is OTA TV doomed?

On Mon, 28 Aug 2006 20:29:49 -0400, "Elmo P. Shagnasty"
wrote:

In article ,
"Gonzo" wrote:

Thrifty people saving their money and getting their TV for free just irks
the living hell out of you doesn't it? Again, get a damn life.

The man did not even say anything negative about your precious Cable and
here you go off with your bull**** biased Cable crusade.

It's getting old Thumper. Deep six it or I will write a letter Time Warner
to have them fire one of their cable installers for unwarranted harassment
on the Usenet.

cute.

Now, what do you have to say about MY post on the subject?


Hang in there Elmo.
Thumper

On Tue, 29 Aug 2006 00:13:50 GMT, "Gonzo"
wrote:

"Elmo P. Shagnasty" wrote in message
...
In article [email protected],
Wes Newell wrote:

Mark my words. OTA HDTV will never go away in my lifetime. You can take
that to the bank.

Well, we'll see.

But remember: Congress merely mandated digital transmission. It didn't
mandate HD.

Woop di doo!

If they weren't going to HD they would not have started so early in the
game.

Newsflash for ya: Broacasters actually WANT to reach the advertising
clients with HD OTA and what better way to do that than with HD.

Which advertisment will stand out the most, an HD one or a SD one? I
swear, common sense would befuddle those educated well beyond their
intelligence.

FYI, the market will dictate that HD OTA will rule!


Now I know you need mental help.
Thumper
The Thumper Brigade and cable & satelite companies can bitch all they want.
We don't care. We are going back to the good old days of free OTA TV, HD or
not regardless.

wrote:
On Tue, 29 Aug 2006 04:32:24 GMT Bob Miller wrote:

| If they can make one dollar more with five channels than with one HD
| guess which way they will go. They can force cable to carry all five SD
| channels via must carry of multicasting law and sell them the same
| programs in HD for cables HD tier. Cable will want the HD and pay for it
| while being forced to carry the multicast five SD channels.

Regardless of how they arrange it, their 6 MHz of channels will take up
3 MHz on cable, when carried digitally. That's why I support multicast
must-carry in the cases where the cable carries the station using digital
modulation.


| And broadcasters can also sell HD OTA while delivering one SD program to
| satisfy Congress.
|
| What broadcasters will not do is give away HD free OTA for very long. At
| least not long after they get multicast must carry.

Then we'll need to add to the MCMC rule that says an entire station is
not under MCMC if they elect to not be, and if they scramble any channel
OTA, they have made that election. Or better yet, prohibit it entirely.
We'll leave the scrambled pay TV on the auctioned channels (just for you,
Bob).

That would be nice but not to the point.

The channels they scramble OTA and which they will sell there in
subscription form will not be forced on cable. Either the broadcaster
will not want it on cable for competitive reasons, they want to kill
cable altogether for instance, or they will be charging cable a similar
amount to what they charge their OTA customers.

If any OTA broadcaster has content that cable wants they will sell it.
The rest they force them to carry. I think any HD version of content
will almost by definition be premium content and will be sold to cable.

Because the broadcaster has a limited size station, 6 MHz, they will
possibly want to sell the HD version of a program to cable while selling
the SD or ED version OTA.

They have to maximize profits. If any broadcaster makes more money doing
what I describe all broadcasters will have to consider doing it subject
to their special case.

Can't imagine the maximum profit model for OTA broadcasters being one
where they continue to offer their best content HD OTA for free while
letting cable charge for it.

Depending on how strongly they control that must have content they will
either sell it OTA and on cable, deny cable access to it while selling
it OTA to increase the value of their OTA spectrum or offering it free
OTA if they can make oddles of money that way but with the TIVO
phenomenon can't see that yet.

Best bet seems to be sell it anyway they can. Since OTA is hamstrung by
a poor codec and modulation selling their best HD content there is
problematic. So they will sell it OTA and on cable IMO.

If they had the best codec and modulation their best bet would be to
deny cable and satellite this content and only sell it OTA IMO.

Bob Miller

wrote:
On Tue, 29 Aug 2006 04:20:53 GMT Bob Miller wrote:

| OTA subscription services are just beginning. Can't judge digital OTA
| subscription services by past failures of analog TV subscription services.

Why not? What has changed that is important to the viewer (who really
does not care about modulation, or in most cases, even know what that
word even means).

Of course, if the programming is different, including number of programs,
then perhaps it could succeed, now.


Obviously with the right codec and modulation like they have in France
they have a very different situation. They can offer up to six times the
programming that analog could in SD and that could rise to over ten and
even as much as 16 times the programming per channel in SD that analog
could.

And that programming would be received at higher quality than OTA analog
was/is. Or they could offer 2 to 3 times the programming that analog did
but in HD and more later as MPEG4 AVC matures. Or something in between
like ED or a combination of the three, ED, SD and HD.

You say at the end "Of course" but why didn't you start that way? Why
did you even make the first statement? Who has ever told you that the
viewer cares about modulation or codec?

It is blatantly obvious that the viewer does not care about modulation
or know about it. They also don't know how their car operates and don't
care.

The whole point of this newsgroup is to talk about the digital
transition. The assumption going in is that we all agree that digital
brings new possibilities to OTA. So why are you arguing that? No one
else is.

Bob Miller

Thumper wrote:
snip
Wes Newell
WTF are you talking about. With 4 HDTV tuner cards in my server I'm
not
stuck on anyones schedule. And I pick what I want to watch now. And
it
doesn't cost me a monthly fee either. An dso I only watch just OK
stuff
huh. You don't have a clue what I watch. How fricking stupid are
you to
even make such a statement. I've seen some cable shows. They
sucked. My
opinion is that the good stuff is on the free networks and the
cable stuff
on whole I wouldn't even consider OK.


You are really making an ass of yourself now. You have the nerve to
call him stupid and then deny the obvious fact that Cable content is
head and shoulders above network tv? What a joke.

I have cable and it seems like half of it is old network reruns. How
can that be head and shoulders above ? Of course it is Cox ....

GG

wrote:
On Sun, 27 Aug 2006 10:37:28 -0400 Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:

| In article ,
| wrote:
|
| And this is why OTA digital will move from HD to SD. More is better.
| At best, HD OTA will be sold on a subscription basis.
|
| Really, and how will that be done?
|
| Easy. The groundwork is already there; it's a digital signal. Just
| force a gasp! set top box on them if they want to decrypt the HD
| signal.
|
| Otherwise, they can settle for the 4 channels of SD that the broadcaster
| is putting out.
|
| More is better. This is America, baby.

Well, let's go make a rule that requires them to leave the entire 6 MHz
of free spectrum unscrambled. If they want to run a subscription service,
they need to buy auction channels like the others do.

That would seem reasonable but that is not the way it happened.

What happened was that broadcasters, who got their original spectrum for
free, were given more spectrum to transition to digital.

That is they were LOANED more spectrum. Actually legally they are only
given a license to operate any spectrum they have. But in the real world
we all talk about them owning it because that is the reality.

Broadcasters, because of their political clout, own their spectrum, in
the real sense of OWN, more than you do your house. It would be
infinitely more difficult to take their spectrum away from them than to
take your house or your wife or kids for that matter.

Example; Broadcasters were loaned spectrum for the digital transition
which was supposed to end THIS year. Instead they dragged their feet on
the transition since what they really wanted was to hold on to this
spectrum forever. In fact keeping channels 52-69 in the TV fold was the
reason they suggested HDTV in the first place. They never thought they
would have to actually broadcast the stuff.

But they lost. First auctions of 52-69 were set up but blocked since
1999. They a couple got through, channels 54, 55 and 59 were actually
auctioned off. But what was the understanding?

The understanding was the those who actually purchased these channels
couldn't actually use them till broadcasters stopped using them and the
UNDERSTANDING was that those auction winners were supposed to PAY off
those broadcasters with BILLIONS of $$$$.

Broadcasters have delayed the transition by allowing a faulty
modulation, dragging their feet on getting on the air, demanding
multicast must carry, demanding payoffs for leaving their loaned
channels early and delaying the auctions and transition date for as long
as possible.

They are good as this.

And it is possible that in the train wreck that is coming in 2009 they
will use the disaster to delay again. Everything points to this happening.

Bob Miller

Wes Newell wrote:

And you are just refusing to recognize that a person can only watch so
much TV in a 24hr period. And there's more for free OTA than I can
possibly watch. I don't care about the Sapranos and the jerk ass mafia
punks. I don't care about 1000 cooking shows.

This is how I feel as well

What people don't seem to "get" is that its the TIME
SHIFTING where the power lives. Whether it be with tape
or hard drives or DVD's doesn't really matter..as long
as you can do it.

By that I mean as long as you can record and time shift
then off air reception has so much it cant be watched!

On 29 Aug 2006 11:36:29 -0700, "G-squared"
wrote:


Thumper wrote:
snip
Wes Newell
WTF are you talking about. With 4 HDTV tuner cards in my server I'm
not
stuck on anyones schedule. And I pick what I want to watch now. And
it
doesn't cost me a monthly fee either. An dso I only watch just OK
stuff
huh. You don't have a clue what I watch. How fricking stupid are
you to
even make such a statement. I've seen some cable shows. They
sucked. My
opinion is that the good stuff is on the free networks and the
cable stuff
on whole I wouldn't even consider OK.


You are really making an ass of yourself now. You have the nerve to
call him stupid and then deny the obvious fact that Cable content is
head and shoulders above network tv? What a joke.

I have cable and it seems like half of it is old network reruns. How
can that be head and shoulders above ? Of course it is Cox ....

GG


Do you subscribe to HBO or other premium channels?
Thumper

On Tue, 29 Aug 2006 19:49:29 -0400, "Elmo P. Shagnasty"
wrote:

In article ,
wrote:

| OTA subscription services are just beginning. Can't judge digital OTA
| subscription services by past failures of analog TV subscription services.

Why not? What has changed that is important to the viewer (who really
does not care about modulation, or in most cases, even know what that
word even means).

Of course, if the programming is different, including number of programs,
then perhaps it could succeed, now.

What they will sell is superior image quality, combined with programming
that takes advantage of it.

With previous efforts at pay TV delivered analog OTA, with a new
infrastructure that had to be set up separately to deliver it, it was
bound to fail.

But now the digital infrastructure is there, mandated by Congress, and
the customers are there, those who would watch grass grow as long as it
was in HD.

Some in this newsgroup complained that NBC's broadcast of the Emmy
Award show was not available in HD.

Most of the folks appearing on that show, including the theatre
audience, probably didn't want to be viewed in High Definition.

"Bob Miller" wrote in message
nk.net...
Gonzo wrote:
"Elmo P. Shagnasty" wrote in message
...
In article [email protected],
Wes Newell wrote:

Mark my words. OTA HDTV will never go away in my lifetime. You can take
that to the bank.
Well, we'll see.

But remember: Congress merely mandated digital transmission. It didn't
mandate HD.

Woop di doo!

If they weren't going to HD they would not have started so early in the
game.

Newsflash for ya: Broacasters actually WANT to reach the advertising
clients with HD OTA and what better way to do that than with HD.

Then why are so few ads produced in HD?


Which advertisment will stand out the most, an HD one or a SD one? I
swear, common sense would befuddle those educated well beyond their
intelligence.

FYI, the market will dictate that HD OTA will rule!

Then why have the broadcasters been so intent, spent so much money on
multicast must carry? Seems they are obsessed with this. So you say they
won't use it if they get it? Seems strange.

Bob Miller

The Thumper Brigade and cable & satelite companies can bitch all they
want. We don't care. We are going back to the good old days of free OTA
TV, HD or not regardless.

No HD adds because most people are still SD. That will change when the
mandate gets here.

We can debate this till we are blue in the face and it won't matter. You
can both hold our perceived "I told you so"s until that date gets here.