Death of OTA Broadcasting

On Sun, 06 Aug 2006 12:21:45 -0500, me wrote:

"Jim L" wrote:

We have put up 30+ foot high gain hdtv
antennas and gone to extreme lengths to get the new OTA digital broadcasts
only to find that a little wind in the trees and it is gone. We wait for
winter for the trees to shed so we can get better reception. We switch to
the NTSC channels

Are OTA digital channels THAT picky abt signal?

No. I don't know what his problem is.

You believe that analog OTA signals are much more
robust in that they are more reliable as far as
reception?

Analog TV does have the advantage (if you can call it that) that even if
the signal is weak, you will get something. If it's that bad, it's
probably not watchable anyway because of snow, herring bone, whatever.
With didgital, you don't have that problem.

--
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In article m,
Mark Crispin wrote:

Psycho Bob has yet to address the hard data on that web page. He just
wants you to believe that all signal strength/quality issues are based
solely upon the modulation and have nothing to do with the antenna.

....or the transmitter power.

"Wes Newell" wrote in message
news:[email protected]
On Sun, 06 Aug 2006 15:08:00 +0000, Jim L wrote:

Being an OTA fan for 50+ years, I am sad to say that I will be forced
into
cable in 2009. I'm sure that there are thousands like me in the Pacific
Northwest that are in the same boat. We have put up 30+ foot high gain
hdtv
antennas and gone to extreme lengths to get the new OTA digital
broadcasts
only to find that a little wind in the trees and it is gone. We wait for
winter for the trees to shed so we can get better reception. We switch
to
the NTSC channels for relief, knowing that those will be going away in a
couple of years. We are resolved to the fact that a high percentage of
folks will be forced onto cable or satelite in 2009 and we are a part of
those. Who won? The cable companies. Maybe we will put our $60 a month
into DVD's or Blue Ray..........(:}

This from a person that thinks there is such a thing as an HDTV
antenna.:-)
An OTA antenna is just that, the same antenna you used with analog is
usuable with digital. Now if you had a crappy antenna to begin with, you
may or may not receive the digital signal very good. There's also a
possibilty that the digital stations in your area aren't broadcasting at
full power yet. And there's a hugh tree about 30 ft. in front of my
antenna and it doesn't present a major problem. I'm about 45miles from the
towers. Screw analog. It sucks. I wish they'd dump it today.


OK......I used the industries term for the antenna.....lets not split hairs.
For your sake, I will call it just a UHF Antenna. 4 Bay being the latest
tried.

Now....Here is what is happening here in Seattle. I don't know about your
area.

ABC was on 67 Mhz.................it's digital counterpart is on 615 Mhz

NBC was on 77 Mhz.................it's digital counterpart is on 675 Mhz

CBS was on 175 Mhz...............it's digital counterpart is on 633 Mhz


Hence, the same antenna can't be used for both. I have a far better UHF
antenna with about 35' of mast, preamp and 50 ft. of RG-6.......than the
rabbit ears I was using for VHF analog TV.

Radio wave propagation gets more and more touchy in this area as you go up
in frequency. I maintain two-way systems at 150 MHz, 450 MHz and 900 MHz.
I know what I'm talking about in regards to propagation problems. You
suffer with path attenuation due to foltage and other obstructions (hills,
buildings) the higher in frequency you go.

As for your tree..........I have a virtual forest between me and Seattle and
I am not even in the country. I sit on a hill and if you know the hills in
the suburbs of Seattle, the trees are like weeds. They form walls of
foltage 100'+ high. I am not unusual in this area.....Everyone I know of is
dealing with tree issues. I don't even have clearance for satelite....and
the trees are not even on my property.

