[LINK] the story behing Freeview

[Marghanita da Cruz]

David Boxall wrote:
> Hmmm:
>> ...
>> What Freeview is proposing is a two stage approach to the roll out of 
>> their service in Australia. However many TV vendors fear that the 
>> specification for phase 1 will differ significantly for phase two.  
>> During phase 1 the Freeview boxes will not have an EPG due to the use 
>> of MPEG 2 technology ...
> How does MPEG2 preclude an EPG?  Sounds to me more like policy than 
> technology.

They probably mean the transport stream rather than the video encoding

> Transport stream (TS, TP, MPEG-TS, or M2T) is a communications protocol for audio, video, and data which is specified in MPEG-2 Part 1, Systems (ISO/IEC standard 13818-1).[1] It is also known as ITU-T Rec. H.222.0. Its design goal is to allow multiplexing of digital video and audio and to synchronize the output. Transport stream offers features for error correction for transportation over unreliable media, and is used in broadcast applications such as DVB and ATSC. It is contrasted with program stream, designed for more reliable media such as DVDs
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG_transport_stream>

>> During phase two Freeview is proposing that vendors move to MPEG-4 ...

Interesting!

>>
>> For Freeview the benefits are that they can better manage digital 
>> rights management issues and control the skipping of TV commercials. A 
>> senior TV executive of a Korean manufacturer said "what is being 
>> proposed is two lots of technology that will result in boxes or 
>> devices purchased during stage 1 become useless during stage 2 as 
>> newer technology is introduced. Among several vendors there is real 
>> concern that Freeview will not deliver any consumer benefits ...
> Just the excessively privileged trying to further extend their 
> privileges.  The consequences for consumers don't interest them.
> 

Given the Datacasting fiasco...the maturity of WWW and the emergence of Google
and 3G, it would be difficult to set the parameters for ACMA's role:

> ACMA actively gathers information to ensure that diversity of control of the more influential broadcasting services is being maintained.
<http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/STANDARD/pc=PC_9152>

Marghanita
-- 
Marghanita da Cruz
http://www.ramin.com.au
Phone: (+61)0414 869202