[BC] The issue was compatibility...

[Burt I. Weiner]

The main issue at the time was compatibility.  While it was necessary at 
the time and for the most part is still a necessity there are other 
options.  Unfortunately politics and the bottom line get in the way of 
science and technology.

PanAmSat had a company Battle Cry that was most appropriate and in my 
opinion, still is.

See: http://codinginparadise.org/weblog/2004_09_07_archive.html

Burt



At 01:00 AM 7/16/2005 -0400, you wrote:
> >From: "Phil Alexander" <dynotherm at earthlink.net>
> >Subject: Re: [BC] the Deja VU meter is pegging (was: IBOC)
> >To: Broadcast Radio Mailing List <broadcast at radiolists.net>
> >Message-ID: <42D7D180.21909.1303699 at localhost>
> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> >
> >On 13 Jul 2005 at 20:53, Kevin Tekel wrote:
> >
> > > Phil Alexander wrote:
> > > > There are many reasons for moving to digital and we
> > > > are doing it very late in the game. IBOC is clearly not the best
> > > > way to make the transition, but it will get us there. Since it is
> > > > what we have, perhaps we should take advantage of that. It will
> > > > be gone soon enough and be replaced by real digital anyway.
>
> >
> >NTSC was not that good compared with what could have been done, but
> >I'm not sure CBS sequential color was that great either. SECAM was
> >probably the best of the day, but it needed too much bandwidth.
>
>Not to beat a dead horse (there was a thread about this with the last
>year), but NTSC was a brilliant piece of engineering that allowed color to
>be broadcast on the same 6 MHz channel as monochrome and that had adequate
>compatibility with existing B&W sets. It was absolutely cutting edge in its
>time for its use of psychovisual knowledge to cut down the required RF
>bandwidth -- an early form of lossy coding. NTSC's basic soundness is
>underlined by the fact that PAL is a relatively minor modification of it
>(and, in fact, the folks who designed NTSC were aware of the possibility of
>a phase-alternation-by-line modification but felt that  ca. 1953 hardware
>couldn't support it at reasonable cost).
>
>
>Bob Orban

Burt I. Weiner Associates
Broadcast Technical Services
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