While your argument is perfectly sound
Phil, as are the technical issues, you have of course neglected to consider
the
marketing angle fully. Sky don’t make a huge amount of money out of
flogging boxes, they are determined one way or another to increase each
household’s monthly subscription spend. I’ve always taken the
whole
lot, and my subscription has increased from 26.99 in ’96 to 34.00
today.
What they are hoping is that when I install Sky plus, I keep the second box
and
take out a mirror subscription – which will increase my monthly spend
to
56 quid straight away (I’m not going to so it will only go up to
44!)
Their business model relies on
squeezing
every penny they can out of their existing subscribers, and as witnessed
here
they will continue to use the Dolby digital angle in their advertising,
because
most people think they will get digital audio on everything that they
watch,
and the fact that the led is live with a PCM soundtrack won’t do
anything
to destroy the myth.
Sky to tend to be a law unto
themselves,
BUT the last thing they want is a furore fanned by Nicky Campbell when the
general public do give into the advertising and they see a huge reduction
in
the number of films that are broadcast in dolby 5.1
Tim
-----Original Message-----
From: Phillip Harris
[mailto:phil@xxxxxxx]
Sent: 23 June 2002 11:09
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [ukha_d] Digital
Out???
> I finally had my new hifi system with
full
surround sound
> yesterday and it sounds amazing with
movies
etc. I'm now
> really disappointed that there's no
digital
out for
> Dolby/DTS, I take it no one has found any
mods on this?
>
> Has anyone here got Sky+ just wondering
how
it compares to
> the tivo as im seriously thinking of
trading
mine in now for
> it, as the deciding factor has to me
surround
sound now!
Remember Chris that just having a digital out
on
the back of the box
doesn't necessarily mean that you'll get AC-3
or
DTS all the time ...
Most TV shows are recorded or mixed in stereo
- at
best you get dolby
surround - neither of which will be
significantly
improved by being fed
as a digital bitstream to an AV amp. Mixing an
audio
track in AC-3 or
DTS is just too expensive to do for
"normal" TV programmes!
Surround sound can be carried by plain stereo
audio connections whether
they're left/right analogue stereo or a PCM
stereo
bitstream.
Films on the other hand are slightly different
as
they are usually
supplied to $ky with their AC-3 or DTS
soundtracks
intact so $ky can
broadcast those at no extra "cost"
to
them...
...or can they?
You see $ky already have bandwidth problems
...
They already restrict
the data rates for their channels to pack more
in
and unlike DVD players
(which can downmix AC-3 or DTS into ProLogic)
Sky
boxes can't do
anything with an AC-3 or DTS bitstream other
than
ignore it so any film
that is broadcast with an AC-3 or DTS
soundtrack
*HAS* to have its
ProLogic (stereo) audio track broadcast too as
well as the video ...
This increases the bandwidth required to
transmit
the film quite
significantly so although there's no direct
"money" value associated
with transmitting AC-3 or DTS there is a
hidden
money value in the
additional bandwidth required which can only
get
tighter and tighter as
time goes on.
T.B.H. I think you'll find that *LESS* films
get
transmitted in anything
more than plain old stereo / ProLogic as time
goes
on and more channels
are added to the soup that's there already -
unless of course they lob
up a few more satellites to increase the
available
bandwidth!
Phil
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