Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Immersive Gaussian Splat experience of Sutro Tower, San Francisco

vincentwoo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 198 posts

Re: Show HN: Immersive Gaussian Splat experience of Sutro Tower, San Francisco

#101

Post by perching_aix »

ghostly_s wrote: post #97
perching_aix wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

? Is over-the-air TV broadcast not encrypted and compressed to oblivion in the US? Cause it definitely is here, and you're expected to pay for a decoder card, except for a small handful of channels.

Are OTA channels subscription based where you are (where)? Or the "decoder card" is just some middleware crap you buy once? Our OTA TV has always been ad-supported, they just moved the same channels to digital though in larger markets there are now quite a few new low-overhead licensed syndicated content options, presumably due to the cheaper cost of air slots.

It's a subscription, billed monthly, with a minimum one year contract period. To the best I can tell, the service provider is in a completely monopolistic position too (is the only digital OTA (analog has been banned, and OTA is more commonly referred to here as terrestrial) television broadcaster in the country and is privately owned), so yeah, good fun all around.

I looked into it a bit deeper inspired by this thread, and it seems to be an explicit feature of the European digital TV broadcast system standard (DVB-T) [0], commonly used not just here in Europe, but also elsewhere around the world apparently [1].

The formal name for the "decoder card" I recalled is apparently CAM [2], which communicates with the TV using the DVB-CI protocol(?) [3], and uses the form factor of the old PCMCIA cards. I also see that the algorithm used is the CSA [4], and even more curiously I see mentions of DES [5] in the article for the encryption (with further mentions that AES is a new addition to the standard that is presently underadopted).

The only vendor-specific bit to this, because there is a bit that is vendor-specific, seems to be the key exchange algorithm used, although the articles are unclear to me about this. Interesting subject for sure. Here where I live, the Conax system [6] is in use supposedly. To be clear, they're not the service provider and have nothing to do with them (to the best I can tell).

Addendum:

Apparently I misinterpreted how it works a bit. So the Conditional-Access Module is plugged into the TV, so far so good, but that on its own is not going to achieve anything. The actual unlock comes from a smart card bundled with the CAM, and you're to put that into the CAM. As you can tell, we've only ever watched the free channels :)

[0] Digital Video Broadcasting - Terrestrial, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVB-T

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Digital_terrestrial_telev...

[2] Conditional-Access Module, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conditional-access_module

[3] Digital Video Broadcasting - Common Interface, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Interface

[4] Common Scrambling Algorithm, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Scrambling_Algorithm

[5] Data Encryption Standard, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Encryption_Standard

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conax

Re: Show HN: Immersive Gaussian Splat experience of Sutro Tower, San Francisco

#102

Post by xipho »

skyyler wrote: post #57
cbeach wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the most desirable places on earth to live and it's on a small peninsula. Yet it's a sea of single-family homes as far as the eye can see. Ever wondered if it’s desirable BECAUSE it’s not a dense urban jungle?

No. It is the good weather capital of the country. Mild winters, mild summers. Not too much rain. No serious threat from tornadoes or hurricanes. That’s a very big draw and it wouldn’t go away by making more dense housing, even if the rest of the peninsula was developed like Manhattan.

And it lives on a series of incredibly active fault lines. During my undergrad I had multiple geology profs adamantly mention that when not if aspect of this, and on time-scales of 100s of years, not 1000s. YRMV.

Re: Show HN: Immersive Gaussian Splat experience of Sutro Tower, San Francisco

#104

Post by Ericson2314 »

legitster wrote: post #28

Completely unrelated, but aerial views of San Francisco blow my mind with how under-zoned the city is. One of the most desirable places on earth to live and it's on a small peninsula. Yet it's a sea of single-family homes as far as the eye can see. The distance between Sutro Tower and the "Downtown" SF is less than the distance between the Brooklyn Bridge and Central Park. But could you imagine if that space was fill…

Lol my first thought too, as a native San Franciscan who now lives in New York.

It's a real travesty.

Re: Show HN: Immersive Gaussian Splat experience of Sutro Tower, San Francisco

#105

Post by what »

m-ee wrote: post #59
adamiscool8 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There would be 3-4X the people, yet still the same amount of roads, services, and public utilities. Why is densifying always seen as some unalloyed good? I constantly see this pitched as a plan for housing problems without the basic consideration of whether human beings thrive in such an unnatural environment. If you're going to force-densify anything, why not actual low-per-capita population areas [0] and develop ma…

Public schools are closing due to lack of enrollment. Transit agencies are cutting back from low ridership and lack of fare revenue. If housing costs were low enough for more people to move in affordably it could be a boon for the city.

Public schools are closing because of DILDOs (dual income, little dog owners). If people aren’t having children, there’s no need for the schools.

Re: Show HN: Immersive Gaussian Splat experience of Sutro Tower, San Francisco

#106

Post by slater »

what wrote: post #105
m-ee wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public schools are closing due to lack of enrollment. Transit agencies are cutting back from low ridership and lack of fare revenue. If housing costs were low enough for more people to move in affordably it could be a boon for the city.

Public schools are closing because of DILDOs (dual income, little dog owners). If people aren’t having children, there’s no need for the schools.

Not because their budgets are being slashed every year?

Re: Show HN: Immersive Gaussian Splat experience of Sutro Tower, San Francisco

#108

Post by renewiltord »

cbeach wrote: post #38
legitster wrote: post #28

Completely unrelated, but aerial views of San Francisco blow my mind with how under-zoned the city is. One of the most desirable places on earth to live and it's on a small peninsula. Yet it's a sea of single-family homes as far as the eye can see. The distance between Sutro Tower and the "Downtown" SF is less than the distance between the Brooklyn Bridge and Central Park. But could you imagine if that space was fill…

> One of the most desirable places on earth to live and it's on a small peninsula. Yet it's a sea of single-family homes as far as the eye can see. Ever wondered if it’s desirable BECAUSE it’s not a dense urban jungle?

Haha, no, it’s desirable because of geography and things to do. This is proven by the fact that large numbers of people are moving into expensive Mission Bay housing which has no single family homes by it.

Re: Show HN: Immersive Gaussian Splat experience of Sutro Tower, San Francisco

#109

Post by xvedejas »

xipho wrote: post #102
skyyler wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. It is the good weather capital of the country. Mild winters, mild summers. Not too much rain. No serious threat from tornadoes or hurricanes. That’s a very big draw and it wouldn’t go away by making more dense housing, even if the rest of the peninsula was developed like Manhattan.

And it lives on a series of incredibly active fault lines. During my undergrad I had multiple geology profs adamantly mention that when not if aspect of this, and on time-scales of 100s of years, not 1000s. YRMV.

My friends in the geological sciences have told me there will be a big earthquake, but it will be capped at around magnitude 8.0; the faults here are not capable of a 9.0. Buildings in SF have been constructed or retrofit for modern earthquake safety by law.
Post reply on HN