[opendtv] Re: Copps proposes more FCC action
- From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 14 Sep 2008 19:23:56 -0400
Tom Barry wrote:
> But then as time goes by and they start to rely on it in everyday
> use they will wonder where the cheap VCR's are, and why there are
> still a couple channels they never seem to be able to get reliably
> with their current antenna. They will then be told to get a roof
> top rotor or move to cable.
I ask again, "compared with what?"
The cheap VCRs, of course, I've been bitching about for eons, but you
can find the Philips DVDR/PVR at Walmart these days, in ample enough
quantity, and they are around $300. You can also buy DVDRs without the
hard disk for $179 to $250. Those prices are what VCRs were going for,
until they went on fire sales, aren't they? And these are far better
products.
As to not receiving channels that you could before, the opposite will
also happen, as in my case. Digital channels receivable, when the analog
channel was previously too ghosty to watch, or wouldn't even sync up. In
part, because digital reception is far less sensitive to antenna aim,
now.
But I think most importantly, what is the Euro experience? The Euro
experience is that people who have trouble with digital OTA reception
call out their trusted antenna guy, and he figures it out. Just as they
did with analog. That's what *actually* happens, in Europe. The biggest
difference here is cultural. If a consumer in the US goes to the trouble
of finding an "antenna guy," the most common outcome is that the
consumer is suckered into a pay TV system. It's the path of least
resistance, and "everybody else is doing it."
Assuming there is any truth at all to the mantra that OTA in the US is
used mostly by the elderly and disadvantaged, I would suggest they are
even more vulnerable to such tactics.
> And I suspect as more time goes on there will also be questions
> about why other countries seem to on average be getting a lot
> higher usable bit rate on OTA mobile channels, if there are any
> here.
>
> This eventually will lead to abandoning 8vsb for first OTA mobile,
> then OTA everything.
If the European experience is a guide at all, in the mobility camp, what
will happen is that mobile TV will only succeed to the extent that it's
regular TV to mobile devices. So, no dedicated mobile TV channels, no
subscription-only mobile TV service.
I these two outcomes:
1. If there's any demand at all for mobile broadcast TV, the ATSC M/H,
transmitted by current OTA broadcastrs, for free, might work okay.
Consumers would be receiving mostly a simple copy of the transmission to
fixed receivers. Could even be multiple streams. And I doubt very much
indeed that bandwidth would be an issue. We already saw that you can
stream two or three M/H channels and still transmit at least one HD and
one SD stream to fixed receivers. If not two SD channels.
2. Also if there's any demand at all for mobile TV, then finally
manufacturers will put a little R&D funds to develop receivers that work
mobile with 8T-VSB, as by all rights they should. This would allow
broadcasters to use M/H primarily for more robustness, rather than
having to depend on it exclusively for mobile reception. (E.g., for
hurricanes.)
A change to the 8T-VSB physical layer could eventually happen, however
just as easily, FOTA TV in the US could disappear. For a number of
reasons, but I doubt for any of the "sky is falling" reasons we've heard
on here for the past whatever years.
Bert
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