Dumbed down consumer electronics: Adding DTV channels
in [Design]
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From: Joerg on 4 Aug 2010 13:22 Joel Koltner wrote: > Hi Joerg, > > "Joerg" <invalid(a)invalid.invalid> wrote in message > news:8brqc8Fo4eU1(a)mid.individual.net... >> Anyhow, I don't think mankind really needs the constant din of radio at >> all times. > > Sure, they don't need it, but they're perfectly willing to pay for it. > > Kids on long car trips today often have their choice of movies (DVD > player or laptop), audio (iPhone or similar), or games (PSP or > similar). That's entertainment, all right! ;-) > Not a joke, unfortunately: Friends bought a new minivan so that grandson can watch VHS tapes while they were driving. I think it all goes a bit far in today's society. We don't have kids but I certainly would not do that. > Oh, and I suppose there are those things called "books" as well, > although today some people will be reading them on a Kindle or laptop as > an eBook. :-) > I will never buy a Kindle. I mean, first you pay $150-200, then you are perfectly vendor-locked to buy e-books from Amazon. No way. If I ever felt the urge to read an e-book out by the pool I'd use the netbook. >> Audio isn't very demanding in bandwidth. > > Compared to video, no, but it's kinda like leaving a dripping facuet > going... a 128kbps stream listened to for, say, 5 hours a day for 20 > days a month is 5.76GB of data per month, which is *well* beyond what > most cell phone data plans figure you "should" be using -- even on > "unlimited" plans. (I have an "unlimited" Sprint plan but the > unofficial policy is that once you go past ~1GB per month, you're on > Sprint's radar and they may chose to simply no longer offer to provide > data services to you except at the "casual" rate of... one penny per > *kilobyte!*.) > But then they must let you out of the 2-year agreement for free or you could drag them to court. Breach of contract and all that. After all, _they_ also signed on the dotted line :-) Anyhow, when I listen to Bluegrass I try to be a good netizen and select the 32k stream. It's good enough. But I never listen 5h/day for 20 days, it's only on when I check Gerber files for EMI gotchas. I get less tired that way. >> That's true, one can make money with a technology that's only lasting a >> relatively short time. > > It'd be interestingly to see the volume over time for, e.g., 56kbps > modems. I would expect a pretty fast ramp up, with a shallower decline, > and of course they're still available today -- but probably selling > 1/100th as many annually as at the peak? Effectively that particular > "standard" in modems probably lasted for <10 years (ignoring the niche > market that's still around today)? > They will be around for a long time. First, there's lots of 3rd world countries where the roll-out of anything broadband is years away, if it ever happens. Tne there's the boonies, I guess even HughesNet will become iffy in some areas north of the Klondike. Last but not least, people often ignore a backup plan. Most of our neighbors will not know how to access their email when the DSL goes down. Even if they did know they couldn't because they foolishly sold their modem at a garage sale years ago for 50 cents. In the same way that they didn't keep at least one POTS phone that doesn't rely on electricity. We do, I even upgraded that to a speakerphone for $1, yep, at a garage sale ... and the last time we needed that sort of backup was three days ago. > Interestingly, things like credit card machines and ATMs often purposely > use 2400bps even today, as the long (many seconds) training sequence > period that 56kbps modems use requires more time than just squirting the > hundreds of bytes CC/ATM transactions require through a 2400bps modem > (that doesn't a long training sequence). > I found that 56k connections only work very locally. When I did data transfers across the pond a couple decades ago the most I could reliably work at was 4800bd, sometimes 1200bd was required. -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ "gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam. Use another domain or send PM.
From: Jim Thompson on 4 Aug 2010 13:35 On Wed, 4 Aug 2010 09:52:12 -0700, "Joel Koltner" <zapwireDASHgroups(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >Hi Joerg, > >"Joerg" <invalid(a)invalid.invalid> wrote in message >news:8brqc8Fo4eU1(a)mid.individual.net... >> Anyhow, I don't think mankind really needs the constant din of radio at >> all times. > >Sure, they don't need it, but they're perfectly willing to pay for it. > >Kids on long car trips today often have their choice of movies (DVD player or >laptop), audio (iPhone or similar), or games (PSP or similar). That's >entertainment, all right! ;-) > >Oh, and I suppose there are those things called "books" as well, although >today some people will be reading them on a Kindle or laptop as an eBook. :-) > [snip] I find "Books on Tape" (now "Books on CD") useful on long trips across rural Arizona, where FM is pretty much non-existent and AM is mostly Mexican; and Fox News on satellite starts repeating :-) ...Jim Thompson -- | James E.Thompson, CTO | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | | | Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat | | E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 | Spice is like a sports car... Performance only as good as the person behind the wheel.