Jim






--
Want the ultimate in free OTA SD/HDTV Recorder? http://mythtv.org
http://mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html Usenet alt.video.ptv.mythtv
My server http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/cpu.php
HD Tivo S3 compared http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/mythtivo.htm

Randy Yates wrote:

I thought they (e.g., Motorola) "solved" the 8-VSB multipath problem
years ago with "blind adaptive equalization." Not true?
--
% Randy Yates % "Rollin' and riding and slippin' and
%% Fuquay-Varina, NC % sliding, it's magic."
%%% 919-577-9882 %
%%%% % 'Living' Thing', *A New World Record*, ELO
http://home.earthlink.net/~yatescr

They did to a degree. The newer generation receivers can adapt more
rapidly than the older ones so that they can deal with moving
reflections better.

GG

On Mon, 07 Aug 2006 05:01:08 GMT, "Jim L"
wrote:


"Wes Newell" wrote in message
news:[email protected]
On Sun, 06 Aug 2006 15:08:00 +0000, Jim L wrote:

Being an OTA fan for 50+ years, I am sad to say that I will be forced
into
cable in 2009. I'm sure that there are thousands like me in the Pacific
Northwest that are in the same boat. We have put up 30+ foot high gain
hdtv
antennas and gone to extreme lengths to get the new OTA digital
broadcasts
only to find that a little wind in the trees and it is gone. We wait for
winter for the trees to shed so we can get better reception. We switch
to
the NTSC channels for relief, knowing that those will be going away in a
couple of years. We are resolved to the fact that a high percentage of
folks will be forced onto cable or satelite in 2009 and we are a part of
those. Who won? The cable companies. Maybe we will put our $60 a month
into DVD's or Blue Ray..........(:}

This from a person that thinks there is such a thing as an HDTV
antenna.:-)
An OTA antenna is just that, the same antenna you used with analog is
usuable with digital. Now if you had a crappy antenna to begin with, you
may or may not receive the digital signal very good. There's also a
possibilty that the digital stations in your area aren't broadcasting at
full power yet. And there's a hugh tree about 30 ft. in front of my
antenna and it doesn't present a major problem. I'm about 45miles from the
towers. Screw analog. It sucks. I wish they'd dump it today.


OK......I used the industries term for the antenna.....lets not split hairs.
For your sake, I will call it just a UHF Antenna. 4 Bay being the latest
tried.

Now....Here is what is happening here in Seattle. I don't know about your
area.

ABC was on 67 Mhz.................it's digital counterpart is on 615 Mhz

NBC was on 77 Mhz.................it's digital counterpart is on 675 Mhz

CBS was on 175 Mhz...............it's digital counterpart is on 633 Mhz


Hence, the same antenna can't be used for both. I have a far better UHF
antenna with about 35' of mast, preamp and 50 ft. of RG-6.......than the
rabbit ears I was using for VHF analog TV.

Radio wave propagation gets more and more touchy in this area as you go up
in frequency. I maintain two-way systems at 150 MHz, 450 MHz and 900 MHz.
I know what I'm talking about in regards to propagation problems. You
suffer with path attenuation due to foltage and other obstructions (hills,
buildings) the higher in frequency you go.

As for your tree..........I have a virtual forest between me and Seattle and
I am not even in the country. I sit on a hill and if you know the hills in
the suburbs of Seattle, the trees are like weeds. They form walls of
foltage 100'+ high. I am not unusual in this area.....Everyone I know of is
dealing with tree issues. I don't even have clearance for satelite....and
the trees are not even on my property.

Jim


The folks that don't like cable and satellite refuse to acknowledge
that many people cannot get much OTA.
Thumper




--
Want the ultimate in free OTA SD/HDTV Recorder? http://mythtv.org
http://mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html Usenet alt.video.ptv.mythtv
My server http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/cpu.php
HD Tivo S3 compared http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/mythtivo.htm

Mark Crispin wrote:
On Sun, 6 Aug 2006, Bob Miller wrote:
This problem does not exist in most countries that have gone digital

Instead of having multipath, they have distance reception problems and
lose the signal due to impulse noise if a motor is running nearby.
Problem reports are pouring in from all over the UK and Australia.

