Really Rocket Science - Analog Deathwatch

Live Via WiMAX

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 21:40:06 -0700

Atop Snow King mountain in Idaho, sits a new radio tower providing Internet access using new WiMAX technology. But it can do more than that.

KIFI-TV announced back in May a pioneering way of electronic news gathering that doesn't use microwave or satellite to get the live feed back to the studio:

KIFI News Group calls it WiNG or Wireless Internet News Gathering. KIFI News Group General Manager, Mark Danielson, says, "The WiNG project is based on using the Internet to send content (video and sound) from the scene of a news event back to the station for LIVE broadcast on its television stations and web sites. Danielson says, “The breakthrough is the ability for KIFI field crews to send near Broadcast Quality LIVE shots over wireless Internet."
Danielson says, "WiNG allows KIFI News Group the capability to bring its customers breaking news and information from locations that have never been accessible to routine live news gathering. What KIFI News Group has developed with DigitalBridge Communications has the potential to revolutionize news gathering.” As WiMAX is deployed across the country, Danielson says he expects ordinary news vehicles to turn into fleets of Wireless Internet News Gathering vehicles – allowing for more aggressive coverage of late breaking news and weather events. Danielson says, “In the end, consumers will win as their hunger for breaking news and weather is satisfied by faster access to breaking news from aggressive media companies like his.”

TVNewsday filed this report earlier today on how this could truly be the new scheme for live reports, especially for stations on a tight budget:

Pioneering work on adapting WiMAX for ENG is now underway at KIFI, News-Press & Gazette's ABC affiliate in Idaho Falls, Idaho.
And so far the fourth-generation wireless broadband access service is showing a lot of promise.
"This opens up a whole new world," says Mark Danielson, general manager of the KIFI News Group, who has dubbed its system Wireless Internet News Gathering or, simply, WING.
Unlike so-called third-generation, high-speed mobile technologies like EVDO, WiMAX can provide enough upstream bandwidth for live video.
It's not the best, but it is "definitely acceptable," says Danielson. "Most viewers probably couldn't tell you we're doing anything different."
Danielson can tell you about the difference in cost. Satellite is out of the question for the nation's 163rd largest market. Outfitting a microwave truck costs about $200,000.
But KIFI spent just $12,000 to equip a Toyota Highlander SUV with the necessary hardware and software to send video via WiMAX.
"Plus, I don't have to have any receive sites," Danielson says. "I just have to be in a place where WiMAX exists with Digital Bridge."
Digital Bridge Communications is the local WiMAX service provider, with which KIFI has been closely working. Its BridgeMaxx service covers much of the same ground as KIFI: Idaho Falls, Pocatello, Twin Falls, Rexburg and a number of towns in Sun Valley.
"This is a unique product that was developed for them," says Doug Smith, Digital Bridge's CIO. "This was a first for both of us and one of the first, if not the first, instances of doing broadcast over WiMAX in the U.S. that I'm aware of."
Broadcasters elsewhere may soon be able to experiment with live video via WiMax.
Using spectrum mostly in the 2.5 GHz band, WiMAX is just getting started in the United States, and it is expected to pop up in markets across the country over the next few years.
The big player is (or will be) Clearwire Corp., a planned joint venture that will include some of the biggest names in telecom and high tech: Sprint Nextel, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Bright House, Google and Intel.
Sprint Nextel, which will own 51 percent of the venture, is folding in its Xohm WiMax unit, which launched a commercial service in Baltimore just last month.
If it all comes together, Clearwire expects to roll out WiMAX service in markets covering about 140 million people by 2010.
But what works in one place may not work in another.
In Idaho, KIFI and Digital Bridge worked out a "special priority service" that guarantees KIFI 2 Mbps upstream throughput when needed for a live shot.
A guaranteed upload speed of 2 Mbps is unusual for broadband wireless service providers. Typically, they offer such speeds only for downloads and much slower upstream bit rates for keystrokes, e-mail and occasional peer-to-peer traffic.
A news operation, of course, works the other way. It needs only small swaths of downstream bandwidth and huge chunks for sending video back to the studio.
Cutting a deal for the fat upstream pipe may not be possible everywhere.
As the service becomes popular, it will be more difficult for a station to set up the sort of sweetheart deal that KIFI has with Digital Bridge. Even in Idaho Falls, the priority service is only available for regularly scheduled newscasts.
"My verbal agreement with them is around news time," said Danielson. "We're learning that their peak time also happens to be around 4 in the afternoon. It's become complicated for them, but they've been able to deliver."
A wireless service provider could be forced to choose between the larger group of customers — some of whom are corporate and paying huge fees — and a steady paycheck from a news operation.
Raycom Media, the station group based in Montgomery, Ala., is intrigued by the KIFI experiment.
David Folsom, vice president-CTO at Raycom Media, says he will probably give it a try in Lubbock, Texas, the only Raycom market where WiMAX is going to be available. A company called Xanadoo is building a system there using licensed 2.5 GHz spectrum.
"The biggest hang-up at the moment is that nobody has created the glue yet for it," says Folsom. "You have a modem and a laptop and a camera but that doesn't necessarily make a remote facility. You need all the parts and pieces."
Nobody knows that better than KIFI, which had to assemble its system form parts and pieces.
Key pieces come from Steambox, a Seattle-based company that specializes to pushing video over IP networks. It's supplying the software that runs on a laptop and encodes and compresses the video for WiMAX transmission as well as the decoder that receives and processes the signal for broadcast back at the station.
"It really became a three-way partnership between us, Digital Bridge and Streambox constantly modifying and make this technology work," says Danielson. "There really are no blueprints for doing what we're doing yet."
"We'll see long term whether the QoS [quality of service] holds up," says Folsom. "The people in the field are not IT people; they're reporters. The issue is the human interface part and we're working on that right now."
Danielson maintains that using WiMAX is not that tough, even for the non-technical types.
"They have a camera, a BridgeMAXX modem, a converter box ... and a laptop computer with the Streambox encoder software. You look at the truck and go, ‘That's it?' There's nothing to it. It's simple. There's no 40-foot mast to worry about."
Aside from the quality of the signal, Danielson's biggest worry is latency of about three interminable seconds in the talk-back between the studio and the remote site.
"We compensate by cueing the reporter about a second-and-a-half before the anchor is done talking," Danielson says. "As far as having audio and video in sync, we have not had any of those issues."
In any event, Danielson and Folsom agree that WiMAX is a step up from EVDO, a widely available wireless access service that has been adopted by many broadcasters for sending video, but only when satellite and microwave isn't possible.
Folsom says he doesn't depend on EVDO for live shots. "We use it for those circumstances in which there's no other way we can do it because we're out of our normal microwave footprint or there's some other overriding reason like the weather.
"I don't suggest for a minute that EVDO is competing with WiMAX at all, but since WiMAX's footprint is so tiny right now and EVDO is everywhere, we're using Verizon EVDO+ and it's been fairly decent for us," says Folsom. "I don't have a lot of complaints."
While EVDO is improving, Danielson won't go that way again. EVDO can't promise bandwidth, he says, noting that an upstream throughput of 1 Mbps is considered a stretch.
At least for the present, KIFI sees WiMAX as a complement to microwave, not as a substitute.
"We still rely heavily on microwave for our primary system. The only downside with microwave is it's line-of-sight to your receive towers," he says.
Eastern Idaho is mountainous so there are many spots that are out of microwave range of the station. That's where WiMAX can help. "BridgeMAXX is more like cellular technology where any place you're within a radius of a WiMAX tower you have the ability to send," says Tory Willmer, KIFI's IT manager.
That Eastern Idaho is also sparsely populated helps, Danielson adds.
Even though its spectrum is licensed, WiMAX, like any radio service, is susceptible to interference, he says. So the more remote the place, the less the chance of interference.
WiMAX is one of two fourth-generation mobile wireless technologies. LTE, or Long Term Evolution, is coming on the heels of EVDO and other third generation services and, while still several years away, promises a more ubiquitous coverage and faster upstream service.
But WiMAX is here now.
"It's a great application for broadcast," says Danielseon. "I predict this is going to be the way things are done in the future. You could have a fleet of WING vehicles with WiMAX at a fraction of the cost of a couple satellite trucks or live trucks."

