[opendtv] Re: Broadcast Flag
- From: "John Shutt" <shuttj@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "OpenDTV" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2004 12:18:33 -0400
John,
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Willkie" <johnwillkie@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, June 19, 2004 11:26 PM
Subject: [opendtv] Re: Broadcast Flag
> There are a few nits with your reply.
>
>
>
> "As a broadcaster at a small market PBS station, I can tell you that the
> most
> likely deployment of the BF by us will to be to simply turn it on and
leave
> it on, and we aren't the only ones who will do so. (As Ron Popeil says
> about his counter top rotisserie; "set it and forget it!" This probably
is
> why Samsung is taking such pains now to get their STBs in for upgrade.
They
> know that they will be hit with a flood of angry customers in the very
near
> future."
>
> In coming years, this will only be a limitation for stations without
> automation systems. PMCP (the protocol designed to permit dynamic changes
> in PSIP and other metadata) will be supported by more than one automation
> system supplier.
Automation systems will deliver program description information, content
advisory information, and second audio information to our PSIP generator, so
I would presume that broadcast flag information will be delivered that way
as well, when all of the software is in place.
That may take years, however, and until all of that automation is in place,
from a legal standpoint the potential liability is so great for a
broadcaster who 'accidentally' forgets to set the BF on some very hot and
desirable content, I would think the safest bet is to "set it and forget
it."
> "The broadcast flag is in the PSIP data, so the BF is set on a program by
> program basis, without regard to commercials. Theoretically, you will be
> able to see which upcoming programs are protected, depending on how many
> hours' worth of program guide a station transmits."
>
> You are speaking, I assume, with the feature set of (I assume the current
> version) of your PSIP generator. And, I frankly doubt that you will be
able
> to do this, since there is no requirement in the spec (A/65) and the
> candidate spec for PMCP (CS/75) to transmit broadcast flag for non-current
> programming. In many cases, whether the flag is invoked may not be known
> until moments before the show is aired.
You are more the PSIP expert than I, but since the checkbox for the
Broadcast Flag is set program by program, and is contained in the PSIP EPG
data, why couldn't it be transmitted along with the rest of the 3 day or 7
day advanced EPG on a program by program basis?
> With the PMCP CS, the ultimate authority on whether the flag is
transmitted
> is the content itself. That means, as a lowest common denominator, that
> whether the flag is transmitted is determined a few moments before the
> content is aired.
We currently process content in the HD-SDI video format for our DTV master
control, in order to switch between sources, key graphics, and insert EAS
alerts. This HD-SDI then gets MPEG-2 encoded in a Tandberg encoder, then
multiplexed with other program streams and PSIP data streams in a Tandberg
multiplexer for air. How is PMCP going to be the ultimate arbitrar of the
broadcast flag? Will it be encoded in the 708B Closed Captioning
information?
John Shutt
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