Oz approches 2 million

In article . net,
Bob Miller wrote:

Yes the take up is high even though the coverage is low. The take up is
high even though the HD content in OZ is not as high as that in the US.

In other words the arguments that the US has more HD content and better
coverage should then be followed by the fact that the US has a very high
uptake of OTA.

We may have that now, but (and as a broadcaster you bear some
responsibility for this) HD (and digital) OTA in the US generally sucks.

TV stations have bad or maladjusted encoders, making HD look like a
bunch of small boxes.

TV stations were running at miniscule power levels until the FCC forced
them to run at higher power.

TV stations are barely admitting they even have a digital/HD simulcast.
How many even promote the HD version of their programs. I mean more than
the little stinger the networks stick into the open of a show.

TV stations have, on the average, WORSE SD pictures than a ghosty analog
feed.

TV stations don't seem to monitor their digital channels. How many times
have the commercials breaks gone to black just before they return to the
network feed, only to stay black, or stay SD?

And the networks themselves take some blame for the bad HD feeds, bad SD
upconversion, and screwing up the feeds all by themselves.

And now, the final knife in HD, and SD, TV stations are hell bent to run
a little multiplex of crappy TV services I'll bet even they don't watch.

I sell and install high end home theaters. I don't even tell customers
about OTA HD unless they watch specific shows. I go right to the
Discovery HD theater. It is too much trouble to explain why there is no
HD, or why the picture looks so bad. And I would not waste a customers
money on an OTA only tuner.

I don't suppose you count Dish and DirecTV HD boxes as OTA tuners do
you? Or consider that an HD cable box an equivalent since they do have
the local HD channels. Or note that a lot of TVs have HD tuners built
in.

And those LG guys built a dog of an OTA tuner with hard drive. I have
one, and the software sucks. They should get out of the OTA business.

But it doesn't. In spite of all the pluses of content and coverage the
fact is that in the US OTA is all but dead while in OZ it is growing
very well. And in other countries it is exploding.

See the above.

I guess the best thing to do is scrap the US system, and go COFDM. Nah,
it would still suck here.


In the US we have lots of mandated receivers going into homes where they
don't even know its there and if they do they don't bother to hook it up.

Bob Miller

Jeez, I'll bet you didn't whine when the government gave you your free
license to make money. Or a free channel to broadcast digital on.

And due to your (read broadcaster) lack of telling those folks who don't
have cable or satellite (and rely on OTA TV) that their TVs will be boat
anchors without the converters, you're right. They won't hook them up
till the last minute.

Oh, yeah, by the way, if you do use an OTA tuner, actual reception is
the least of your problems...

"David" wrote in message
...
"Camper" wrote in message
...


I'm glad your reception is good. I've read your ABC is sending out 720p
now. How does it look?

No system is perfect and I have nothing against any COFDM system, it's
only that there's an OCD-addled individual on this NG who's hell-bent on
the USA trading multipath for impulse noise and other drawbacks.

Why is he doing this? Well, he wants to be in the datacasting business,
but when our FCC rejected datacasting-friendly COFDM, he was denied
probably millions of dollars in potential profits.


ABC is broadcasting 720P, Seven network 576P with Nine and ten networks
1080I. The picture looks good on my Sharp LCD but a lot of programming is
not high definition. I would treat Bob's figures of 2,000,000 set top boxes
being sold as a bit rubbery. The govt has just indefinitely extended the
cut-off date of UHF and VHF broadcasting due to the relatively slow take-off
of digital (both standard and high definition).

"lnh" wrote

We may have that now, but (and as a broadcaster you bear some
responsibility for this) HD (and digital) OTA in the US generally sucks.

TV stations have bad or maladjusted encoders, making HD look like a
bunch of small boxes.

TV stations were running at miniscule power levels until the FCC forced
them to run at higher power.

TV stations are barely admitting they even have a digital/HD simulcast.
How many even promote the HD version of their programs. I mean more than
the little stinger the networks stick into the open of a show.

TV stations have, on the average, WORSE SD pictures than a ghosty analog
feed.

TV stations don't seem to monitor their digital channels. How many times
have the commercials breaks gone to black just before they return to the
network feed, only to stay black, or stay SD?

And the networks themselves take some blame for the bad HD feeds, bad SD
upconversion, and screwing up the feeds all by themselves.

And now, the final knife in HD, and SD, TV stations are hell bent to run
a little multiplex of crappy TV services I'll bet even they don't watch.

I sell and install high end home theaters. I don't even tell customers
about OTA HD unless they watch specific shows. I go right to the
Discovery HD theater. It is too much trouble to explain why there is no
HD, or why the picture looks so bad. And I would not waste a customers
money on an OTA only tuner.

I don't suppose you count Dish and DirecTV HD boxes as OTA tuners do
you? Or consider that an HD cable box an equivalent since they do have
the local HD channels. Or note that a lot of TVs have HD tuners built
in.

And those LG guys built a dog of an OTA tuner with hard drive. I have
one, and the software sucks. They should get out of the OTA business.

But it doesn't. In spite of all the pluses of content and coverage the
fact is that in the US OTA is all but dead while in OZ it is growing
very well. And in other countries it is exploding.

See the above.

I guess the best thing to do is scrap the US system, and go COFDM. Nah,
it would still suck here.


In the US we have lots of mandated receivers going into homes where they
don't even know its there and if they do they don't bother to hook it up.

Bob Miller

Jeez, I'll bet you didn't whine when the government gave you your free
license to make money. Or a free channel to broadcast digital on.

And due to your (read broadcaster) lack of telling those folks who don't
have cable or satellite (and rely on OTA TV) that their TVs will be boat
anchors without the converters, you're right. They won't hook them up
till the last minute.

Oh, yeah, by the way, if you do use an OTA tuner, actual reception is
the least of your problems...


This'll probably sound annoying, but here goes again:

We've been viewing OTA HDTV in the NYC area for about six years, using many
different receivers and computer cards.

According to a lot of HD OTA detractors, reception here in the shadow of two
mountain ranges, large trees surrounding the property and many busy airports
nearby, "won't work".

OTA HDTV here is incredible. It's immaculate. Reception is/has been
practically perfect.
Windy rain storms never cause any picture breakup.

Even SD is light-years ahead of NTSC in PQ here, unless it's some
multi-casted Creflo Dollar gobbidge.

The $20 CM antenna on the roof can be rotated 30 degrees in either
direction away from the transmitters and signal is still solid.

I can't understand why certain people seem to have trouble with OTA DTV.

lnh wrote:
In article . net,
Bob Miller wrote:

Yes the take up is high even though the coverage is low. The take up is
high even though the HD content in OZ is not as high as that in the US.

In other words the arguments that the US has more HD content and better
coverage should then be followed by the fact that the US has a very high
uptake of OTA.

We may have that now, but (and as a broadcaster you bear some
responsibility for this) HD (and digital) OTA in the US generally sucks.

TV stations have bad or maladjusted encoders, making HD look like a
bunch of small boxes.

TV stations were running at miniscule power levels until the FCC forced
them to run at higher power.

TV stations are barely admitting they even have a digital/HD simulcast.
How many even promote the HD version of their programs. I mean more than
the little stinger the networks stick into the open of a show.

TV stations have, on the average, WORSE SD pictures than a ghosty analog
feed.

TV stations don't seem to monitor their digital channels. How many times
have the commercials breaks gone to black just before they return to the
network feed, only to stay black, or stay SD?

And the networks themselves take some blame for the bad HD feeds, bad SD
upconversion, and screwing up the feeds all by themselves.

And now, the final knife in HD, and SD, TV stations are hell bent to run
a little multiplex of crappy TV services I'll bet even they don't watch.

I sell and install high end home theaters. I don't even tell customers
about OTA HD unless they watch specific shows. I go right to the
Discovery HD theater. It is too much trouble to explain why there is no
HD, or why the picture looks so bad. And I would not waste a customers
money on an OTA only tuner.

I don't suppose you count Dish and DirecTV HD boxes as OTA tuners do
you? Or consider that an HD cable box an equivalent since they do have
the local HD channels. Or note that a lot of TVs have HD tuners built
in.

And those LG guys built a dog of an OTA tuner with hard drive. I have
one, and the software sucks. They should get out of the OTA business.