FCC to Open White Space Spectrum

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 10:57:57 -0700

Daily Wireless has the news that is sure to please advocates such as Google, Microsoft, and Motorola:

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said today that he will support allowing conditional unlicensed use of the so-called “white spaces” television spectrum. During a press conference, Martin said that he was proposing to let carriers and other vendors deploy devices in white space spectrum which operates unlicensed at powers of 100 milliwatts.
His proposal would also permit use of white space on channels adjacent to existing television stations at powers of up to 40 milliwatts. The FCC is planning to officially vote on whether to allow unlicensed white space use during its Nov. 4 meeting pdf..
Martin said portable devices must have sensing technologies as well as a geo-location database. This would make sure the devices would be able to detect nearby broadcasts in order to avoid those frequencies.
Companies such as Google that are part of the Wireless Innovation Alliance are asking for the white spaces to be unlicensed and open to all.

Here's a video from the Washington Post on testing mobile devices that use the white space spectrum:

So what exactly is white space?

White space in telecommunications refers to unused frequencies in the radio waves portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.

National and international bodies assign differing frequencies for specific uses, and in some cases license the rights to these. This frequency allocation process creates a bandplan which in some cases for technical reasons assigns white space between used bands to avoid interference. In this case, while the frequencies are unused they have been specifically assigned for a purpose.

In an opinion piece over at TVTechnology, Frank Beacham argues that white space is an incredibly valuable public resource that could provide wireless broadband access for as little as $10 a month:

Vacant space in TV Channels 5-51 is perfectly suited for cheap WiFi and other unlicensed wireless services. Failure to take advantage of this publicly owned resource would not only be an enormous waste, but eventually allow the spectrum to be tied up for far less noble purposes.

NAB lobbyists would have you believe that the use of wireless devices in these vacant slices of spectrum would cause interference and threaten the transition to terrestrial digital broadcasting. Sports leagues think the devices might cause static on wireless microphones and coaches’ headsets.

Perhaps they are right about the interference, at least at this early stage of the technology. But what doesn’t work now can be made to work. Sensors can detect which frequencies in an area have no usable TV signals and a device’s transmission can be limited to prevent it from interfering with occupied channels....

THE OTHER SIDE

The NAB, [Ben Scott, policy director of FreePress, a nonpartisan group advocating an open, independent media] said, is engaged in “a campaign of misinformation” to persuade Congress and regulators to ignore the huge potential of unused public airwaves. “In some communities, more than three-quarters of these ‘white spaces’ are vacant,” he said. “The social and economic benefits of utilizing these unused airwaves far outweigh the shortsighted fears of the broadcast industry.”

By using “false assumptions and twisted facts,” Scott said, the NAB is attempting to collapse the entire white spaces debate into a single test of prototype devices at the FCC.

Scott, as well as the high-tech companies advocating the unlicensed use of white space, argues that the FCC’s initial tests actually demonstrated the viability of the smart sensing technology to reduce interference. The tests are being used as a bogeyman in the public lobbying campaign.

It is dangerous, Beacham writes, to allow technical obstacles to cloud the big picture—which is setting important policy as to how a valuable public resource is to be used.

What do you think?

Technorati Tags: white+space spectrum broadcasting mobile technology television open+source

DIY Friday: Get a Space Prize

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 13:40:48 -0700

Taking a break from the usual how-to entries, today will be an inspirational DIY-Friday. If high-schooler can create devices launched into space, you can do anything, right?

A team of students from UK's Shrewsbury school won a contest to design a device that will be launched on a British-built satellite in 2010:

The competition, launched earlier this year, challenged teams of 14-19-year-olds to design and build a small, compact satellite instrument.

The experiment will be flown as an additional payload on a low-Earth orbiting satellite being built by SSTL.

Conceived by Dr Stuart Eves, from the satellite company, it was set up as an initiative to boost interest in space science among young people.

The winning entry will be given a developmental budget of up to £100,000.

