Yesterday's Coffee Roundtable

Suppose you wanted to TiVo not just one or two channels, but every channel you were getting. The thought occurred to me - why not just record the entire satellite transmission spectrum? The digital satellite service I use runs on the Ku band, which means I need something that can digitize ~12GHz. Now in fact, that would be total overkill since that's the carrier frequency. The total bandwidth seems to be around 500Mhz.

So I grab a 1GSPS A/D. If I wanted a year's worth of TV, I would need ~3*10^16 bits of storage; which a 3900 TB hard drive could handle. Toshiba is about to sell 1TB disks, which will let you buffer about 20 minutes worth of the satellite feed.

Kryder's law fits hard drive capacity per dollar growth to a 23 month doubling time. So in around 25 years, a years worth of storage capacity would be affordable. It gives me hope that I will see my dream come to reality. Turn down the ambition knob from 11, though, and one day's storage would require only six year wait. Result!