Neither is true. What is true is that because of the lack of problems
with OTA COFDM reception more people are buying OTA receivers than in
the US. Retailers are selling receivers, promoting them, broadcasters
are promoting OTA and OTA is competing with cable and satellite.

None of this is happening in the US. And Mark is right, the US has more
content and more broadcast station on the air than any country by far
which is damning evidence against our digital transition since you would
expect a lot more interest on the part of retailers, broadcasters and
the public in OTA broadcasting.

Where is the disconnect? Simple, in spite of far more content and far
more stations on the air, the US still has the least activity among
retailers, broadcasters and the public because our modulation stinks. It
is really sad.

and in those countries the sale and promotion of DTV is extremely
successful.

But much less successful than in the USA, which is the only country with
nationwide HDTV.

Note above. Ironically the US with the most content and broadcast
stations is the least successful OTA DTV transition by far.

They are all using modulation that use COFDM.

Thanks to COFDM, they are all wondering how they will ever catch up with
the USA. Thanks to COFDM, Europe doesn't have OTA HDTV at all, but are
hoping maybe to have some by 2011.

COFDM has nothing to do with the European decision, so far, to not offer
HD via OTA spectrum. HD is being offered in Europe via satellite and
will be offered via OTA in France soon. The UK is also looking into HD OTA.

Tell your Congressperson.

Yes, tell your Congressperson "thank you" for not allowing Psycho Bob
Miller (and his fellow scoundrels) to ruin HDTV.

HDTV is a resolution and it is and will do quite well on cable,
satellite and broadband. Unfortunately it is not doing well on OTA FREE
broadcasting because of our choice of modulations. OTA broadcasting was
supposed to help HDTV, it hasn't, it has impeded it.

Bob Miller

-- Mark --

http://panda.com/mrc
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to eat for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.

Wes Newell wrote:

On Sun, 06 Aug 2006 12:21:45 -0500, me wrote:

"Jim L" wrote:

We have put up 30+ foot high gain hdtv
antennas and gone to extreme lengths to get the new OTA digital broadcasts
only to find that a little wind in the trees and it is gone. We wait for
winter for the trees to shed so we can get better reception. We switch to
the NTSC channels

Are OTA digital channels THAT picky abt signal?

No. I don't know what his problem is.

I believe that the UHF digital channels are more picky than the VHF
analog chanels they are temporarily replacing in most cases. And that
is the comparison most folks are making.

The fact that an analog picture at the same power and same UHF
frequency would look crappy doesn't change the fact that the current
actual analog VHF version of a particular channel looks pretty good
while the digital version is breaking up. Things should improve when
they go back to VHF. But the current situation is not helping public
confidence in digital OTA.

You believe that analog OTA signals are much more
robust in that they are more reliable as far as
reception?

Analog TV does have the advantage (if you can call it that) that even if
the signal is weak, you will get something. If it's that bad, it's
probably not watchable anyway because of snow, herring bone, whatever.

I guess it depends on what is meant by "watchable".

Continuity is more important to information transfer than clarity of
the individual elements as long as the necessary elements are
distinguishable.

It's like the difference between reading a book with faded print but
legible words and reading a book with missing words, sentences, or
paragraphs at random intervals. In the first case, you can follow the
story. In the second case, you can't.

A fuzzy picture is only distracting at the beginning before you get
into the actual content you are watching. But random periods of
silence and frozen picture are downright disruptive and extremely
frustrating each time they occur.





joemooreaterolsdotcom

Bill R wrote:
Bob Miller wrote:

Tell your Congressperson.

Bob Miller

Tell your congressperson what? That, at this late stage of the game, we
should switch to COFDM? You are a damn fool if you think that will ever
happen. Seeing that and some of the other lies and crap you posted in
the past few years leave some of us to conclude that you can no longer
make logical conclusions. It doesn't matter how much you don't like it
or how much money you lost because of it, 8-VSB is here to stay. Live
with it.

