[extropy-chat] tepid response to hdtv

[Eugen Leitl]

On Wed, Dec 13, 2006 at 11:55:27PM -0600, Brian Atkins wrote:

> The issue will be moot in 3 more years because the FCC is finally forcing the 
> phase out of analog over-the-air broadcasts, so by 2009-10 most all TVs sold 

This has already been occuring elsewhere (Holland, Germany, etc.). I'm personally
less interested in HD because nowadays codecs allow flexible formats, and displays
with interesting resolutions have been available for some time. Since I don't
watch TV at all (unless there's personal-preference video aggregator subscription 
available) and DRM-free HD movies are unavailable, I have to live with DVD
scaled up to 1280x1024, which is enough for time being.

> will be HD (ATSC) compatible. This phase out will allow all that wireless 
> spectrum to be used for more interesting things like much better wireless 
> internet I hope/expect.

There seems to be a lot of bandwidth (16 GBit wireless transmissions recently)
available in RF, but you need things like MIMO and ultrabroadband and
a free line of sight between the aerials. Fiber has been inching closer and
closer to the network edge recently, with 10 GBit/s Ethernet being default 
standard for the backbone and 100 GBit/s Ethernet being in the works.
If you lay 100 GBit/s capable monomode now into the living room it should
be arguably enough for the next 25 years, or even longer.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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