From: Joel Koltner on 4 Aug 2010 14:52 Hi Joerg, "Joerg" <invalid(a)invalid.invalid> wrote in message news:8btlubF2eqU1(a)mid.individual.net... > Not a joke, unfortunately: Friends bought a new minivan so that grandson > can watch VHS tapes while they were driving. I think it all goes a bit > far in today's society. We don't have kids but I certainly would not do > that. When I was a kid, we occasionally made the 1500 mile (3 days, or sometimes 2 really long days) trip to my grandparents in Naples, Florida starting from Middleton, Wisconsin. Neither of my parents was particularly interested in talking, playing games, or otherwise interacting all that horribly much with my brother and me on those trips, so it was up to us to keep ourselves entertained. Books were available but reading them tended to make me car sick, and otherwise there were cassette tapes (but only 2 or 3 -- couldn't afford much of anything pre-recorded), the radio (out in the boonies of, e.g., Kentucky, not a whole lot there!), or -- later on -- two electronic games: Simon and Split Second. I would have loved to have had movies and a *large*, randomly accessible music collection as I do today... > I will never buy a Kindle. I mean, first you pay $150-200, then you are > perfectly vendor-locked to buy e-books from Amazon. No way. If I ever > felt the urge to read an e-book out by the pool I'd use the netbook. I do read the occasional eBook on my phone. I see some value in Kindles and similar (the LCDs on those create far less eye strain than reading off of a traditional backlit LCD), but not the $150+ they currently want for them -- and I agree with you completely that vendor lock-in is quite the drawback: the ever-so-slightly discounted price you pay on the eBook vs. the dead tree version doesn't make up for not being able to pass it along to someone else when you're done. A co-worker here keeps multiple copies of the bible (different languages and different translations) on his iPhone and finds it enjoyable to read the different versions and to be able to do a little "compare and contrast"... and I imagine that being able to almost instantly search for any text phrase with wildcards, etc. is even better than a concordance. > But then they must let you out of the 2-year agreement for free or you > could drag them to court. Breach of contract and all that. After all, > _they_ also signed on the dotted line :-) Yep, and you occasionally see people asking about using these unwritten rules as a "strategic" exit from their contracts. Apparently it works, if you're careful that you haven't given them any other reason through which they can hold you to the contract. I suppose this is one of the reason that the telcos no longer advertise as many "unlimited" plans and instead call it something like the "everything" plan with the fine print then spells out the limits. [56k modems] > Last but not least, > people often ignore a backup plan. Most of our neighbors will not know > how to access their email when the DSL goes down. Even if they did know > they couldn't because they foolishly sold their modem at a garage sale > years ago for 50 cents. ....plus most DSL or cable modem plans no longer come with traditional dial-up service anyway, so even if they still had the knowledge and technical know-how it wouldn't have helped... ---Joel
From: Joel Koltner on 4 Aug 2010 14:56 "Jim Thompson" <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-Icon(a)On-My-Web-Site.com> wrote in message news:819j561sladh72e626ubi7fs9n80hjbra8(a)4ax.com... > I find "Books on Tape" (now "Books on CD") useful on long trips across > rural Arizona, where FM is pretty much non-existent and AM is mostly > Mexican; and Fox News on satellite starts repeating :-) Yep, my wife and I often do the same when we make the 4+ hour drive up to Portland. You can download a lot of free readings these days (we bought a ~$20 compilation of books on CD off of eBay, though -- you end up with like 20GB of data, and for that much I'd rather just hand someone the $20 than download it manually), and at most truck stops (e.g., Pilots, Loves) they'll rent them to you... although they often want $5-$10 for a rental for a $20-$40 book on CD, which seems a little much, but oh well. ---Joel
From: Charlie E. on 4 Aug 2010 17:20
On Wed, 04 Aug 2010 10:22:12 -0700, Joerg <invalid(a)invalid.invalid> wrote: > >I will never buy a Kindle. I mean, first you pay $150-200, then you are >perfectly vendor-locked to buy e-books from Amazon. No way. If I ever >felt the urge to read an e-book out by the pool I'd use the netbook. > > Well, I didn't buy a kindle, but I did win one. I haven't bought a book for it yet, though. First, there are all the 'free' books out there by Wells, Verne, etc. that I can get. Many of these I have never actually read, just seen the movies and other versions. Been interesting to see what was there originally! I also have a lot of e-books from other sources. You can read PDF's on it. Also, Baen books has e-books that will work on a kindle. I bought one book, and it had a CD containing the rest of the series, plus a dozen other e-books. Still working my way through those! I might buy a book for it, someday... ;-) Charlie |