D
Darth_vader
Guest
That and DAB is an industry standard and not proprietary-- a big no-no in this country for whatever reason. We *do* have DAB here, in a loose sense of the term, in the form of proprietary Ibiquity. But real honest-to-whichever 147 DAB? Nuh uh. Probably not in my lifetime.
L-band isn't the only internationally recognised band A.F.A.I.K. (See Chuck's earlier post.) There are also a couple others including 200 MHz, but of course you risk setting off the few hamhocks who will scream bloody murder if anything even remotely disturbs "their" band that almost nobody uses in the first place. No sense kicking a hornet's nest. Then of course there's the ages old debate of repurposing low-VHF, but I'm not going to beat that dead horse in this thread (redundant).
Actually mandated HD? When did that happen? Last I heard they only mandated ATSC but left the video resolution up to the individual broadcaster. Or maybe I've been in a coma for the last 15 years or so?
The reason we won't get proper DAB here is the same one why we got stuck with our existing crappy closed packet system for terrestrial video broadcasting when there was already a far superiour open system already in use for much of the world. (Well, it is widely used on satellites here [you use it if you use an Echostar system] but that doesn't count in this discussion.) You know, we could have at least had an industry standard audio codec had Dolby Labs not seduced MIT with its dirty money. But that's all water under the bridge now, and the sad reality is we are stuck with probably the single most hideous kludge ever in the history of television broadcasting: ATSC.
