[opendtv] Re: 200 Mile 8VSB Reception
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 09:04:20 -0500
At 3:47 PM -0800 1/17/07, John Willkie wrote:
8VSB will be around longer than you or I, and will be stronger. Same is
true for OFDM; but the latter will never be strong in the U.S.; it will
however, be slightly more popular among broadcast viewers as PAL or SECAM
were in the U.S.
Never is a long time John. More to the point, OFDM is already making
inroads in the U.S. with virtually every entity that is buying
spectrum in the 700MHz. Funny how the need to actually make a system
work influences technology decisions when you are spending billions
on spectrum...
Yoou are putting a great deal of faith in the long term strength of
"Free OTA Broadcasting" in the U.S. - the ONLY group of people in the
U.S. that are using 8-VSB. Consider this simple analysis.
Nearly 85% of U.S. homes are getting their local broadcast stations
via cable, DBS or Telco video services. We can argue a bit about the
folks who are subscribers to a multichannel service that ALSO use an
antenna, but once these homes have access to their local stations in
HD those antennas are not likely to be used much. For these homes,
the technology used to broadcast bits that they have no interest in
receiving is irrelevant.
That leaves the other 15%, many of which today rely upon $5 TV
receivers they bought at a garage sale. EVERY analyst expects this
15% number to DECLINE - NOT INCREASE - when the NTSC transmitters are
turned off.
For the near future, broadcasters can rely upon retransmission
consent payments to keep padding the bottom line, but it would be
foolish to believe that this cash infusion will NEVER end. The
Networks have made it clear that local broadcast affiliates are NOT
in their future plans; why prop them up, when they can easily bypass
them as we move to new channels of distribution. In fact, why even
rely upon cable and DBS when the technology is falling into place to
go direct.
This gives "extra" meaning to Mark Aitken's comments:
Working on lot's of things these days...again...something about
making money...
Mark
making money takes a lot more than a printing press these days...
I never thought of TV broadcasting in terms of a printing press. With
those huge towers, I preferred the Oil Well analogy - as long as
those transmitters keep pumping electrons...
Who cares if anyone is using an antenna to receive them...as long as
we can tie up the spectrum and get cash from the systems that really
are delivering our programming.
What do you think will happen to the spectrum IF broadcasters are
unable to use it profitably? Do you think the politicians will allow
such valuable real estate to lie fallow forever?
That's a long, long time John.
Regards
Craig
----------------------------------------------------------------------
You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways:
- Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at FreeLists.org
- By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word
unsubscribe in the subject line.
Other related posts: