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General Asylum General audio topics that don't fit into specific categories. |
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In Reply to: Here's the type of operation high-end audio needs to succeed. posted by clarkjohnsen on March 1, 2007 at 09:26:17:
whose partner, Fred Fielding, has just been named White House counsel (again).Wiley and his firm are one of the "go-to" outfits for the broadcasting industry.
The origins of US HDTV are these:
In the early 1980s when people like Jim Fallows in The Atlantic Monthly were writing that Japan Inc. was going to own the world, including the United States; and the high-interest rate driven "strong" US dollar was making imports from Japan cheap, digital HDTV was touted as a way for the US electronics industry to leapfrog the Japanese with this new technology. (Japan already had devloped operational analog HDTV, but it was a huge spectrum hog and therefore unsuitable for over the air broadcasting). So, HDTV was a kind of "industrial policy" for the U.S.
The second piece of the puzzle is that broadcasters were going to get new channels for their digital HDTV broadcasts and didn't think they would have to give up their existing analog channels (as, indeed they haven't. The deadline has been postponed repeatedly). Moreover, a 6 MHz TV "channel" (the bandwidth required for one standard definition analog program) can carry up to six separate digital programs, so long as the image transmitted is not true HDTV. The broadcasters are not required to use the full 6 MHz for one hi-def channel; and if they "subdivide" the 6Mhz into several lo-def channels, only one of them has to be free to the public. The others can be subscription channels. So, the broadcasters saw this as a potential business opportunity.
Finally, as people are finding out, the new digital channels are in the UHF band. UHF signal propagation is much worse than VHF propagation. (VHF is TV channels 2-13) UHF signals are more easily blocked by buildings, hills and so on. So, people with digital "ATSC" tuners are finding out that over-the-air reception of the new HDTV signals is not what they expected. Moreover, there are some technical people who say that the modulation standard chosen by Wiley's committee is actually inferior to another competing standard, which, had it been implemented, would have provided better reception. The result is that lots of folks, even those with digital tuners on their hi-def sets, are going to have to subscribe to cable or satellite TV in order to even view their local stations' signals if and when the analog signal is turned off.
As for Wiley, while his work was uncompensated, his motives were hardly as altruistic as portrayed in the excerpted passage. This is classic "rain-making" activity by a senior lawyer that has a big law firm underneath him. His unpaid activity paves the way for lots of related paid activity by the partners in his firm who have (or can find) clients with an interest in what is going on.I'm not suggesting anything illegal, improper or untoward. But Dick Wiley is hardly a candidate for the Mother Teresa award because of his work on HDTV.
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Follow Ups
- What a Valentine for the peripatetic Dick Wiley - Bruce from DC 06:36:07 03/02/07 (1)
- Interesting parallels (and diversions) from - markrohr 14:55:27 03/03/07 (0)
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