[opendtv] Re: Sinclair Launches Original Programming Division | Broadcasting & Cable
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2014 08:17:38 -0400
> You're so right, Mark. And yet, the FCC pretends, and who knows, they may
> believe it, that this is to alleviate the spectrum crunch for two-way
> cellular service. Ironically, used for LTE broadcast, they may well end up
> with LOWER b/s/Hz than the broadcasters are using now.
Playing devil's advocate...
BS/Hz is not the issue.
Consumer behavior and access to desired services is the real issue.
A broadcast standard that few people are using, a standard that leaves vast
swaths of spectrum (white spaces) unused to protect the channels that are used
is not efficient by any measure. The fact that it is virtually useless for
mobile screens is completely OUT OF SYNC with modern realities.
Consumers are using mobile devices and cellular data to watch video today. This
trend is increasing as more popular content becomes available to mobile
devices, via authentication that the mobile user also PAYS for this content.
ESPN is especially relevant here.
It is highly likely that the mobile audience will be larger - and more valuable
from a financial perspective - than the audience broadcasters can attract in
the 600 MHz spectrum. This assumes that the existing broadcast audience will
continue to be served via the large swath of spectrum that broadcasters will
continue to use - hopefully more efficiently by combining existing channels in
multicast multiplexes.
And most important, there is good reason to believe that using the 600 MHz
spectrum for LTE Broadcast WILL free up bandwidth that is currently being used
for unicast video streams. Making popular content available in multicasts frees
up bits that are currently being used inefficiently for replicated unicast.
It is well worth noting that broadcasters COULD have owned this market, but
chose an inappropriate transmission standard, and appear ready to repeat this
mistake with ATSC 2.
Regards
Craig
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