The winning decice is called POISE, "which will measure variations in the ionosphere - the outermost layer of the atmosphere." It could have a pretty big impact (especially for a few teenagers):

Dr Eves praised all the finalists. He said of the winning entry: "We're very excited about the potential for the experiment, since, in addition to supporting navigation safety, some scientists in the US and Taiwan think variations in the ionosphere might also help provide indications of impending earthquakes".

The prize was announced by Soyeon Yi, the Korean astronaut, who you may remember from this post.

Inspired? If so, get to work. There are lots of other space prizes out there – for both high schoolers and adults. This site puts together the list, or follow a blog dedicated to these micro-space-races here. The Moonbuggy race may be the coolest. Yes, even cooler than an ionosphere variation measurer.

Technorati Tags: do+it+yourself, Space, space+competition, satellite,

Speaking of Digital

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 10:32:25 -0700

Via MSNBC:

A major problem during a test run in Wilmington, N.C., was the inability of over-the-air viewers to receive new digital signals, according to figures collected after the test.
Commercial broadcasters in the North Carolina city volunteered to cease analog programming on Sept. 8, well before the rest of the nation. Of the 1,828 people who complained to the Federal Communications Commission in the first five days, slightly more than half were unable to tune in one or more channels.
All full-power television stations must turn off their analog signals by Feb. 18. Viewers who receive programming through an antenna and do not own newer-model digital TV sets by the time of the changeover must buy a converter box. The government is providing two $40 coupons per household to help defray the cost.
The largest number of calls to the FCC from Wilmington were from viewers of the NBC affiliate, WECT-TV. That station's analog broadcast covers far more ground than its digital signal, meaning some viewers could watch that channel before the switchover but not afterward. A total of 553 complaints were attributed to that issue.
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said a smaller digital footprint may affect as many as 15 percent of television markets in the U.S.
The agency is still calculating what impact that may have nationwide.
Some Wilmington callers were able to watch NBC programming from another market. But an undetermined number could not, an issue generating concern at the FCC and Congress.
It's not certain what — if anything — the FCC or broadcasters can do for these viewers, short of recommending that they buy a bigger antenna.
Martin told members of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Tuesday that a possible solution would be for broadcasters to erect special "repeater" antennas to expand their reach.
"Our goal is to ensure that all viewers in the Wilmington area and the country have access to the same television signals that they did prior to the transition," he said.
Nielsen Media Research said as of July that there are about 13.4 million television households in the U.S. that receive their programming over the air only, about 12 percent of all homes with TVs. In Wilmington, the total is 15,110, or 8.4 percent.
If the Wilmington complaint rate were applied nationally, there would be more than 1.1 million calls to the FCC in the first five days after the change.
Or not.
Wilmington broadcasters transmitted an informational crawl over an analog signal that included the hot line number. Federal law makes no such allowances after Feb. 17 — all full-power analog signals must cease, so viewers may not know where to turn with problems.
Committee Chairman Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, said he was concerned that "even with a Herculean investment of time and resources" in Wilmington, there was still a large number of calls.
"On a national level, this may translate to millions of calls," he said. "Unless more is done, Feb. 17, and 18, and 19 will be very long days indeed."
There are also concerns that Wilmington was not representative. Citizens were subjected to an intense public education campaign. The terrain is relatively flat, and as a percentage, fewer viewers rely on over-the-air broadcasting than the nation as a whole.
Democratic FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, who recommended the test-market idea, wants the agency to conduct more field tests, ramp up the agency's call center and find a way to broadcast an analog message to consumers following the transition.

Technorati Tags: analog dtv wilmington+nc wilmington fcc

Super Hi-Vision

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 10:09:57 -0700

Thank you, Japanese taxpayers, for subsidizing the development of what we'll expect to see in about ten years. 16 times better than today's HDTV.

NHK's Super Hi-Vision provides 7,680 x 4,320 pixel (32 million pixels) images at 60 progressive frames a second, with 22.2 channel immersive audio. By contrast, today's HDTV offers 2 million pixels in 1,920 x 1,080 scanning system.

