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Gateway
access devices |
Pace
set top - 'waste of subsidy?'
February/March 2002
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Below is a duplicate
of a letter sent by William Poel, Executive Chairman, EnfoCast, to UK newspaper
The Daily Mail, following its article on the Pace analogue converter box (received
by advanced-television.com 21/01/02), also run in the letters section of advanced-televisionl.com.
Dear Editor,
I read the story about the 'low cost' set top box for ITV digital, allegedly
developed with the help of subsidy money. There are a couple of background issues
that might be useful to bear in mind.
1) The average number of TVs per household is around three in this country.
And you can buy a perfectly viable portable analogue colour TV for less money
than one Pace decoder.
2) The core picture standard for terrestrial digital TV is based on a 12 year
old technology (MPEG2). Consider what personal computers were like 12 years
ago, and then ponder on the advisability of using 12 year old technology. With
only around 1.5 million ITV digital boxes installed, now is perhaps the best
time to make the jump to a rather more modern solution for the remaining 50
million or so analogue TVs in the country, before it's too late.
3) Since our technology is up to the minute, and remains that way, the compression
technology we use for our EnfoCast network (www.enfocast.com) results in broadcast
TV (delivered by satellite and viewable on a standard Windows PC) that uses
10 to 20 times less bandwidth than the system used by ITV digital. That means
there would be enough bandwidth for truly local community TV services to be
made available, serving town-sized areas - not just the usual collection of
tacky TV shopping channels, repeats galore, pop videos and sports.
4) Digital TV is about much more than just the picture - a very critical element
is the programme guide to help navigate an interactive multichannel world. Again,
the standard locked-in with ITV digital is barely more sophisticated than 30
year-old Teletext. In the EnfoCast system, the program schedule scheme and general
interactive support may use all the up-to-second tricks of the web designer's
art.
5) The signal level for digital terrestrial is still inadequate over a large
area of the country. The effects caused by co-channel interference during periods
of high pressure can be totally disruptive, not just a few wavy patterns on
the screen.
6) Some time ago, we looked at the issue of providing a low cost adaptor for
existing TVs to the ITV Digital standard and would be pleased to sell a reference
design to a manufacturer who could make and market it for about £50 in volume.
However, we felt that it would be better to produce a box that provided the
potential of three separately tuneable simultaneous feeds for a "normal household"
with more than one set - and that would probably cost about £100 in volume.
But we ended up channelling the effort into EnfoCast instead.
7) The EnfoCast system allows any number of viewers on a local network to watch
any one of around 100 broadcast channels per EnfoCast 'box' - and a larger number
of 'on-demand' services. It doesn't require one box per channel per screen.
8) The likelihood of the present subscription payment scheme surviving for long
in the realm of digital TV is questionable anyway, with virtually all content
being bought ad-hoc 'as required on demand' in the not distant future. Is it
worth struggling with this transitional solution anyway?
9) Why this passion for Terrestrial broadcasting anyway? From the transmission
perspective, it's VASTLY more expensive and less reliable than satellite delivery;
vastly less versatile, and covers a tiny fraction of the potential number of
channels. Perhaps this is because satellite TV seems to have become synonymous
with Sky, but it really doesn't have to be. There are plenty of satellite options
that don't involve paying Murdoch's ransom. The only possible use is for a portable
TV set with a portable antenna -although many campers seem to erect their portable
satellite dish before the tent these days.
10) Most telling of all, perhaps, are the figures for viewing last year that
show total time per viewer dropped; although there are now a zillion channels
to watch. So maybe the TV screen isn't where the future action should be concentrated,
anyway?
In the past three years, the prime consumer audience demonstrably now spends
far more time in front of a PC workstation than a TV set - in fact, the rate
at which even consumers at home have migrated to PCs has exceeded all expectations.
Consumer TV platforms have traditionally been a Tower of Babel when it comes
to standards: different RF frequencies; different display frequencies; different
transmission standards, different colour systems, different regulatory environments.
Consumer digital broadcast missed the opportunity to adopt a world standard,
and even added additional fragmentation in terms of multiple user access encryption
schemes and user management solutions!
The ubiquity of the Windows PC, however, means that there is a de-facto global
standard to address for interactive broadcast business TV. This does not necessarily
suit the 'divide and conquer' tactics of the incumbent broadcast TV and regulatory
industries, but it certainly suits the rest of us.
That said, we are not naive enough to expect that if we build a network, the
users will come: we understand that a strong content proposition is essential
in order to focus marketing and establish bridgeheads in thetarget organisations.
And so the "EnfoCast Business Media Network" has been extensively researched
and a comprehensive content plan covering general broadcast news to industry-specific
training, is already in place.
So it would be nice if HMG paused and gave as much attention and encouragement
to a digital broadcasting project that is designed to give British industry
a valuable new information service, as it seems to spend on finding more and
better ways to pour East-Enders, Crossroads, football and Ruby Wax into the
living room.
Moreover, we have not received any government or licence payer subsidies, and
we haven't spent a tiny fraction of what ITV has thus far flushed away.
So all in all, maybe that research money on the £99 set top box could have
been better spent?
Yours
William Poel
Executive Chairman,
EnfoCast
Editors Note:
Andrew Wallace, Marketing Director of Pace Micro Technology confirmed to advanced-television.com
that Pace did not receive any subsidy for its set top boxes.
