[opendtv] Re: News: TV Braces for the Apple Tablet

  • From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2010 07:58:42 -0500

At 8:19 PM -0500 2/2/10, Albert Manfredi wrote:
Geez, Craig, your arguments are from all points of the compass rose, more so than TV transmitter sites.
First of all, if you want to devolve broadcast TV into a low-rent ad machine for neighborhood take-out pizza joints, you cannot do that with "most markets can be covered with 4-5 transmitters on existing buildings and towers." Those "4-5 transmitters" in SFN cannot create a hyperlocal broadcast system. Instead, ideally, the 4-5 tower SFN will emulate a big stick, hopefully providing more even power density in a small center city area. Oh yeah, like Berlin or Paris. And the same protection rules will apply as you need with big sticks. And the suburbs will be covered with a signal that's likely worse than what the big stick would have provided (depending on tower height and transmitter power). 

Wrong.
Imagine a ring of towers around a major market. Most channels can be market wide on the same frequencies. But a few channels can be unique to each site providing sub market coverage. This actually enhances spectral reuse, as where there are adjacent markets you can take advantage of separation. For example, Imagine one tower in the Wahington grid is in Alexandria and one in the Baltimore grid is in Towson; I believe these locations are about 80 miles apart, which is more than adequate for reuse with lower power, lower HAAT transmission sites.
Secondly, if you claim that an OTA broadcaster can't afford one or two low-budget multicast streams, such as cable systems have, then good luck with this hyperlocal nightmare. You think ads from your neighborhood will support OTA broadcasting worth watching? 

Yes. High School football games would be a good example.
Thirdly, there are communities between Balt and Wash, such as Laurel and Columbia MD for example, which must be served by both Wash and Balt stations. Because the residents in fact go to both markets daily, for work and for entertainment.
So? They would be close to transmitters from both markets and have access to both as you do now. And they would probably get a few channels for their local area as well.
All I can do is repeat what I said before. If you think otherwise, I can only conclude two possible scenarios. (1) The engineers told you something that you partially misunderstood, and filled in the rest with wishful thinking, or (2) You were speaking to business managers and not engineers. 

Yes Bert, you KEPP repeating the same old incorrect mantra.
The Euro SFNs are actual, working systems. The engineers that developed them are not total incompetents. The rules governing how these systems work are well enough understood, and they are documented, and I quoted the documents to you on more than one occasion.
And these systems were designed to meet their market requirements leveraging existing infrastructure. This does not mean that this is the best solution for other markets.And dare I say it, they also leveraged the advantage of COFDM. 




 Broadcasters took the easy way out, depending
 on the generosity of regulators who gave them
 the spectrum and protected their largess.
See, I don't believe you. If you go in misunderstanding the issues, of course you can come to all sorts of negative conclusions. Change your going in assumptions to something closer to the truth, and most of your objections will vanish. It's very simple.
Obviously you don't believe me or you would stop your illogical arguments. You also do not mirror the vast majority of American viewers. This does not make you wrong or irrelevant, but it does shade your arguments. 

Regards
Craig


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