They had a live feed from London to the IBC show in Amsterdam earlier this week. What was the reaction? "Dude, I need a bigger wall!" The Hollywood Reporter used the word "agog" in their headline:

NHK's developing Super Hi-Vision system was the subject of a stunning demonstration Monday at the IBC. SHV offers 8K resolution -- 16 times that of HDTV -- with a 22.2 channel surround sound system.
Delegates waited in long lines for a glimpse at the scenic images, which were broadcast to Amsterdam's RAI Convention Center in two ways: From a live camera in London over a fiber connection and from a server in Torino, Italy, via satellite.

What kind of set-up/config are we talking here? Big broadband, accoriding to EE Times:

In London, the camera and audio mixing is operated by SIS Live (formerly BBC Outside Broadcasts). Siemens IT Solutions and Services, the BBC's technology partner, has built a control room that includes a bank of 16 MPEG-2 encoder channels which compress the native 24Gb/s of Super Hi-Vision to 600 Mb/s.
Siemens carries this, without any modulation, together with data, communications and reverse video and audio feeds, to Cable&Wireless, which is providing a gigabit Ethernet fiber connection from London to Amsterdam.
Besides the output of a live camera and microphone array in London transmitted over fiber optics connection, the BTF group is also showing content from a local server located in Torino, delivered to Amsterdam live over satellite.
RAI and Eutelsat provided Super Hi-Vision material live, using DVB-S2 modulation with "a channel efficiency that approaches closely theoretical limits," according to the group.
The Super Hi-Vision video and the 22.2 multichannel audio are coded using H.264 and AAC respectively. The 140 Mbits per second coded signal is then carried over two satellite transponders, using 8PSK 5/6 modulation.

Two transponders? Cool. Maybe they'll start using the Kizuna satellite for these broadcasts.

Japan Inc. magazine gives a unique perspective, noting HD in Japan is nothing new:

“The public and private sector cooperation has been such that ordinary Japanese people don’t necessarily think of HDTV as anything special,” says NHK engineer Kenji Terada, noting that 93% of Japanese households already receive HDTV broadcast signals, thanks mainly to the country’s BS satellite service (BS-hi), which came online in 2000. The One-Seg system for mobile receivers (cell phones and car navigation systems, and so on) has been up since 2006.

Here's a video with good background on the topic:

Technorati Tags: japanese+technology japan dvb-s2 eutelsat ibc nhk hdtv shv 32+million+pixels

Wilmington, NC: First to Make the Digitial Transition

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 09:07:35 -0700

The 49th state has been in the news lately, but we heard from the 50th state yesterday when Sen. Daniel Inouye raised the alarm that the next president could be a victim of the current administration’s handling of the digital TV transition:

“I am troubled that a bipartisan and noncontroversial public policy goal, intended to help our emergency first responders better serve and protect the American people, may end up as an albatross around the neck of our next president,” Inouye said.

The House will hold a hearing tomorrow morning on the status of the DTV transmission; the Senate will hold one next week.

This group of potential tube casualties includes a disproportionately large portion of Spanish-speaking, elderly and low-income Americans. Of the 21 million US households that rely exclusively on over-the-air television, the GAO found that almost half had incomes under $30,000 and that about 28 percent of them were Hispanic.

In advance of today's House Commerce Committee "DTV Transition" hearing, the Consumer Electronics Association released new research findings.

According to their market research, consumer awareness of the digital-TV transition is now at 86%, up 12 percentage points from the beginning of the year. 32% of households with at least one analog-only over-the-air TV have applied for converter boxes, while another 37% know they will have to and plan to do so by year's end. That adds up to 14 million converter boxes, the CEA said, for which the National Telecommunications and Information Administration should have enough coupons to cover.

Meanwhile, Wilmington, North Carolina last week became the first city in the U.S. to make the all digital transition, well ahead of next year's February 17th deadline.

Those of you who may be working on the digital transition might want to follow this great blog on Wilmington's transition, to gain a little advance insight into the stumbles and successes that Wilmington is facing with its residents in the immediate aftermath of the transition.

Local station WECT has also put up an informational page on their site, which will probably be held up as a good example for other stations to follow.

We can't say that the "DTV Answers Booth" in Wilmington, pictured above, was overwhelmed by the curious, however.

