[opendtv] Re: YouTube goes live
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2011 08:20:39 -0400
At 3:51 PM -0500 4/27/11, Manfredi, Albert E wrote:
And yet, there is no Internet-use police to check whether I'm
listening to WAMU online from a PC, from a smartphone or tablet, or
over the VHF band. And both have been doing fine.
SO try to understand why things have evolved this way without the
politicians and regulators jumping in.
To begin with, almost every American owns multiple devices that
receive AM/FM broadcasts, and they use this service frequently. There
is no incentive for me to use my iPhone in my truck to listen to the
stations I can receive with the built in radio. I use my iPhone in
the truck (actually an old iPod) when I want to listen to MY music
without commercials. I use my old iPhone at the brewery to listen to
Pandora using our WiFi for the bits.
So for a radio broadcaster, the decision to offer a streaming version
of their content is primarily about two things:
1. Reaching people when using devices that DO NOT include an AM/FM tuner.
2. Reaching people who are outside the range of their RF signals.
But the vast majority of these receiver ARE NOT being used, and
they are useless for mobile reception.
First, let's find out just how many OTA antenna are flying off the
shelves and why. Second, you have seen in Doug Lung's report that
EVEN the regular ATSC stream works quite well, even with a short
stick of an antenna, on the new mobile TVs. Maybe not while driving,
he didn't go into that, but it appears that it's not as bad as you
have been making it out to be, for the past 15 years or so. For
example, at a tailgate party at a game, I bet ATSC could work just
fine.
Sorry Bert, but 8VSB does not work reliably with mobile devices. It
does not even work reliably in challenging RF environments. Again,
don't trust me, look at what REAL BROADCASTERS are saying about ATSC
in the article Mark posted yesterday.
YES, ATSC MHP does work much better, and there are receivers coming
to market to take advantage of it. But there are two big problems
with MHPL
1. It is highly inefficient when compared with other RF standards for
mobile DTV. It requires a significant chunk of the 6 MHz ATSC channel
to deliver mobile content, which means that these bits are not
available for the main ATSC channel and any multicasts.
2. It must be deployed by existing broadcasters in order to prime the
mobile DTV pump, which will rely upon the availability of a
meaningful population of mobile receivers.
The second problem is the one you continue to ignore. MOST
broadcasters are not willing to invest even more money in this failed
ATSC experiment, ESPECIALLY when industry leaders are now saying that
we need a new standard in five to ten years.
This time broadcasters are going to take a more active role in
setting the new standard, as they actually plan to use it to reach
their viewers, rather than hoping the viewers will subscribe to an
umbilical service so they can collect those retrans consent payments.
> But the reality is that broadcasters no longer offer the content
that most Americans watch;
That's been your "reality" forever, Craig, but maybe it needs to be
revised. Broadcasters can also adapt, given credible data on usage.
And broadcasters are still diddling with their multicast offerings.
I know, because I happen to watch them. If the FCC didn't jump in
with their spectrum grab ideas only months after the transition
ended, broadcasters might even have had more incentive to experiment.
We've been through all of this before Bert. Broadcasters have no
economic basis to compete with the MVPDs. They cannot match the
subscriber fee revenues; instead they have chosen the opposite path.
Encourage viewers to use the MVPD service so they can get a
competitor to pay them for their signals.
Regards
Craig
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