[opendtv] Re: TV Technology: Opinion: Latest U.S. Broadcast Standard Will Founder on Mobile Industry Indifference
- From: Craig Birkmaier <brewmastercraig@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2017 07:22:11 -0400
On Jun 28, 2017, at 11:15 PM, Manfredi, Albert E
<albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Statistically, in terms of hours per week, not exactly something that would
qualify dedicating an entire medium to only that linear/live broadcast role,
24/7, and calling it "primary."
Here we go again...
Bert loves to misrepresent reality with statistics.
The number of hours dedicated to various forms of content is mostly irrelevant.
There are at least eight hours every day - 10 pm to 6 am - when hardly anyone
is watching. These hours are filled with infomercials and content offered
during earlier day parts. Likewise the hours between 9 am and 5 pm are filled
with all kinds of content that draws small audiences.
What is relevant is the amount of money spent on various forms of content and
the size of the audiences. Here sports is sitting on top of the mountain; it is
the primary source of content that viewers still make appointments to watch,
which in turn attracts the largest share of advertising dollars.
All that being said, the high cost of sports rights is driving most sports
behind the pay walls. The NFL and a handful of major events are the main
exceptions.
The biggest disconnect is trying to understand what business
broadcasters are in. They had many opportunities to use updates
to the ATSC 1.0 standard, but showed almost no interest. The
only new feature exploited by broadcasters was multicasting,
There I agree with the broadcasters. They discovered, hey, a one-way
broadcast medium, digital or not, is really best used to deliver linear/live
(TV in this case) programming. The other "forced" roles attempted were, in
short, forced, given that the Internet was emerging at the same time as DTV.
Broadcasters had every reason to become aware of the limitations of a one-way
broadcast medium. You can play whatever tricks with carousel streams, except
it's still a linear stream of limited content, that someone else chose for
you. And your sales hype might pretend that local storage makes up for lack
of a two-way medium, but no one was fooled! Empty rhetoric. Web browsing is
best done on the real Internet.
A valid point here. Teletext in the U.K. did attract a large audience during an
era when the Internet did not exist. FWIW, many of today's online services
could have easily be delivered by broadcasters, but they did not care - they
sell ads in linear programming.
Sinclair and its partners seem to be positioning themselves for
what comes AFTER broadcasting, when the broadcast networks decide
to turn off their transmitters and sell their content via the
Internet.
One would hope! This would make perfect sense. Go back to your roots, to
deliver TV content, but not the old fashioned way. But then, why the
agony/distraction/delay of creating and deploying another broadcast standard?
The existing one is okay for that old role.
Yup. it needs a few minor updates, like upgradeable codecs and a better program
guide, but it works well enough for the limited role it plays in delivering TV
content.
Regards
Craig
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