But it doesn't. In spite of all the pluses of content and coverage the
fact is that in the US OTA is all but dead while in OZ it is growing
very well. And in other countries it is exploding.

See the above.

I guess the best thing to do is scrap the US system, and go COFDM. Nah,
it would still suck here.


In the US we have lots of mandated receivers going into homes where they
don't even know its there and if they do they don't bother to hook it up.

Bob Miller

Jeez, I'll bet you didn't whine when the government gave you your free
license to make money. Or a free channel to broadcast digital on.

I am whining about broadcasters, not one of them. I am whining about
their complete disinterest in their OTA spectrum. About the fact that
they allowed the CEA and the FCC to dictate the DTV modulation they
would use with little input.

And due to your (read broadcaster) lack of telling those folks who don't
have cable or satellite (and rely on OTA TV) that their TVs will be boat
anchors without the converters, you're right. They won't hook them up
till the last minute.

Broadcasters have a conflict of interest with their OTA spectrum. While
they need it and must broadcast on it to be eligible for must carry
rights on cable they do not want to see many customers on OTA since each
customer using OTA is a lost buck from the cable company.


Oh, yeah, by the way, if you do use an OTA tuner, actual reception is
the least of your problems...

What are the other problems? IMO reception does not have to be very bad
with digital to make it unacceptable. We canceled Dish because my wife
could not stand the outages that occurred because of intermittent
thunderstorms. These might have happened all of once a month or so but
they seemed to happen right in the middle of the Daily Show.

So even though reception may be deemed as good as NTSC. I believe that
is very hard to compare since a fuzzy picture of the Daily Show would be
far better than a drop out of a minute in our case.

In fact because of the very basic difference it is impossible to compare
the two objectively. Some people may be able to suffer drop outs more
than the fuzzies. Hare to understand but people continually post
pictures of their great DTV reception compared to fuzzy pics of analog
to prove DTV is better. They never mention how often if ever they have
drop outs.

Most people will just stop using DTV OTA after a few drop outs if they
continually happen. You will find their receivers on EBAY or in open box
specials.

Bob Miller

Camper wrote:
"David" wrote in message
...
"Camper" wrote in message
...
I'm glad your reception is good. I've read your ABC is sending out 720p
now. How does it look?

No system is perfect and I have nothing against any COFDM system, it's
only that there's an OCD-addled individual on this NG who's hell-bent on
the USA trading multipath for impulse noise and other drawbacks.

Why is he doing this? Well, he wants to be in the datacasting business,
but when our FCC rejected datacasting-friendly COFDM, he was denied
probably millions of dollars in potential profits.


ABC is broadcasting 720P, Seven network 576P with Nine and ten networks
1080I. The picture looks good on my Sharp LCD but a lot of programming is
not high definition. I would treat Bob's figures of 2,000,000 set top boxes
being sold as a bit rubbery. The govt has just indefinitely extended the
cut-off date of UHF and VHF broadcasting due to the relatively slow take-off
of digital (both standard and high definition).


Said approaching 2 million, sales of 1.74 million so far. You only have
19 million people so you can't have more than 5 million homes so this is
a lot.

http://www.dba.org.au/index.asp?sect...7&display=news

If you look at this chart for the end of June 06 it is looking a lot
more like a hockey puck lately. My now, the 19 of August, we could be
very close to 2 million OTA receivers sold in OZ.

In fact sales went up 500,000 in the six months from December 05 to June
06. If we believe that they just maintained that pace, not an
accelerated one the chart would suggest, we would have seen sales of at
least 165,000 or so since the end of June. That would take us over 1.9
million sold so far.

If we add in the acceleration the chart suggest we are right on 2
million which I suggest you are approaching.

And yes isn't it interesting that in OZ where you don't have any mandate
that forces the purchase of receivers, your upset at a FREE sales rate
of OTA DTV receivers that is far higher than that in the US ever was.

TWO in EVERY FIVE HOMES have FREELY purchased an OTA receiver and that
might mean that when they took it home they ACTUALLY PLUGGED IT IN AND
USED IT.

AND MAYBE EVEN KNEW WHAT IT WAS FOR!!!

Just slightly different situation.