Broadcasters certainly have their work cut out for them as the transition approaches, with lots of educating to do. Here's a PDF from the FCC site featuring an analysis of calls from the second day of the Wilmington transition.

Technorati Tags: hdtv hdtv+transition analog+deathwatch politics broadcasting television communications wilmington

Gamma Burst!

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 10:44:24 -0700

Did you see it?

The brightest explosion ever seen was observed in March this year, Physorg.com reports. Now a team of astronomers from around the world have combined their data from satellites and observatories to explain what happened.

What they saw -- and indeed, it was visible to the naked human eye -- was a Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) aimed directly at our solar system.

A Gamma Ray Burst is not to be confused with Gamera:

GRBs are bright -- but they are easy to miss. NASA explains:

Like galactic fireworks in the night, gamma-ray bursts briefly light up the stellar sky as only the most powerful explosions in the universe can. Yet as magnificent as gamma-ray bursts are, their fleeting nature makes them elusive and difficult to study....
Gamma-ray bursts are incredibly intense releases of gamma radiation. Found at the highest frequency end of the electromagnetic spectrum, gamma radiation is a particularly energetic form of light that can only be generated by the most powerful astronomical events. Scientists suspect that these sporadic explosions may signal the birth of black holes or the death of stars.

The first gamma-ray bursts were detected in 1967 by the U.S. military's Vela satellites. This fleet of satellites was originally designed to monitor nuclear weapons testing and could sense large releases of gamma radiation. While orbiting the Earth, a Vela satellite recorded a burst of concentrated gamma energy from deep space. For the first time, a gamma-ray burst was observed by humans.

So how was the GRB captured back in March? A bit of luck, combined with teamwork:

GRBs are the Universe's most luminous explosions. Early in the morning of March 19, the Swift satellite, a joint NASA/UK/Italian mission, pinpointed an extremely bright GRB and immediately sent out an alert to observatories around the world. Two robotic wide-field optical cameras in Chile also observed the brief flash: "Pi of the Sky," which is operated by the Centre for Theoretical Physics in Warsaw, Poland, and TORTORA, based at ESO’s La Silla Observatory. TORTORA is operated by a Russian-Italian collaboration. Within minutes many more telescopes were observing, allowing for the most detailed study of a bright GRB ever undertaken using data from gamma-ray to radio wavelengths.

Want to see it yourself? The Penn State website has some cool videos and images that you can check out; also be sure to watch this clip from Google video:

Technorati Tags: telescopes technology satellites physics solar+system gamma+rays astronomy space science

DIY Friday: break the sound barrier?

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 12:13:29 -0700

Yeah, pretty wild, right? Thanks to our friends at MAKE, it isn't all that hard to create a sonic boom. The device is called a Bullwhip, but let's just call it a "sound barrier breaking machine" – sounds more impressive.

Technorati Tags: Sonic+boom do+it+yourself

DIY Friday: Build Your Own CD Stack Lamp!

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 07:52:25 -0700

Remember all those AOL CDs that used to clutter up your mail box, and served as great drink coaster during your austere grad school days?

We haven't seen them as often in our mailbox as we used to, but we still have a pretty good collection of old software CDs, misburned DVDs, and some really embarrassing music CDs that are best left unmentioned.

What to do with them all? We observed just the other day that it's getting darker earlier, and we may soon be needing some additional light in the Really Rocket Science lair.

And thus we arrive at today's DIY Friday project: build your own CD stack lamp!

The project is relatively simple:

The pile of CDs that had been massing in my room was growing to epic proportions. So I decided to make myself a CD lamp. The circular base was actually cut using a template on a table saw, then sanded after clamping it in a drill press. The cold cathode lamp is from NewEgg....

There are several other designs online, but this is one of the better ones that I have found.

Check out the additional photos here. When completed, the lamp also serves as a rather luminous shrine to duct tape.

(Hat tip to Lifehacker.)

Technorati Tags: home+decoration lamps project DIY cds music

Digital TV Set to Boom

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 10:55:29 -0700

With the US analog switch-off date -- the Analog Deathwatch, as we like to call it -- mandated for February 2009, and most Western European countries terminating transmission before the European 2012 Analog Deathwatch deadline, the next 2 years will see a rapid increase in new digital TV households.

