[opendtv] Re: OTA
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2012 08:14:29 -0500
At 4:21 AM -0400 3/15/12, Albert Manfredi wrote:
If you have a box in the house, that converts from ATSC to WiFi, WHO
CARES about ATSC M/H and about having the best possible coding
efficiency? That ATSC channel is ALREADY providing you with at least
one HD and maybe 3 SD streams. That part of the path has existed for
years, and works fine. And also, if your WiFi is 802.11n, you
ALREADY have plenty of bandwidth available within the home too, even
if the box doesn't transcode to H.264. Eeking out the best coding
efficiency is simply not an issue in this instance. Although if the
box can transcode, so much the better.
Yes Bert, we understand that it is possible to build an ATSC to WiFi
device for the home. I even noted that it might be a better product
than an outdoor antenna for an ATSC enabled TV. But I also noted some
of the challenges. While you may find the quality of MPEG-2 adequate
for most of the programs you watch, I find that is often inadequate,
especially for sports on stations that use 1080i and have several sub
channels.
Unfortunately, such a box does NOTHING to support reception outside
the home by the new generation of mobile devices that are
proliferating by the tens of millions.
Why does M/H use H.264? For two reasons. (1) Because H.264 already
existed when M/H was standardized, so might as well go with the
newest available algorithm. (2) Because the M/H bit rate *is*
severely constrained. Neither of these applies to this case.
But THIS IS the case that must be support if broadcasters are going
to survive and deliver content to the devices that consumers are
buying and using a second MOBILE screens.
So your Antenna to WiFi box will need to support both h.264
and MPEG-2, and pay the licensing fees for both.
Reality has a way of taking care of these issues, somehow or other.
Prices of these products seem to drop rapidly anyway ... uh, except
for Apple, of course. This licensing alarmism never seems to pan out?
It already DID pan out.
The world is moving on to h.264 because it is a better codec, more
efficient, and the licensing terms are reasonable. MPEG-2 is only
supported by the legacy standards that require it - ATSC, DVD, DVB,
cable, etc. MPEG-2 is NOT supported by the current generation of
mobile devices and it is highly unlikely it will be.
Yes, but I'm going past that, Craig. You don't need a lot of actual
broadcasters; i.e. companies involved in the RF signal transmission,
if you go with the higher bit rate 3G or (eventually) 4G schemes.
If the current OTA broadcasters go with an existing wireless
broadband company, then the broadcasters become nothing more than
content providers -- their own content, that is (i.e. news and
weather mostly). The congloms would only need to deal with the
wireless broadband company, no longer with multiple local broadcast
stations. If the current broadcasters decide to build their own LTE
infrastructure, the why would you need more than one or two?
You seem to be echoing what I said. Broadcasters have been backed
into a corner, or they did it to themselves. The most valuable asset
that they have moving forward is almost free use of a large chunk of
spectrum. The broadcasters in a market will need to work together to
maximize the value and potential revenues from this spectrum,and they
will need to do this in a manner that is compatible with the mobile
devices that people are buying.
That's what I've been saying, Craig. Who is involved in Internet
streaming? The content owner, the CDN and ISP, and that's it. The
same will happen with a wireless broadband infrastructure, if LTE or
even the newer variants of wideband CDMA are used. The unwalled
nature of OTA TV, in which multiple broadcasters each transmit their
own multiplex, using their own transmission facilities, won't exist
anymore. The 4G channels are likely to be 80 MHz wide, each. How
many of those do you need to carry the current set of OTA TV
multiplexes, in the average US TV market? One? Maybe two, in the
larger markets? (More in LA, but that's a unique case.)
Perhaps it will only be two LTE channels per market. I'm not certain
what the practical limits are after the spectrum is re-packed again.
I'm assuming that the VHF spectrum is not desirable for LTE. But
there will still be nearly 120 MHz of UHF spectrum in every market.
As for need? you need to get over the idea that the business model
will look like the current model that is failing. We are moving away
from the "Time and Channel" program schedule model to a demand based
model. I am quite confident that the bandwidth available for LTE
broadcasting will be filled in major markets.
First, it is unlikely that the government would allow ANY one company to own
all of the TV spectrum in one market.
Why? They are already allowing just two DBS companies to cover an
entire country. Why wouldn't they allow one or two companies to
provide the RF infrastructure for a given OTA market? Even if they
impose national caps, so that company can't own all OTA facilities
in the country?
Because there are more than 1500 licenses today controlled by hundred
of companies. They are not going to give this to 2-3 companies. That
would only happen if they reclaim ALL of the broadcast spectrum and
make it available to the highest bidders.
Regards
Craig
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