2009
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FCC Video Device Innovation Notice: We Need an Open Video Internet!
The FCC Video Device Innovation Notice [1] asks one of the most fundamentally central questions to the prospect of not only a viable Broadband Plan for America, but also to the very future of the Open Internet that has revolutionized communications systems of all humanity: “How could the Commission develop a standard that would achieve [...]
Royalty free codec standards — don’t settle for less
After a lively debate, the IETF appears to be moving forward with a royalty-free audio codec standardization activity. Here’s to its successful launch and positive outcome. I’ve put a brief summary at the mpegrf.com site, and there is a good summary here. The group’s email discussion alias is here — and my view, expressed there [...]
A Royalty-Free MPEG: It’s Time for ISO and ITU to Deliver
In late 2001, to much industry enthusiasm, H.264 and MPEG-4 AVC were launched as the world’s unifying codec family in a joint project between ITU and ISO/MPEG with the undertaking that the “JVT [Joint Video Team] will define a “baseline” profile. That profile should be royalty-free for all implementations.” The failure to deliver on this [...]
Don’t Quit – Evolve! ATSC Forum to Close Doors
Last week, Business News Americas broke the story that the ATSC Forum — the industry group that lobbies for the international adoption of the US ATSC digital TV standard of the Advanced Television Systems Committee — plans to close its doors at the end of September. Although the ATSC Forum’s closure has gotten little attention [...]
Broadcasters Challenge Broadband TV Patent Submarine Threat
I’ve pointed out how the EBU, the world’s largest organization of national broadcasters, is beating the drum to avoid patent lock-ins in new standards for hybrid broadcast-broadband TV services. EBU’s own write-up of last week’s EBU/ETSI workshop is even more direct: “Broadcasters are haunted by the ghosts of the submarine patents which emerged with MHP [...]
Patent Dumping For Democracy: Reconsidering America’s DTV Diplomacy
“More Democratic” … “It is a matter of social justice” So US ambassadors have lobbied South American governments since 2007 that “[t]he issue is whether the government will choose the [ATSC] digital television standard that is already providing the highest quality, lowest cost, and most democratic opportunities …” In recent months Peru, Argentina, and now [...]
“Conflict Through Consensus”: Europe’s Hybrid Broadbanders Paint on UK’s Project Canvas
A “Julius Stonian” observation: standards groups aren’t “consensus organizations”, they are political organizations. Winners declare their way the “consensus”, and changes in political context shift the “consensus”. So reflects calls in several slides at yesterday’s Hybrid Broadcast-Broadband (HBB) workshop to look deeper into Intellectual Property Rights and other control points in the new “broadcast+broadband” (aka [...]
The BRIC That Could: How Brazil Is Changing Your TV
Europe sneers at their technology. US’s DTV transition passed them by. BBC’s intelligentsia never noticed them. No consumer electronics industry to match Asia; neighbors don’t speak their language. So how did Brazil become a world leader in digital TV? And why the tip of the hat to Brazil DTV middleware leader TQTVD, to whom I [...]
DTV Patent Pools: What’s Wrong & How to Fix It
At the 2009 Brazil SET Broadcasting & Cable Conference I presented on 3 panel topics: “DTV Patent Pools: What’s Wrong & How to Fix It” (pdf) “Conformance & Certification: Key to Digital Switch Over“ “Hybrid TV, The Way Forward?“ Slides on DTV patents below; the overall theme that Brazil has become a world DTV leader [...]
Hybrid TV: The Way Forward?
At the 2009 Brazil SET Broadcasting & Cable Conference I presented on 3 panel topics: “DTV Patent Pools: What’s Wrong & How to Fix It“ “Conformance & Certification: Key to Digital Switch Over“ “Hybrid TV, The Way Forward?“(pdf) The overall theme that Brazil has become a world DTV leader was picked up in the Brazil [...]