Broadcast stations are the epitome of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it, especially if it's going to cost money". They also do not like roll your own solutions. They want a rock solid piece of equipment typically from someone like Snell&Wilcox or Tektronix type of devices. They do not want to deal with "are we on the air" type questions because some one's nephew's science experiment can't be maintained. If there's a chance that something can go out that's non-standard, fines can be levied, and those can get expensive.
The experiment didn't need the full power of a station to prove though. I'm not really sure that this is as much innovation as you imply. Channels have been splitting their bandwidth for years. In fact, Congress wasn't really happy with the network's decision to fraction the signal as the intent was a single full bandwidth signal. We've also already seen what the switch from MPEG2 to MPEG4 can do for allowing more channels via cable boxes.
It's also a case of equipment available today is much more robust compared to the cable TV. I was testing the MPEG4 abilities of some of these earlier boxes. Encoding based on the white papers provided for the chips, we found these were not very accurate and required a lot of tweaking to get to work. The chips in today's TVs are much better, so there's a lot more that can be gotten away with.
Broadcast stations are the epitome of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it, especially if it's going to cost money". They also do not like roll your own solutions. They want a rock solid piece of equipment typically from someone like Snell&Wilcox or Tektronix type of devices. They do not want to deal with "are we on the air" type questions because some one's nephew's science experiment can't be maintained. If there's a chance that something can go out that's non-standard, fines can be levied, and those can get expensive.
Agreed! It literally takes an experimenter buying a station to see innovation like this.
The experiment didn't need the full power of a station to prove though. I'm not really sure that this is as much innovation as you imply. Channels have been splitting their bandwidth for years. In fact, Congress wasn't really happy with the network's decision to fraction the signal as the intent was a single full bandwidth signal. We've also already seen what the switch from MPEG2 to MPEG4 can do for allowing more channels via cable boxes.
It's also a case of equipment available today is much more robust compared to the cable TV. I was testing the MPEG4 abilities of some of these earlier boxes. Encoding based on the white papers provided for the chips, we found these were not very accurate and required a lot of tweaking to get to work. The chips in today's TVs are much better, so there's a lot more that can be gotten away with.
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