Posts by Paul Campbell
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I'm probably actually going to pass on MySkyHD - mostly because apart from TV3, I don't get any of the HD channels - when they bring up TV1/2/Discovery/Documentary/etc channels in HD I'll probably think again
Of course really I'd like to just roll my own Sky box, but in my corner of the business one doesn't just run off and implement someones crypto without permission, even if you know how
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I'm a bit uncomfortable with the election being played out in one newspaper that most of us don't get - it's kind of like Auckland's descended into a different reality and the rest of us are just going huh? I think it invites a backlash (or maybe more of one)
It seems wrong to me - stuff like this should be happening on the national stage, not just in one city, even if it's our largest
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well as I said the standards aren't written down anywhere, I don't think they are exactly secret, just not written down anywhere - in particular as I understand it the future EPG data (the next 2 weeks or so as needed by a PVR) is in a new non standard format (a nice person at Foo Camp offered to get me the spec but something under the table is different from publishing it for everyone to see).
Sounds like the current and next program data running in the PMT stream is in the standard format though which is why you can see what you do - you can see a similar effect on the non-pvr Sky boxes which have crappy firmware that forgets the guide for several minutes every hour, usually at just the time when you want to decide what to watch next, but when in that state can still tell you what you're watching
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OTA PVR, DIY, PC, CD, FV, MPEG4, TV, NZ, DVB-T, EPG, US, QAM, DVB, ATSC
er sorry, welcome to what I do for a living (cable/satellite/broadcast digital TV protocol wrangling - I make a living because all these different acronyms and the protocols they describe exist):
- OTA (off of the air) ie digital broadcast
- PVR (personal video recorder) smart settop like MySky/Moxi/Tivo boxes that will do stuff like record every episode in your favorite shows, let you pause/rewind live TV, skip the ads etc etc
- FV (ok I made this one up - FreeView)
- MPEG4 the compression screen that freeview use for compressing digital video, MPEG2 is the older standard that Sky use, it doesn't compress quite so well
- DVB (digital video broadcast) the scheme used everywhere in the world except the US)
- DVB-T the version of DVB for TV broadcast as opposed to satellite/cable
- QAM/ATSC names of portions of the many standards used in the US rather than DVB
- EPG (electronic program guide) the data packets embedded in the signal that tell you what will be on next weekThe rest I'm sure you know
Come on, I'm feeding you straight lines here - someone was supposed to say "badgers, we don't need no stinkin' ...."
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I can provide goats, the badgers might be harder to find though ....
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OB - out side broadcast (not a roving doctor)
Gee - maybe it's time to roll a cheap OTA PVR - I keep threatening to make a DIY-with-your-old-PC-and-Myth standalone CD - most of the bits are readily available now.
The big problem of course is that FV's choice of MPEG4 - while it's technically a good idea it means there's no cheap settop silicon around - it means our TVs will be different from anyone else's for quite a while and you can't just import a random digital TV and expect it to work in NZ - it also means that time to market for anything will be longer - if they'd chosen MPEG2 we'd probably all be awash in PVRs and TVs (and it's not like NZ is particularly short on TV broadcast space, especially after they reclaim the analog bands)
Best thing that Freeview could do today would to be to throw all their specs up on their website - we know it's DVB-T - but any extensions? what's the EPG format? how do you use boquets? (same as Sky? as someone else? your own special way?) etc etc it's supposed to be free - open up the specs so anyone can build one
Mind you the local newspaper here in Dunedin is more confused, last week they ran a 1/4 page article expousing the wonders of a particular digital TV solution for your PC - trouble was it only actually works on US cable systems (QAM based, Dunedin has non cable and if it did it would be DVB) or US broadcast (again ATSC, not DVB). Their subeditors went to the trouble to change the reference in the article to which night Desperate Housewives is on but missed the more general if someone actually does they'll be wasting their money part of the thing
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Youngsters amongst us should remember that it was different rather black and white age, with only one TV channel and most people didn't have TV remotes (so no easy muting the ads) - that meant that even if something was only shown twice most of the country saw it
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Umm - I remember the Dancing Cossacks - they were cheaply done cartoonage meant to imply that Labour's new super plan would lead to communism - National's alternative was arguable more socialist - but Labour didn't have dancing cossacks (nor overseas sugar daddies to pay for them) and more importantly Big Norm had left the stage
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I think it's more a matter of Dunedin having been a small enough place that if you were in the law biz you knew everyone else and the appearance of a new law firm that didn't actually interact with any of the existing ones sort of raised a red flag (or in this case I guess an anti-red flag)
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um yeah I think you do ....