KQED's digital transmission plans over the next 6 months
 

Since we've recently had quite a few people sign up for our HD Alert
Service, I thought it would be a good time to re-send information about
KQED's digital transmission plans over the next 6 months or so... and
thanks for watching!

Red Dana
Manager, TV9 & DT9 KQED Viewer Services
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KQED has begun a transition with our digital television services. Over
the course of the next six months, we will convert all of KQED's TV
channels to 24/7 operation via cable, and expand our digital
over-the-air service as well.

As a non-profit, community-supported organization, KQED is committed to
maximizing our digital spectrum to provide the broad general public with
a full suite of digital channels delivering high quality content that
informs, educates and entertains.

In order to serve as many Bay Area residents as possible we need to
acknowledge that the vast majority of our viewers (nearly 80%) watch
KQED via cable, increasingly digital cable. An ever-shrinking number
utilize our analog over-the-air service, and some pick up a digital
over-the-air (OTA) signal. We have a relatively small group of digital
OTA HD viewers and a rapidly growing group of cable HD viewers.

Our goal: to please most of the people, most of the time, with the most
we can provide in both quantity and quality of programming. It’s quite a
juggling act, but we are after all “public” broadcasting.

Since the bandwidth available to us via cable will be greater than the
digital over-the-air spectrum, there will be some differences between
the two services. At the conclusion of this transition, currently
scheduled for September 2006, all KQED channels, including HD, will be
delivered 24/7 over a direct fiber feed to Comcast. A separate feed to
our digital transmitter will provide the expanded over-the-air lineup
(see info below).

The two separate program lineups - one for cable and another for
over-the air - requires two sets of encoders. As the first step in the
transition, we recently began utilizing new encoders for the expanded
over-the-air lineup. Our original flexicoder encoders will deliver the
full, six-channel, 24/7 service to Comcast as they roll out an all
digital network over the coming months.

KQED has taken a flagship/partnership role with the leading encoder
manufacturer, and is jointly working with them to develop the best
quality from our new generation low bit rate encoders. As in the
introduction of any new product, this initial phase has not gone as
smoothly or met the high level of standards/expectations that we demand.

Early adopters who were around when we first went on air with our
flexicoder encoders may well remember the initial problems, yet we went
on to have the highest quality and ATSC standards compliance of any TV
station in the Bay Area. We are expecting some dramatic improvements
from the encoding lab and our new encoders as well.

We appreciate your feedback as we continue to modify and improve our
technical parameters and we apologize for any problems you are
experiencing with the quality of our HD signal during this transition.
We welcome your continuing feedback.

KQED TV CHANNEL LINE-UP (4/06)
KQED TV9 analog - 24 hours
KQED Encore (9.2 & 189) - 24 hours
KQED World (9.3 & 190) - 24 hours (recently expanded)
KQED Life (9.4 & 191) - 6am-8pm
KQED Kids (9.5 & 192) - 24 hours (recently expanded)
KQED HD (9.1 & 709) - 8pm-6am