[opendtv] Re: TV Technology: NAB Reinforces No Tuner Mandates for Next Gen TV
- From: Craig Birkmaier <brewmastercraig@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2017 09:48:56 -0400
On Sep 29, 2017, at 8:31 PM, Manfredi, Albert E
<albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
So, you don't think that in 15 years, or 20 years, had there been a digital
receiver mandate on radios back in 2002, we would have that "huge installed
base" of HD Radio receivers?
Maybe in vehicles, as most vehicles come with some form of radio. So I guess we
could all go sit in our cars when the power goes out...
;-(
Your argument is patently absurd. The government SHOULD NOT have the ability to
force consumers to buy something they neither need or want, or to dictate the
design of products offered for sale by private companies.
You can build a meaningful argument for government mandated standards for
vehicles, but that argument falls into pieces when you try to make the case
that the features of the radio in that vehicle are a public safety issue.
The reality is that the marketplace had moved on in terms of how audio content
is consumed. There was- - and still is no demand for digital radio to replace
an analog FM radio standard that works well enough that the Chairman of the FCC
is calling for the voluntary inclusion of FM radios in cellphones.
By the way, he was asking for something that does not exist. The chips in the
iPhone 7, 8 and X do not include an FM tuner, nor do these phones have the
required antenna.
The reason I mentioned HD Radio was precisely to show what it means when a
mandate does not exist. And this suggests what might just happen to ATSC 3.0.
You mean like what happened with OTA TV reception after the FCC mandated the
inclusion of ATSC tuners in every TV sold since 2006? ATSC 1.0 was essentially
still born and still only reaches a small portion of the TV audience.
HD Radio offered no compelling new content to consumers. But another technology
introduced at about the same time -without the high cost and royalties
associated with HD Radio - totally transformed the way we consume music:
THE MP3 PLAYER
And now even that technology is being supplanted by audio streaming services,
which more often than not are being consumed on mobile devices using wireless
data transmission techniques - i.e. “digital radio.”
No mandate!, insists the NAB. To what end? Are they proud of the fact that
there's no mandate, and that therefore ATSC 3.0 might very well follow the
same path as HD Radio? So, in another 20 years, ATSC 1.0 will be required
still? (But again, I'm not advocating anything here. Just questioning the
NAB's motives.)
There is already a move to end the ATSC tuner mandate. This may be irrelevant,
as the cost of the tuners is relatively low, the ability to keep charging
royalties for the technology is ending, and the technology is outdated.
Especially the use of MPEG-2 compression, which still is unable to deliver live
sports without serious quality issues.
Broadcasters would be well served to work with TV manufacturers to enable h.264
decoding and/or HVEC decoding, as these technologies are being implemented in
most new “Smart TVs.” They could then provide a higher quality product without
the need to go though another mostly useless transmission standard upgrade.
A better way to think about this is: What would the radio
infrastructure look like today if the FCC had allocated spectrum
for Armstrong's FM system, rather than blocking it for decades to
protect the powerful AM broadcasters, and the new TV service?
Irrelevant.
IT’S HIGHLY RELEVANT BERT.
This is a prime example of how the FCC has acted to disrupt innovation and to
control the radio and TV industries.
First, because the FCC is not blocking ATSC 3.0. And besides, we'd be in the
same place today. FM did not take off, and supplant AM entirely, until the
auto manufacturers decided to include FM is every car radio. Which did not
happen until the mid-1970s, IIRC.
And the reason it took that long was because the FCC did everything in its
power to disrupt the potential of FM. It was only AFTER the FCC opened up
spectrum for FM and modified the rules that FM became a viable alternative to
AM.
These changes made the existing FM radios OBSOLETE Bert. For some reason you
have blinders on when it comes to FCC MISTAKES.
After that, the AM band became increasingly useless. Had the auto
manufacturers not taken this bold step, the tin-eared public would have gone
on using AM.
The auto makers were simply responding to demand Bert. And to the fact that a
vibrant new medium for broadcasting music was finally possible.
I think more and more automakers are introducing HD Radio nowadays, so who
knows. Although they would rather be in cahoots with the pay-radio companies
instead.
Yup. HD Radio is now included in far more than 20% of new vehicles. It does not
matter, however, as consumers are more interested in using a commercial free
streaming audio service (or satellite radio) than trying to access the limited
content that is not duplicated in the AM/FM transmissions.
As for mandates, the ATSC tuner mandate did nothing to help TV
broadcasters hold onto their audience.
Cord cutters today have an option, where with your ideas, they would not
have. Use of OTA has gone up, not down, and that's only thanks to the ATSC
mandate. Without that mandate, we'd still be watching fuzzy grainy old analog
TV, at least OTA.
Yes, there’s a small silver lining in the ATSC mandate for cord cutters. But
the small increased audience could just as easily be served today with an ATSC
dongle.
And you are absolutely wrong about the notion that we would still be watching
analog TV without the tuner mandate. The audience for broadcast TV continued to
decline after the introduction of ATSC. By 2012 more than 93% of U.S. homes
subscribed to a MVPD service, and most of these homes had digital cable or DBS.
The real breakthrough was the development of affordable flat panel displays
that dramatically improved the ability to deliver higher quality video. Sales
took off after ESPN started broadcasting sports in HD, which had NOTHING to do
with the broadcast digital transition.
The problem is not the technology. The problem is the desire and economic
cost to deploy it properly. In essence, it means creating a separate
mobile friendly Digital TV infrastructure to "complement" the existing 4G
LTE and future 5G wireless infrastructure
Yawn, Craig. That sounds like the empty rhetoric we get from certain special
interests. In truth, when the bulk of what mobile users want, especially
those mobile users, is on demand content, the need for that one-way-only
broadcast pipe is small. So that's why I'm not all giddy about another
one-way-only pipe. The very small amount of truly demanded "live" content to
mobile receivers can be handled by 4G. You don't need to dedicate spectrum to
just one-way-broadcast-only, 24/7.
Thank you for agreeing with me on this. It’s time to talk seriously about
ending TV broadcasting in the U.S.
You are a huge proponent of this move, even if it means having to
pay for fixed broadband and wireless broadband services.
Which you have to pay for anyway, for other-than-TV content. Surely, you're
not suggesting that the only use for the Internet is to watch TV, right?
Obviously it is not. But TV has been the driving force to extend broadband
throughput at every level of the Internet infrastructure:
It has driven the need for higher data speeds;
It has driven the need for higher data caps;
It has driven the need for a massive increase in Internet backbone throughput;
It has driven the need for innovative new ways to manage congestion, including
the extensive use of edge servers and co-located servers that emulate what was
formerly handled by dedicated MVPD networks (large audiences access the same
programs).
Clearly there are other applications that take advantage of the improved
infrastructure. Online gaming is a huge market. Software updates are now
delivered via the Internet rather than discs. And we now have pervasive video
phone services.
So my former $70/mo cable bill is now an $87/mo broadband bill, and I now pay
for a VMVPD service @ $40/mo.
That’s real progress...
;-(
Regards
Craig
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