Just how much of an increase? A new report from market analysis firm Datamonitor has the details:

DTV will grow an average of 12% year-on-year, with particularly strong adoption in the near term as broadcasters terminate analog terrestrial television," says Chris Khouri, analyst for media and broadcasting at Datamonitor and the report's author."In 2007 there were 158 million households using digital television services in Western Europe and the US. By 2012, Datamonitor expects there to be an estimated 274 million digital TV households in these regions."

At the end of 2007, 54% of homes in Europe and the US had some form of DTV service. This will grow to 88% by the end of 2012 primarily due to the significant increase in digital terrestrial television (DTT) households, according to the report:

DTT households in Europe and the US will increase from 26 million in 2007 to 55 million by 2012, illustrating an average yearly growth rate of 16%. As a whole, however, Datamonitor expects there to be a significant migration away from free-to-air services in the medium-to-long term, as bundled offerings (triple play, quad play etc.), enhanced features and premium content grow in importance to consumers.

Digital cable and DTT platforms will experience the largest net additions from 2007 to 2012 Over the next three years, all DTV platforms will show strong growth as consumers transition to digital services. The two fastest growing platforms in Europe and the US will be digital cable and DTT. Datamonitor expects they will achieve net household increases of 50 million and 30 million, respectively.

And here's the bit that stokes two of our greatest obsessions -- satcom and IPTV:

PTV services will show the strongest average yearly growth at around 28%, reaching almost 23 million households by 2012.
Despite satellite services illustrating very moderate growth of 5.5%, there will be a 20 million increase in subscribers by 2012, reaching around 86 million households.

The boom years lie ahead, that's for sure.

Technorati Tags: digital+transition analog+deathwatch analog+television digital+television technology broadcasting IPTV satcom

DIY Friday: Typewriter Keyboard

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 08:01:25 -0700

I’m moving soon, and as I’m sorting through my old junk, there are still some things I can’t part with. One of them is an old typewriter that I got from my uncle. It doesn’t work anymore, but I can’t quite bring myself to throw it away. And now, my years of pack-rat behavior may have paid off, because I just found a way to rig up that old typewriter as a new computer keyboard. You can also check out this page for instructions. And if you’re looking for some real inspiration, take a look at this sweet custom brass version. If you don’t already have an old Underwood sitting in your closet, there’s no shortage of manual typewriters on eBay.

Technorati Tags:

The Battle of the Century

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 13:08:17 -0700

...well, only if you're satellite Internet stockholder or junkie. It looks like HughesNet and WildBlue are ready to face off:

HughesNet and WildBlue now are positioned for a head-to-head contest for leadership of the U.S. satellite broadband market, say researchers at Northern Sky Research. Hughes has long held the title of leader in terms of subscriber base, reportedly with more than 400,000 clients, but WildBlue's rate of growth to date has been faster than Hughes, NSR says.

WildBlue had 300,000 consumer broadband subscribers at the end of 2007 and is said to be growing faster than Hughes. Leading observers predict that market share will be nearly 50-50 by the end of 2008.

And, while WildBlue may be growing faster and offering cheaper entry level rates, HughesNet isn't ready to concede its top-spot in the industry:

NSR researchers note, however, that the HughesNet Home Plan has a nominal upper download speed of 1 Mbps compared to 512 Kbps for WildBlue's offering. Comparing higher speed plans, HughesNet's services on the Spaceway-3 satellite now either meet or beat WildBlue's offers, NSR says.

And HughesNet sure wanted everyone to know it. Shortly after the Northern Sky Research report was released, HughesNet sent out this press release, titled "HughesNet Feeds the Need for Speed: Subscribers Benefit from Faster Speeds at Same Low Prices."

For more on the battle, check out the almost-always-informative forums at dslreports. And, in other HughesNet/WildBlue news, WildBlue recently announced a deal that gives WildBlue customers a deal on new Dell computers.

Technorati Tags: WildBlue Hughes HughesNet satellite+internet Dell