How Do They Fit All Those TV Channels Into That Tiny Set Top Box?
from the ahhh,-editing dept
Ok, ok, everyone makes mistakes sometimes, and we’re sure this must have just been an embarrassing little mistake that someone really regrets right now, but it’s too amusing not to point out on a Friday afternoon as we get ready to close out the week. The Wall Street Journal, which generally has a well-deserved reputation for reporting excellence apparently put a bizarre statement towards the end of their article about SBC’s new IPTV set top boxes: “SBC’s Internet-TV boxes will be smaller than a typical cable box. Cable boxes need to be big enough to store all channel programming at once, but because Internet-based boxes stream only one channel at a time, they don’t need the extra space.” As David Card says at the link above, “Isn’t that a little like saying: Flat panel sets aren’t as good for watching team sports because a CRT has more room to hide all the tiny little players?”
Comments on “How Do They Fit All Those TV Channels Into That Tiny Set Top Box?”
No Subject Given
Make way for the UDP future of television, pixelation and all!
Re: No Subject Given
its comming soon. Adelphia is going all digital.
Re: No Subject Given
Bring it on! and bring on HDTV too, NTSC is the worst quality picture I have ever seen.
G
(Lived with PAL all my life)
Re: Re: No Subject Given
stfu eurofag
Not totally wrong
I think they meant to say IPTV boxes won’t need the big TUNER and related hardward required to down-convert all those channels and do the program guide if it has one. That stuff takes up a chunk of space in the typical cable box, plus it eats power so there has to be a fairly big power supply.
IPTV removes the tuner stuff and the the need for heavy power, among other things, so yes, you probably will end up with a smaller, cooler-running box.
There’s also a generational thing: older cable boxes can be fairly large. Digital cable boxes can be absolutely huge. Around here Comcast deploys a gigantic digital box that’s 20 inches across and more than a foot deep. It is bigger than my Tivo. It’s absurd to expect people to use that thing but the giant box is what they get if they want Comcast.
IPTV Remotes Will be HUGE!
IP addresses use 4-256 numbers, so remote controls will have to be much bigger to type in IPTV addresses. IPv6 remotes will be the size of a Corvette.
</humour>
Re: Nah.
You’ll just have to enter it in binary. Then the remotes can be little morse code switches.
Fitting all those huge players into the CRT.
I love it!
No Subject Given
I’m sorry, the Wall Street Journal “generally has a well-deserved reputation for reporting excellence?” I assume you mean that WSJ is good at reporting, rather than the WSJ reports good things, and so I’m rather astonished. While this periodical certainly has a high reputation among execu-drones and other wannabes who have swallowed the American Nightmare hook, line, and sinker, I can’t imagine why you think that rep is “well-deserved.” This expensive rag publishes some of the most blindered ultra-conservative nonsense I’ve ever seen, like a print version of Fox News or an English version of Pravda.
Re: No Subject Given
You know, the last time I read propoganda outlawing guns or advocating any sort of censorship (both Communist party goals for the “common man”), it did not come from the Wall Street Journal. In fact, that propaganda came from a “mainstream” news publication. It advocated gun-control and the outlawing of religious speech on campus as “hate speech.” I laugh every time I see someone accusing conservatives of being “anti-freedom.” Usually, when something against freedom comes from a Republican, it’s because that Republican is either not a true conservative or because that Republican has been brainwashed into believing that a majority of Americans want to give up that freedom in the name of security, tolerance, etc. Just for the record, true conservatives are named such because they want to “conserve” the Constitution and the freedoms it protects. Furthermore, I have seen articles in the WSJ that are critical of the current administration’s policies–so the comparison to Pravda is about as accurate as “the pursuit of happiness” being an “American Nightmare.”
Re: Re: No Subject Given
Just as an aside for those that are not familiar with things from other countries, Pravda is a newspaper from the former USSR, which makes it an ultra left-wing publication, since it was an official news organ of the communist party. As you might be aware, the communist party is a left wing organization.
Re: No Subject Given
Senor Coward, you’re confusing the WSJ editorial page, which is slightly to the right of Genghis Khan, and the rest of the paper, which is excellent and fair.