discovers the KETC signal.

* If the first step doesn't work, try physically moving your antenna. Although you'd usually get intermittent reception with multipath, it might also explain why you're getting no signal at all. Moving your antenna -- forward/backward, right/left, up/down and varying the angle --- may allow you to skirt around the possibility of a reflected signal that is causing your receiver to reject the primary signal.

If neither of these steps results in a fix, you may want to look at a different antenna. Although I have zero direct experience with the Square Shooter, I have am highly skeptical of any antenna that puts significant effort into looking like a misplaced pizza box.

I stand corrected -- sarcasm is in the house...

If that's a valid argument, then why didn't that happen back at the turn of the century, when satellite companies were allowed for the first time to carry local stations?

Hmmmm... The only explanation I can come up with is that the people who ran DirecTV and DISH then were just flat-out stupid. After all, they willingly paid for something that you think they should have been paid for taking off the hands of the local stations.

No, the fact is that satellite television subscriber numbers and profits took off like a rocket ship once DISH Network and DirecTV were allowed to pay for the privilege of carrying local stations. I don't know of any better illustration of the value of the content that local stations control. Obviously the people running the satellite TV companies recognized that value and how it could help to catapult their businesses to the next level.

And at that very moment, cable TV executives had to have heard the sound of the other shoe dropping. I don't know -- maybe they actually believed that the cost of carrying those stations would put the satellite guys out of business. Whatever, they completely dropped the ball and never even tried to pick it up. I mean, they could have completely avoided the current drama years ago by including off-air analog and/or digital tuners in all their cable set-tops.

But then, that's not how monopolists think -- they don't need to adapt, because they believe market will ultimately bend to their will.

The key problem underlying the ongoing dispute between local stations and cable companies is the fact that the market for local station distribution has been distorted by government regulation -- regulation that no doubt had good intentions way back when and may even have been necessary in the early days of cable television. But look at how screwed up things are now -- satellite willingly pays for local station carriage, while cable, the primary competition of the sat TV industry, goes running to the government for relief when they're asked to do the same.

And your solution is that local stations should pay satellite? I don't get it, but I give you mucho points for way-outside-the-box thinking.