I fear that 10 years is way too short time for anything to die on TV standards.
Well not to die, but become obsolete. As you know DVB is much more than TV standard, but it is very hard to use terms when there is no term. DVB can broadcast HDTV and AC3/DTS, so DVB will stay, but I hope that for new displays people are acquiring, they want same quality from sources. And I think that in 10 years majority of sold TV sets could be plasma/tft/some other compared today's TV's with big tubes and "720x576" grid for electron gun.
I think TV business is currently changing. Youth are not so keen to live TV, a new generation of people are growing with TiVo, Replay TV, VDR, Myth TV etc. So they are used to watch TV when appropriate, not when episode airs. And cap is very short to download content from computer network. Both are sort of time shifting.
Also TV faces more competition from gaming industry. I have read that youth plays more than watch TV. This drives more towards time shifting TV.
So perhaps one day we log on to studio's site, and download episode of your favorite TV-series (already dubbed to German by studio :-) and subtitles for all languages. And all in HD format protected by DRM, and you can watch episode when suitable to you. Why you have to wait in Europe 1 year for that episode to be broadcasted. It is reality today, you can have it from Internet after episode has aired in US. And naturally in HD format.
Moves towards this direction is taken on music side if we compare FM/DVB radio and iTunes.. "I want my favorite song now". You could poll radio and record song from there when and if it airs. Next thing is "I want to see complete _season_ of X-Files today"?
There should be no need for upsampling of legacy stuff nowadays - it's actually bad for transmission purposes (wastes bandwidth). HDTV receivers are required to handled rather great amounts of data so when receiving SDTV material all scalings, if needed, would be done at customer end.
But when HDTV channel broadcasts 15Mbps HDTV that bandwidth must be allocated on transponder. Of course on HDTV PID SDTV could be sent, but you cannot add any temporary channel etc. to released bandwidth from HDTV. Of course more bandwidth could be allocated to SDTV channel(s) on same transponder if no HDTV broadcast is available. But I think it would be inconvenient for people to switch channels when HDTV broadcast ends, just to see same channel on SDTV side.
Of course in my dreamworld HDTV channel should change framerate per show. Movies with 1080p/24fps, EU legacy series/stuff with
50fps and
US series with 24/60fps. And that would also enable VDR to do 'easy' noad. If framefrate changes from 24fps to 50/60fps we have commercials.. :-)
Why this needs to be dreamworld? Upsampling/downsampling in realtime is not that big task for current CPUs so HDTV receiver could easily do this.
I think it is dream world because broadcasters do already up/downsample to their own picture standard. And I don't believe that is going to change. Euro1080 (or HD-1 nowadays) broadcasts with 50Hz all material.
But I am against of up/downsampling. IMHO is much better to adapt display frequency to content, not vice versa (content to display). This way we could see 1080p24 material as good quality as possible, and for example not 1080i50 with 4% PAL-speedup, which changes also audio pitch. Or video judders for down converting 60i to 50i.
You are right, set top box must be able to adapt content also, if display won't support 24p/48i mode, then it must be adapted to 50/60.
I have find it difficult to find proper settings for high quality playback. Best have been (on windows side) using 72,75 and 90 Hz frame rates (adapted for content: cinema, pal or ntsc) and with directshow reclock-plugin. With this I've been able to eliminate judder from videos, or sound jumps. But immediately when source is 24fps and monitor is 75Hz, picture or sound jumps. You can choose which one.. :-)
If you think about MTV3 or SubTV then I'll ask you that do you _really_ believe they will _not_ show old stuff ?-)
Channels that are funded with commercials are not keen "wasting" bandwidth to HDTV unless its competitors are doing so thus loosing viewers. Why? Simply because they earn more money by displaying more commercials in every 15-20min using multiple channels instead of couple of good quality HDTV channels. I
In US HDTV has introduced new(?) operators (Voom, INHD), it would be OK for me if there was HDTV operator in Europe providing content I like via satellite and have a subscription fee. I would consider HD-1 if they showed movies and series, or better sports than volleyball. But problem is broadcasting rights?
I believe, it'll be Canal+ etc. who will provide HDTV in Finland - at least in the beginning (after analogue channels have been shut down - hopefully by end of 2007 the latest).
I also hope that. Was Canal Digital launching/piloting HDTV in Nov. 2005 over satellite?
jori.hamalainen@teliasonera.com wrote:
I fear that 10 years is way too short time for anything to die on TV standards.
Well not to die, but become obsolete. As you know DVB is much more than TV standard, but it is very hard to use terms when there is no term. DVB can broadcast HDTV and AC3/DTS, so DVB will stay, but I hope that for new displays people are acquiring, they want same quality from sources. And I think that in 10 years majority of sold TV sets could be plasma/tft/some other compared today's TV's with big tubes and "720x576" grid for electron gun.
Most likely majority of sold "TV sets" will provide much better resolution than old ones but I simply cannot see it happen that TV companies start to broadcast better quality material without getting paid for it - at least extra. Hopefully I'm wrong here..
I think TV business is currently changing. Youth are not so keen to live TV, a new generation of people are growing with TiVo, Replay TV, VDR, Myth TV etc. So they are used to watch TV when appropriate, not when episode airs. And cap is very short to download content from computer network. Both are sort of time shifting.
Yes, that's very true. TV business is definately facing a lot of problems in the near future when trying to get people back to watching TV.
[snip]
So perhaps one day we log on to studio's site, and download episode of your favorite TV-series (already dubbed to German by studio :-) and subtitles for all languages. And all in HD format protected by DRM, and you can watch episode when suitable to you. Why you have to wait in Europe 1 year for that episode to be broadcasted. It is reality today, you can have it from Internet after episode has aired in US. And naturally in HD format.
Propably possible someday. I'm not very keen about this due to DRM..
[snip]
There should be no need for upsampling of legacy stuff nowadays - it's actually bad for transmission purposes (wastes bandwidth). HDTV receivers are required to handled rather great amounts of data so when receiving SDTV material all scalings, if needed, would be done at customer end.
But when HDTV channel broadcasts 15Mbps HDTV that bandwidth must be allocated on transponder. Of course on HDTV PID SDTV could be sent, but you cannot add any temporary channel etc. to released bandwidth from HDTV. Of course more bandwidth could be allocated to SDTV channel(s) on same transponder if no HDTV broadcast is available. But I think it would be inconvenient for people to switch channels when HDTV broadcast ends, just to see same channel on SDTV side.
Maybe the whole channel idea needs to be re-thought. Instead of channels you can watch different programs. Total amount of bandwidth is split between programs. This would allow e.g. HDTV level movie to be sent while at the same time there are News, TV shop etc. that don't require that much bandwidth. For the end user "channels" are still used to keep things common. Oh well, now I'm getting into dream land :)
[snip]
But I am against of up/downsampling. IMHO is much better to adapt display frequency to content, not vice versa (content to display). This way we could see 1080p24 material as good quality as possible, and for example not 1080i50 with 4% PAL-speedup, which changes also audio pitch. Or video judders for down converting 60i to 50i.
Makes me wonder why this is not used. It would be cheaper for broadcasters.
[snip]
I have find it difficult to find proper settings for high quality playback. Best have been (on windows side) using 72,75 and 90 Hz frame rates (adapted for content: cinema, pal or ntsc) and with directshow reclock-plugin. With this I've been able to eliminate judder from videos, or sound jumps. But immediately when source is 24fps and monitor is 75Hz, picture or sound jumps. You can choose which one.. :-)
Shouldn't be that difficult to write small SW that checks the framerate of the video and adjusts monitor freq according to it.
Br, Pasi