50% of US homes who have OTA or ANY kind of HDTV equipment don\'t even
have any HD hooked up to their HDTV.

http://www.tvweek.com/page.cms?pageId=238
http://blogs.news-journalonline.com/...bout_hdtv.html

OZ consumers I suspect only buy OTA receivers so that they can use them.
US consumers buy them so that Congress can fulfill it obligation to make
sure that special interest are paid back for their contributions to our
corrupt political system.

US consumers are not in the loop, DC or otherwise. They are purposefully
kept in the dark by the TV industry, Congress and the FCC so that they
can pursue non consumer, non citizen agendas. TV doesn't cover TV in the US.

Bob Miller

David wrote:
"lnh" wrote

We may have that now, but (and as a broadcaster you bear some
responsibility for this) HD (and digital) OTA in the US generally sucks.

TV stations have bad or maladjusted encoders, making HD look like a
bunch of small boxes.

TV stations were running at miniscule power levels until the FCC forced
them to run at higher power.

TV stations are barely admitting they even have a digital/HD simulcast.
How many even promote the HD version of their programs. I mean more than
the little stinger the networks stick into the open of a show.

TV stations have, on the average, WORSE SD pictures than a ghosty analog
feed.

TV stations don't seem to monitor their digital channels. How many times
have the commercials breaks gone to black just before they return to the
network feed, only to stay black, or stay SD?

And the networks themselves take some blame for the bad HD feeds, bad SD
upconversion, and screwing up the feeds all by themselves.

And now, the final knife in HD, and SD, TV stations are hell bent to run
a little multiplex of crappy TV services I'll bet even they don't watch.

I sell and install high end home theaters. I don't even tell customers
about OTA HD unless they watch specific shows. I go right to the
Discovery HD theater. It is too much trouble to explain why there is no
HD, or why the picture looks so bad. And I would not waste a customers
money on an OTA only tuner.

I don't suppose you count Dish and DirecTV HD boxes as OTA tuners do
you? Or consider that an HD cable box an equivalent since they do have
the local HD channels. Or note that a lot of TVs have HD tuners built
in.

And those LG guys built a dog of an OTA tuner with hard drive. I have
one, and the software sucks. They should get out of the OTA business.

But it doesn't. In spite of all the pluses of content and coverage the
fact is that in the US OTA is all but dead while in OZ it is growing
very well. And in other countries it is exploding.
See the above.

I guess the best thing to do is scrap the US system, and go COFDM. Nah,
it would still suck here.


In the US we have lots of mandated receivers going into homes where they
don't even know its there and if they do they don't bother to hook it up.

Bob Miller
Jeez, I'll bet you didn't whine when the government gave you your free
license to make money. Or a free channel to broadcast digital on.

And due to your (read broadcaster) lack of telling those folks who don't
have cable or satellite (and rely on OTA TV) that their TVs will be boat
anchors without the converters, you're right. They won't hook them up
till the last minute.

Oh, yeah, by the way, if you do use an OTA tuner, actual reception is
the least of your problems...


This'll probably sound annoying, but here goes again:

We've been viewing OTA HDTV in the NYC area for about six years, using many
different receivers and computer cards.

According to a lot of HD OTA detractors, reception here in the shadow of two
mountain ranges, large trees surrounding the property and many busy airports
nearby, "won't work".

OTA HDTV here is incredible. It's immaculate. Reception is/has been
practically perfect.
Windy rain storms never cause any picture breakup.

Even SD is light-years ahead of NTSC in PQ here, unless it's some
multi-casted Creflo Dollar gobbidge.

The $20 CM antenna on the roof can be rotated 30 degrees in either
direction away from the transmitters and signal is still solid.

I can't understand why certain people seem to have trouble with OTA DTV.


It is not certain people it is certain locations. The fact that your
location works well has absolutely no bearing on the fact that reception
can be a bear or non existent at another location. Or that many
locations are not allowed to put that rooftop antenna up because they
have on access to or rights to their roof.

Your obstinate belief that because you have no problem it must be OTHER
people that have a problem is not helpful. This country is composed of
at least 295 million other people who are not you and don't live where
you live. Some of them may not even be as smart as you or as clever.
That does not mean that they don't have the right to expect their
representatives to pick the best modulation and one that would work for
them as well as you.

