[opendtv] Re: NAB, MSTV applaud FCC must-carry proposal for DTV transition

  • From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 19:17:18 -0400

Craig Birkmaier wrote:

>> What other choice do they have? Give me a practical
>> alternative for cable companies, other than the two Martin
>> gave them. There is no ACTUAL over-reaching here.
>
> Carry the digital version of the stations and let the consumer
> decide if they want to pay for the station and the set-top box
> to watch it.

Absolutely, but then the cable company can't turn around and prevent
consumers from buying the boxes they darned well please. Not without
creating a huge uproar among their customers. And a well deserved one.

Here's an approach that *could* have worked, but it's too late now.
Transmit the local channels unencrypted, even possibly in 8-VSB, and let
consumers use their $60 OTA STBs to decode them. Or include a QAM tuner
in the $60 STBs. That way, the cable companies could say that cable and
OTA customers are in exactly the same boat (although of course the cable
customers still have to pay the monthly basic fee).

That still requires the cable companies to transmit all local channels
and their multicasts.

As things are today, your approach would lose the cable companies a
whole lot of customers. As I said before, they got themselves into this
mess with their walled garden systems.

Bert
 
 
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