There are two issues that broadcasters have to deal with soon, their
decrepit modulation and compression standards MPEG2 and 8-VSB.

Without competition from the myriad of new entities like Crown Castle,
Qualcomm, Aloha Partners, and the new crowd that has signed up for the
90 MHz of spectrum being offered in August, broadcasters could sit back
and enjoy their must carry cable protection. But they can't sit back.
Not only is this spectrum going to be used for broadcasting TV content
to new devices but there is the auction of channels above channel 51
coming in 2008. That is a lot of spectrum for new OTA DTV coming on
line. And all of it will use COFDM with MPEG4 and work BOTH with mobile
and fixed receivers.

Broadcasters are also now seeing new attacks by the FCC and Congress on
their spectrum. Since so few citizens RELY on OTA TV today the question
has been raised by a former FCC Chairman Powell, "What are we
protecting?". This is now followed up by such FCC proposals as broadband
over power lines and the freeing of unused TV spectrum between channels
2 and 51 for use by two way Internet wireless access.

Both show a disregard for "protecting" the TV spectrum.

First it will be downgraded and then it will be sold off.

Broadcasters have to decide whether they want to stay in business. To
stay in the business of broadcasting OTA they had better find a way to
actually use the spectrum. That means offering something OTA that will
see the numbers of users grow instead of shrink.

That could include better reception, better modulation, and more
content, better codec.

If not the number of viewers who RELY on OTA DTV via channels 2-51 will
go on shrinking while the number of people using OTA for DTV from other
new broadcasters will rise explosively. That includes all those OTA TV
sets in the bedroom, kitchen and shower. They will be tuned to the new
OTA broadcasters and not count for traditional OTA (2-51) anymore.

Broadcasters need the best tools to compete in the fierce new world of
OTA and they don't have them. Their competitors will. All new ventures
OTA will be using COFDM modulations and MPEG4.

As I have said before, broadcasters will either use the best tools OTA
or their spectrum will be degraded further and eventually sold off.
Congress is salivating right now over the deposits being submitted for
the next auction this August.

TV spectrum above channel 51 will also be auctioned in 2008. By then the
talk of killing off OTA DTV spectrum (below 51) in the US will be
rampant. After the 2008 auction, big bucks, and the far lower numbers of
viewers who will still rely on OTA channels below channel 51 that will
come to light then, Congress will be emboldened to go after channel 2-51
with a plan to auction them off also.

Broadcasters do not have much time and their political power is waning
as witnessed by the trampling their interest are taking today at the FCC
and in Congress.

So as I have said either broadcasters get the best tools soon, COFDM and
MPEG4 for instance, or they lose the spectrum. Either way COFDM and
MPEG4 will be used on the spectrum now occupied by channels 2-51.

And it will happen faster than you might anticipate. After all who would
have thought a few years ago that Bono would be buying Forbes. Times are
a changing.

Bob Miller

Randy Yates wrote:
"Jim L" writes:

Yes...OTA 8-VSB signals are picky. For one thing, the digital channels
have been moved UP in frequency from where the analogs were. These higher
frequencies don't propagate as well in hilly/forested terrain. Also, there
was some forgiveness in the analogs, as multipath showed up as some
ghosting, but you didn't loose the picture. You get alittle multipath with
8-VSB and you've lost your picture. No....there is no forgiveness with OTA
DTV here in the US. I only speak from my personal experience.

Regards, Jim

I thought they (e.g., Motorola) "solved" the 8-VSB multipath problem
years ago with "blind adaptive equalization." Not true?

That's funny!

Bob Miller

"Bob Miller" wrote
HDTV . . . Unfortunately it is not doing well on OTA FREE broadcasting
because of our choice of modulations. OTA broadcasting was supposed to
help HDTV, it hasn't, it has impeded it.

Bob Miller


To be so intensely motivated to lie like this indicates overwhelming
frustration and unresolved personal losses/grief. Really quite tragic.