Re: [Phys-l] Digital TV signal delay

["John Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org>]

> > Our digital TV is pulling signal off of a pair of rabbit ears, and our
> > channel switching occurs very close to as fast as our older analog TV's
>
> That's an important observation.  I interpret it as follows:  As
> for what happens when switching channels, there doesn't need to
> be a big delay.  Therefore I am very skeptical of all arguments
> as to why there "needs" to be a big multi-second delay.
This interpretation is at least partially wrong.  Look at the article at:
http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6538704/description.html

There is an inherent delay in decoding, but by keeping a table for ALL
available channels, it is possible to switch nearly instantaneously to any
channel.  Cheaper designs will not go to this trouble, and will always be
slow to switch channels because of the inherent delay in decoding.  Since
this is a patented algorithm, the faster boxes will have to pay for the
rights.

I got to this article with the terms "atsc decoding delay time".

John M. Clement
Houston, TX