New DRL Standard Completed
09.03.2008
The DRL channels permit a "feedback" or "return" link to be established from an ENG receive-only (ENG-RO) site to an originating TV pickup station (i.e., ENG truck). This link allows automatic transmitter power control by ENG More...

PSIP, V-Chip and Other Acronyms
11.07.2007
Since the first version of the PSIP standard was published in 1997, compliance reflected good engineering practice on the part of television stations, since the standard offers benefits for both viewers and broadcasters. PSIP is, More...

Work Begins on Mobile-Handheld DTV Standard
07.11.2007
Designated ATSC-M/H, the standard will be backward-compatible, allowing existing DTV services to operate in the same RF channel, without adverse impact on existing receiving equipment. More...

Google's New Platform May Upend iPhone
10.15.2008
The expected unveiling of a new generation of smartphones equipped with Google's Android software and linked to faster networks could herald a breathtaking sea change in our usage and definition of broadband. More...

Variables in the Digital Video Logjam
07.23.2008
If the evolution of broadband video content takes the path music did, then someday soon we will all be using the video equivalents of iPods and iTunes. More...

Comcast Vows ‘Protocol Agnostic’ Approach
05.28.2008
An Associated Press investigation last October found Comcast was sending out fake TCP reset packets to either end of a file-sharing connection, causing the target computer to reset its connection over and over again. More...

Finicky Young Viewers, Funky Online Video Data
10.01.2008
In the National Retail Federation's annual survey of back-to-college spending, college students collectively shelled out more than $11 billion for electronics gear, compared to $7 billion for clothing. More...

What’s With Ultra-Wideband?
07.23.2008
The aesthetic appeal of wireless delivery is growing as families hang flat-panel displays on their walls and don’t want to see dangling wires and cables. More...

Where Are They Watching? And Who Are ‘They’?
06.25.2008
Far more teenagers watch video on TV sets than on computers—for now. More...

White Spaces: Myth or Reality?
11.18.2008
In this market, all vacant channels in the high VHF and UHF bands are also adjacent channels to one or two broadcast channels. So are adjacent channels really suitable for sharing? More...

Improving a Digital EAS With the New ATSC Signal
10.15.2008
What a DTV signal can do that an analog signal such as NTSC could not do is to awaken sleeping persons believed by the local authorities to be threatened. More...

An Emergency Alert System for the Digital Era
09.17.2008
What is needed is an EAS which can alert the threatened populace while not scaring the entire nation. Our present EAS cannot do this, but a well designed Digital EAS could over our DTV channels. More...

Mobile Technology Collides With Policy
10.29.2008
One of the clear trends in this first decade of the 21st century is the rapid move toward mobile telephony and wireless computing. More...

Digital Media Is Changing The Election—and More
10.01.2008
Because digital media is causing such change, we simply don't know how accurate traditional media measurement systems are because they can't fully measure today's issues and media. More...

NBC Shifts New York O&O to All News
06.11.2008
This is a move to hyperlocalism—one designed to re-invent the major NBC stations before they are absorbed into the 500-channel abyss of pay television channels. More...

Who Controls AFD?
09.17.2008
Cable and satellite need to resolve active format description issues in broadcast streams. More...

Evaluating Next-Gen Camcorders
07.25.2007
I have been watching the rollout of XDCAM with great interest for the last few years as a logical next step for our move into non-tape based production. More...

BXF Revealed as Missing Link
06.13.2007
I have been involved in automation projects since I first began working in broadcasting. More...

The Evolution of Videotape Formats, Part 2
11.03.2008
This wrapping pattern requires tape that is much thinner and more flexible than 2-inch tape. It is so thin and flexible that as it travels through the transport, it is subject to stretching and flexing which effectively changes More...

Videotape is Not Dead, Either
10.01.2008
You have previously read in this column that despite several memorial services, film is not dead as a capture medium for television programming. In fact, after some flirtation with 24 fps video, we are back to the situation in More...

Is Broadcast Television Losing Its Mojo?
06.11.2008
The broadcast station business suddenly seems to be less of a financial sure thing than it used to be. More...

Wilmington—Spin From The Other Side
10.15.2008
A closer look at what happened in Wilmington only confirms what's been known for years: Simply knowing the DTV transition will occur doesn't fix the antenna and reception problems certain to follow. More...

CNN Introduces 'All-Platform' Journalists
09.17.2008
CNN has turned "one-man bands" into "all-platform" journalists, and announced an "expansion" of newsgathering with such people in 10 American cities. More...

Test from Peter
09.08.2008
 This is a test. More...

Want Sharper Pictures? Try the Other Hi-Def!
10.15.2008
Those LCD displays, I've got to admit, are a problem, but LCDs are getting faster all the time, and they ain't the only display technology in town. More...

Want to Get Real HDTV? Turn Down the Lighting
09.17.2008
When light spreads out due to an edge, the waves charging straight ahead are going to get to a plane a little earlier than the ones taking a diagonal route. More...

As for TV Technology, It’s All an Illusion
08.20.2008
TV technology ain’t brain surgery. TV technology ain’t rocket science. TV technology is all about illusions. More...