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ATSC Update


ATSC Highlights Recent Published Standards
04.28.2009
ATSC Mobile DTV is being developed to support a variety of services including free television and interactive services delivered in real-time, subscription-based TV, and file-based content download for playback at a later time. More...

A 'Flexible Framework'
01.05.2009
The work to develop a comprehensive standard for mobile and handheld services—known as "ATSC Mobile DTV"—has reached a milestone with publication of the A/153 Candidate Standard document set. More...

Mobile Handheld DTV Project Moves Forward
12.03.2008
ATSC-M/H is being developed to support a variety of services including free (advertiser-supported) television and interactive services delivered in real time, subscription-based TV, and file-based content download for playback at More...

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Inside Broadband


Broadband Offers No Miracle for Journalism
06.22.2009
Journalism is dead in several senses that have everything to do with news audiences, not news providers. More...

TV Anywhere Equals Free TV Nowhere?
04.03.2009
Like some morbid meteorologist, over recent months I have been watching the broadband video landscape as it darkened under gathering storm clouds. More...

Obama Bailout Promises Hope and Hype
01.13.2009
There's no doubt Barack Obama understands the Internet, even if, unlike Al Gore, he didn't invent it. More...

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Tuning In


Speeding Ahead for Mobile Video
01.27.2009
Count on Rupert Murdoch's empire to hedge its bets, or more precisely to be ready for whatever happens in the emerging "mobile video" world. More...

Syndicaster, YouNewsTV Offer Online Alternatives
12.03.2008
After countless exhortations to re-think "mass" media in a "class" media environment, broadcasters are finding their place in online video, and making money in the process. More...

Finicky Young Viewers, Funky Online Video Data
10.01.2008
In the National Retail Federation's annual survey of back-to-college spending, college students collectively shelled out more than $11 billion for electronics gear, compared to $7 billion for clothing. More...

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Digital TV


Testing for DTV Interference
06.22.2009
Any active device, amplifier or mixer will generate second order distortion products given that the input signal voltage overloads the active device. More...

Interference From Television Band Devices
04.09.2009
The FCC has defined how close to, but outside of the predicted noise-limited perimeter of a station, a DTVB can be operated on the same channel as a DTV station in that community. More...

Interference to DTV Reception
01.26.2009
The FCC prohibits fixed devices from using adjacent channels until it has been proven to the satisfaction of the commission that spectrum sensing has progressed to the point where the commission deems the technique to be More...

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Net Soup


RIAA Shifts From One Wreck to Another
02.24.2009
The RIAA announced recently it has abandoned the mass lawsuits it has been bringing against Internet users who it claims steal music. More...

Obama to Expand Internet Access
01.05.2009
Though his plate will be full on many fronts including the economy, two wars and health care, the president-elect has promised to bring quick and major change to American communications technology. More...

Computers, the Internet And the Economic Crisis
12.12.2008
When I went to college in the late 1960s, there were no mobile phones, personal computers or Internet. Though I made far less money in those days, I had more spending power than today. Most of the time, I actually felt wealthy. More...

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Digital Journal


Who Controls AFD?
09.17.2008
Cable and satellite need to resolve active format description issues in broadcast streams. More...

Evaluating Next-Gen Camcorders
07.25.2007
I have been watching the rollout of XDCAM with great interest for the last few years as a logical next step for our move into non-tape based production. More...

BXF Revealed as Missing Link
06.13.2007
I have been involved in automation projects since I first began working in broadcasting. More...

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Technology Corner


Whither Television Broadcasting?
04.29.2009
We interrupt the series that has been running in this column on "ultra resolution," to bring you a message about what's going on in television today. More...

The Quest for Ever-Higher Resolution
04.03.2009
Currently, 1920x1080 is the HD video scanning format with the highest spatial resolution, but there are efforts underway to change this. More...

The High Speed World of 1080p Over 3 Gbps
01.13.2009
Although there is little equipment supporting it available, the interest in 1080p/60 as a future scanning format has been high enough to result in a SMPTE standard for an interface to accommodate it. More...

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The Big Picture


A National Strategy to Save the News
06.25.2009
The report has some of the best new thinking I've heard yet about what's needed to reinvent the news media in the United States. More...

To Avoid Oblivion, Cable Looks for Web Solution
06.10.2009
Cable companies are scrambling to find ways to give paying subscribers access to their programming on the Web. More...

Good Night, and Good Luck
04.23.2009
Few new television ventures leave me speechless, but this one did. More...

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The Masked Engineer


Source of Knowledge? The NAB Show Ain't It
07.02.2009
Look, there's only one legitimate reason to go to the big show each April. It's to get away from the office and maybe play a little golf in the desert sun. More...

To Fix Aspect Ratios, Eliminate Television
06.22.2009
Ask an engineer how much two and two is, and watch in fascination as a spreadsheet gets built, and various numbers appear on the screen, depending on errors of formulas or formatting. If you see 3.99, consider yourself lucky. More...

Reports of Death Had Better Be Exaggerated
04.23.2009
All four major U.S. commercial TV networks are associated with movie distribution studios. Three are associated with theme parks. More...

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