[opendtv] Re: Scrap OTA?
- From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 1 Nov 2005 17:21:56 -0500
Dan Grimes wrote:
> I'm not serious about suggesting we should scrap
> OTA broadcasts. Remember, I am one of the millions
> who's primary source of media is OTA (well, not really
> my primary source, but I do watch some OTA programming).
> But the way some speak on this forum, it sounds like OTA
> is a dying transport format and it wouldn't hurt anyone
> if it just went away.
>
> But if the same channels were offered for free over CATV,
> I would be willing to get them off CATV (although I would
> prefer DBS). That would free up a lot of OTA spectrum.
There are some of us here who are rather frustrated by the
*apparent* attempts by the industry to sucker everyone into
some umbillical distribution monopoly or other. I'm not
saying these attempts are real, but the effect sure seems
to point to such an effort. Even TV Guide got in on it, or
so it seems, by practically ignoring OTA schedules with
their hyped-up new format.
The reports you see about loss of viewership when a station
drops its OTA service seem to indicate that considerably
more than 15 percent of viewers are affected. So for
whatever reason, it appears that even if 85 percent of
households have cable or DBS, they still use OTA to the
extent that somewhat more than 30 percent of viewership is
affected if OTA goes away.
In spite of John S's insistence to the contrary, CE vendors
can already mate decent working ATSC/cable tuner/demods
with matching MPEG decoders today, from several sources. So
there's nothing insurmountable stopping them from doing so.
My bet is that if we should switch to COFDM, these vendors
would come up with some other excuse not to provide the
STBs and recording devices we need here. Like, there's not
enough market for 6 MHz OTA. Or our VHF band is incovenient.
Or people in the US have forgotten how to record from OTA
stations (ignoring the fact that these built-in receivers
would also work for cable systems). Or any number of other
excuses.
If you check at the NAB site, it appears that they are
charging ahead with their this contract award to Thomson and
LG. We'll see if that leads to anything.
Bert
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