The unfortunate fact is that they don't have many rights when it comes
to their representatives in DC choosing a proper modulation so that they
too can enjoy HD on their public free airwaves.

Bob Miller

"Bob Miller" wrote in message
ink.net...
David wrote:
"lnh" wrote

We may have that now, but (and as a broadcaster you bear some
responsibility for this) HD (and digital) OTA in the US generally sucks.

TV stations have bad or maladjusted encoders, making HD look like a
bunch of small boxes.

TV stations were running at miniscule power levels until the FCC forced
them to run at higher power.

TV stations are barely admitting they even have a digital/HD simulcast.
How many even promote the HD version of their programs. I mean more than
the little stinger the networks stick into the open of a show.

TV stations have, on the average, WORSE SD pictures than a ghosty analog
feed.

TV stations don't seem to monitor their digital channels. How many times
have the commercials breaks gone to black just before they return to the
network feed, only to stay black, or stay SD?

And the networks themselves take some blame for the bad HD feeds, bad SD
upconversion, and screwing up the feeds all by themselves.

And now, the final knife in HD, and SD, TV stations are hell bent to run
a little multiplex of crappy TV services I'll bet even they don't watch.

I sell and install high end home theaters. I don't even tell customers
about OTA HD unless they watch specific shows. I go right to the
Discovery HD theater. It is too much trouble to explain why there is no
HD, or why the picture looks so bad. And I would not waste a customers
money on an OTA only tuner.

I don't suppose you count Dish and DirecTV HD boxes as OTA tuners do
you? Or consider that an HD cable box an equivalent since they do have
the local HD channels. Or note that a lot of TVs have HD tuners built
in.

And those LG guys built a dog of an OTA tuner with hard drive. I have
one, and the software sucks. They should get out of the OTA business.

But it doesn't. In spite of all the pluses of content and coverage the
fact is that in the US OTA is all but dead while in OZ it is growing
very well. And in other countries it is exploding.
See the above.

I guess the best thing to do is scrap the US system, and go COFDM. Nah,
it would still suck here.


In the US we have lots of mandated receivers going into homes where
they
don't even know its there and if they do they don't bother to hook it
up.

Bob Miller
Jeez, I'll bet you didn't whine when the government gave you your free
license to make money. Or a free channel to broadcast digital on.

And due to your (read broadcaster) lack of telling those folks who don't
have cable or satellite (and rely on OTA TV) that their TVs will be boat
anchors without the converters, you're right. They won't hook them up
till the last minute.

Oh, yeah, by the way, if you do use an OTA tuner, actual reception is
the least of your problems...


This'll probably sound annoying, but here goes again:

We've been viewing OTA HDTV in the NYC area for about six years, using
many different receivers and computer cards.

According to a lot of HD OTA detractors, reception here in the shadow of
two mountain ranges, large trees surrounding the property and many busy
airports nearby, "won't work".

OTA HDTV here is incredible. It's immaculate. Reception is/has been
practically perfect.
Windy rain storms never cause any picture breakup.

Even SD is light-years ahead of NTSC in PQ here, unless it's some
multi-casted Creflo Dollar gobbidge.

The $20 CM antenna on the roof can be rotated 30 degrees in either
direction away from the transmitters and signal is still solid.

I can't understand why certain people seem to have trouble with OTA DTV.
It is not certain people it is certain locations. The fact that your
location works well has absolutely no bearing on the fact that reception
can be a bear or non existent at another location. Or that many locations
are not allowed to put that rooftop antenna up because they have on access
to or rights to their roof.

Your obstinate belief that because you have no problem it must be OTHER
people that have a problem is not helpful. This country is composed of at
least 295 million other people who are not you and don't live where you
live. Some of them may not even be as smart as you or as clever. That does
not mean that they don't have the right to expect their representatives to
pick the best modulation and one that would work for them as well as you.

The unfortunate fact is that they don't have many rights when it comes to
their representatives in DC choosing a proper modulation so that they too
can enjoy HD on their public free airwaves.

Bob Miller


So, when our government rejected you and your COFDM/datacasting contrivance,
just how many [potential] millions of dollars do you think you were denied?