47 year old television signals bouncing back to Earth

UPDATE: I haven't been able to confirm this story.   So Till it's confirmed all I know is what was in the link below apparently dated:  Wednesday, 1 April 2009 UK    Humm, that's not a good sign.   Well there is another story where apparently other Lost Doctor Who episodes that are being found.  The interesting thing is that this is almost possible, when I started to think about the inverse square law over 50 light years it would be hard to receive but possible on a straight path.  But now add a  reflection of that signal, it would have to be a massive corner cube reflector or massive focused parabola for a strong enough signal to arrive back. Still maybe some day we will make a strong enough receiver or make an FTL drive and just get ahead of the signals.  

From BBC:

47 year old television signals bouncing back to Earth

Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico finds television shows lost in space.

While searching deep space for extra-terrestrial signals, scientists at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico have stumbled across signals broadcast from Earth nearly half a century ago.

Radio astronomer Dr. Venn described how he made the historic discovery after analyzing a number of signals originating from the same point in space. "I realized the signal was in the VHF Band and slap bang in the middle of 41-68 MHz. It was obviously old terrestrial television broadcasts, but they seemed to be originating from deep space." After boosting and digital enhancement the resulting video signals are remarkably clear.

Responding to questions, Dr Venn was at pains to explain that little green men are not showing repeats of old Earth shows. "They are signals that left the Earth about 50 years ago and have bounced off an object or more likely a field of objects some 25 light years away". Radio signals travel at approximately 300,000 kilometers per second. The distance the vintage signals have traveled in the intervening years is vast and whatever they are bouncing off is too far away to see with even the most advanced optical telescopes. "...we asked NASA if they could point Hubble at the centre of what we've named the 'Bounce Anomaly'. NASA were very keen to help once they had seen our data." However the $3 billion space telescope was unable to produce any clues as to what the signals are bouncing off. One theory is a massive cloud of asteroids is acting like a mirror in space reflecting radio signals from our past, back to us.

A BBC team have been working closely with Dr Venn's team to help recover the signals. BBC Television historian Peter Wells, explained "We now know these are original broadcasts. So far we have recovered about 7 weeks of old television signals from space. Every day in our lab is like traveling back in time. And speaking of which we have just started the digital recovery of signals that contain lost Doctor Who episodes.

Lost Doctor Who episodes recovered from space.

The BBC will be archiving all the recordings recovered from space and there are plans to broadcast some of the highlights later in the year.

Secret BBC Documents Reveal Flimsy Case For DRM

From Slashdot:

"The Guardian just published my investigative story on the BBC and Ofcom's abuse of secrecy laws to hide the reasons for granting permission for DRM on UK public broadcasts. The UK public overwhelmingly rejected the proposal, but Ofcom approved it anyway, saying they were convinced by secret BBC arguments that couldn't be published due to 'commercial sensitivity.' As the article shows, the material was neither sensitive nor convincing — a fact that Ofcom and the BBC tried to hide from the public."

BBC plans for 3D

The World Teleport Association sent a tweet:
"BBC warns that full 3D tech strategy must be in place by 2012 or current standards will fail to deliver."

BBC warning on 3D standards
[by Julian Clover, broadbandtvnews.com]

The BBC is maintaining its cautious stance on the development of Stereoscopic 3D broadcasting. In an update to its technology strategy, the BBC says much of the current hype has come from the success of recent movie titles and their imminent release on Blu-ray.
In a cautionary note, the BBC says the strategy is expected to have a lifespan that reaches only as far as mid-2012, by when either a full 3D strategy will have been developed, or current 3D standards will have failed to deliver.
The report states: “There is no standardisation of the technologies for acquisition, post production, contribution or distribution of S3D. This approach is likely to suit a smaller but better funded number of players in the movie industry. Within the broader, more diverse and often less well funded television making community a lack of standardisation would be a more significant issue; not just for S3D as a format but also in financial terms for the
producers and commissioning broadcasters.”
Reiterating previous statements that the corporation will not invest in 3D programme production, the BBC says it will continue to investigate the genre through limited trials and participation in standards making. Yesterday it was announced the Wimbledon tennis championships, where the BBC is host broadcaster, will be filmed in 3D. However, the project is being backed by the manufacturer Sony.
Meanwhile, a much more positive outlook is being given to high definition, which says the report will be “business as usual” for the BBC by 2012/13. The BBC puts this down to a combination of the benchmark quality level expected by the viewing audience and because the HD standard is one of the key enablers of the transformation to an efficient end to end digital TV operation
The BBC exclusively supports the 1920 x 1080 HD standard (so called Full HD by the consumer market) for programme making using a range of frame rates and the delivery of programmes with multi-channel audio (surround sound). The plan is for the BBC to work with other UK broadcasters to produce common delivery standards for tape and file based HD programmes. Only platforms capable of meeting a minimum standard will have HD branding.
Support continues for Red Button interactive services with plans to create broadcast and IP “hybrid” services, which include broadcast event driven interactivity on connected TV platforms. The document does not mention the YouView project, continuing the theme started by the BBC’s director of archive content, Roly Keating in his presentation to the DTG Summit on Friday.
Flash, MHEG and HTML will be used in presentation environments, which the BBC says will help it remain relevant on the emerging connected TV platforms.
The Future Media & Technology division will build interactive TV applications using the Krypton Framework and MHEG+.
see the original post here: http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2011/03/08/bbc-warning-on-3d-standards/


BBC plans 3D experiments in the run up to the Olympics 
[By Rob Coppinger, www.theinquirer.net]

It’s unlikely to have an eye-boggling channel

EYE-BOGGLING 3D TELLY experiments will be conducted by the BBC over the next year, but it has no plans for a 3D channel during the Olympic Games.
In its technology strategy update blog post, the corporation has published its strategy document that covers 35 areas and refers to forthcoming 3D trials and its investigation into what the eye-boggling 3D technology means for the future.
Aunty Beeb isn’t too glowing in terms of this 3D future. Its strategy says that by mid-2012 there will either be a full BBC sterescopic 3D programme strategy being developed or nothing.
It says it will publish in due course what programmes, genres and events it will cover with the 3D trials. The INQUIRER strongly suspects that those poncy period dramas will be one of the genres involved.
But for now Aunty Beeb will only tell The INQUIRER, “The BBC is considering a small number of 3DTV editorial experiments in the lead up to the 2012 Olympics.” But this doesn’t mean the Olympics will be broadcast in 3D. Can this forthcoming debacle of Britain’s national humiliation get any more embarrassing?
The BBC’s technology strategy also states that up to 2012 the corporation will plan a capacity roadmap with Internet service providers. It probably needs to do this due to the network capacity busting impact of the Internet protocol telly widget Youview that the BBC is backing and plans to roll out in 2012.
See the original post here: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2032236/bbc-plans-3d-experiments-run-olympics



BBC to take cautious approach to 3D 'hype'

[By Tony Smith www.reghardware.com]

Tests but no shows before mid-2012
The BBC seems no more keen on 3D TV than licence payers, at least for the moment.
In an update to the BBC's technology strategy, published last night, the Corporation confirmed it will not be rolling out a 3D channel until mid 2012 at the earliest, though it does plan to "investigate the technology challenges 3D produces through a series of trials".
The BBC is being cautious because there is "no standardisation of the technologies for acquisition, post production, contribution or distribution" of 3D TV content.
That's clearly a problem because it increases costs - not a trend that will be accepted in the "broader, more diverse and often less well funded television making community" in Britain today, the BBC said.
We'd add that there's relatively little indication viewers want 3D, at least until it becomes a standard feature on reasonably priced tellies.
That's a few years away, and the BBC admits its current 3D strategy is a short-term one, running to mid-2012. Then, either the Corporation will be in a position to develop a specific 3D programme strategy - or the current 3D standards will have failed to deliver or take off.
The eponymous body that oversees the DVB digital TV technology late last month put a DVB 3D standard in place.
We suspect next June's Wimbledon tennis tournament may form the basis for one of the aforementioned trials. Sony said yesterday that it will be shooting the semi-finals and finals in 3D. It will be working with the BBC, it said, which will be recording them in 2D. It's a perfect opportunity for BBC engineers and producers to work with 3D kit provided by Sony

BBC Lowers HDTV Bitrate; Users Notice

BBC High Definition service draws complaints
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8415636.stm

From Slashdot
http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/12/17/187248/BBC-Lowers-HDTV-Bitrate-Users-Notice
"According to an article on the BBC website, BBC HD lowered the bitrate of their broadcasts by almost 50% and are surprised that users noticed. From the article: 'The replacement encoders work at a bitrate of 9.7Mbps (megabits per second), while their predecessors worked at 16Mbps, the standard for other broadcasters.' The BBC claims 'We did extensive testing on the new encoders which showed that they could produce pictures at the same or even better quality than the old encoders ...' I got a good laugh off of this, but is it really possible to get better quality from a lower bitrate?"