More Evidence of the Death of OTA

"Bob Miller" wrote

The 8-VSB Frankenstein is killing free OTA TV.

I thought it was killing dorky mobile-advertising companies, like yours?

Jeff Shoaf wrote:
Bob Miller wrote:
Jeff Shoaf wrote:
Bob Miller wrote:


The business model that relied on OTA analog broadcasting broke years
ago and was replaced by cable and satellite. The OTA part broke. First
it was not able to reliably be received by a large portion of the
population.

I've never seen any indication that analog OTA could not be received by
a large portion of the population. The push to satellite and cable was
driven by the availability of much more content at a reasonable price.
Now there's some backlash due to sat and cable prices going up. And up.
And up.

The push to cable was a direct result of the reception problems of OTA
analog. The first cable companies ONLY rebroadcast on cable what was
receivable OTA. There were NO other "cable" channels or as you say "more
content". If OTA had worked well the cable industry would have not
gotten off the ground till much later when "cable content" became
available. But how would cable content have become available if there
was no cable to begin with?

Someone would have had to come up with the concept that people would pay
for more content then they could get OTA and then found the money to
build a cable company. A much bigger, FedEX, type startup then to just
add content to cable infrastructure that already existed because of the
reception problems of OTA.

As now with digital many people got very good reception.

Bob, is that really you? Are you really admitting that many people get
very good reception?

I have always been happy to accept the 70% figure that MSTV came up for
over all decent digital reception and 30% decent inner city reception
for 8-VSB. And with the advent of 5th gen receivers I even would accept
a much higher figure. But I don't believe that OTA can survive with even
a 95% OTA decent reception to fixed receivers number. I don't think OTA
can survive without a mobile and portable reception capability.

My survive OTA numbers would be something like 95% overall, 98% inner
city and 75% mobile general, 98% inner city. Anything less bye bye OTA
8-VSB.

But given the
option of new business models, cable and satellite, 87% of the public
has abandoned OTA.

Where did your "87%" come from? Regardless of whether that's correct or
not, a lot of folks are moving back to OTA either to get rid of their
cable/sat bill or to supplement their cable/sat with free OTA HD.


I have posted numbers here that suggest that the number is more like 5%
of viewers who still depend on OTA. If you add up published numbers for
cable and satellite, add in the 2-3% who have NO TV and want NO TV, add
in the percents that cable and satellite say are stealing their product
and you get to near 3%.

Commonly accepted numbers by all sides of this issue are in the 83 to 87%.

In other countries with better digital modulations new business models
that include free HDTV, free SDTV, pay SDTV, free digital radio and
data are booming.

Any links to prove any of this? What other country has anywhere near the
amount of free OTA HD available that the US has? Or, even though it's
off-topic here, anywhere near the amount of free SDTV?

Germany offers 20 channels of free DTV plus a bunch of free digital
radio with the same inexpensive DTV OTA receiver.

The UK offers 30 free channels of DTV with 12 digital radio stations off
the same Freeview receiver.

Japan offers quite a lot of free HDTV. Same with Australia.

France is now offering free OTA SD and will offer pay HD OTA soon.

Italy offers free OTA SD. It goes on. Do some Googling. Here is a start.

http://www.dba.org.au/index.asp?sectionID=13
http://www.dba.org.au/index.asp?sectionID=126
http://www.freeview.co.uk/channels/?lv[0]=channels

And though it's totally off-topic for this group, where is pay OTA SDTV,
digital radio, and/or data booming? And who cares about one-way data
broadcasting?



All these other countries are different from the US, Canada, Mexico
and S. Korea and different from each other.

Remember this...


One thing they have in common are DTV modulations based on COFDM that
solves the problem of dynamic and static multipath. One thing in
common the countries that are failing at digital DTV is 8-VSB, a
modulation that does not solve the problems of dynamic and static
multipath.

Where is 8-VSB DTV failing? Certainly not in the US despite your
continuous assertion's.

Certainly failing in the US. Maybe a 1-3% penetration after NINE years.
France has a 20% penetration after ONE year in the half of the country
covered.

And, as you yourself mentioned above, different countries are different
and have different needs. You yourself have previously talked about
COFDM needing repeaters to cover the distances needed in the US. From
personal experience, the current standard in the US covers these same
distance easily.

COFDM DOES NOT need repeaters to do anything that 8-VSB can do and do it
far better. COFDM CAN use repeaters, something that 8-VSB professes to
be able to do but which they don't do and which I doubt very much. They
can pretend to do it but they can't really do it.

DVB-T/H, ISDB-T and DMB-TH all can do ON CHANNEL repeaters and can do
SFNs both of which 8-VSB is 'challenged' by.

The US analog TV broadcast network uses repeaters to cover about 30% of
the US. They don't have enough spectrum to use repeaters for that 30%
for digital. That is a PROBLEM! It would be nice if they could use the
SAME channel to repeat wouldn't it? Then you wouldn't need all those
repeaters on spectrum we DON'T have.

USDTV was/is/will fail not because it is a pay service but because it
tries use 8-VSB to deliver the service. The fact that it has a limited
choice and limited bandwidth doesn't help but is not as crucial as the
huge wasted effort in truck rolls to customers that can not get a
reliable signal.

And that is true even though USDTV cherry picked their first
locations, Salt Lake City and Las Vegas for their bowl like terrain
and lack of forest.

Nope. USDTV was/is/will fail because folks interested in a pay service
already have a pay service. If USDTV were to move into an area not
already covered by cable, they might have a chance. As things stand now,
there's no compelling reason for consumers to switch from cable to USDTV.


There is a very compelling reason to switch to an OTA pay service, a
lower price. An OTA pay service will have 10% of the cost of a cable
system to deliver the content. It is working in the UK where they have
cable and satellite. The cost to set up an OTA pay system is minimal and
customers can be added with a phone call if the modulation works.

You can offer services that cable and satellite don't like mobile.
XMRadio and Sirius both plan on offering DTV. Both are spectrum
challenged. OTA terrestrial kills all other forms of DTV and digital
radio. It kills analog radio. The only competition OTA DTV has, done
right, is point to point wireless broadband.

But IMO they will be done as a package, wireless OTA broadcasting to
mobile and fixed wireless to fixed in home receivers. Nothing else survives.

In fact add in cell phone service to that package. All three wireless
services, nothing wired in house or out. Nothing else survives. Wireless
spectrum is virtually infinite.

Look Ma no wires, no fiber, no telephone company, no cable company, no
satellite company, no cell company. Just IP broadband wireless.

Bob Miller


Bob Miller

dmaster wrote:
Bob Miller wrote:
In the past I have noted that broadcasters in the US (most) would love
to just turn off their OTA transmitters if they only could retain must
carry rights on cable and even better if they could get and retain
multicast must carry. They haven't got multicast must carry so far to
they will continue as they are until they have it or believe they have
no chance of getting it.

I actually agree that as least *some* OTA broadcasters probably would
like to become purely cable and satelite content providers. Probably
makes business sense for them.

But if that were settled they would love to just turn off those
transmitters and save the electric bill. One reason for this is our
lousy modulation which ALLOWS FOR NO BUSINESS MODEL THAT MAKES SENSE.

And now I have to disagree as once again your little choo-choo train of
thought pulls over onto the usual rarely used siding.

...
Here is what they are doing in Canada. It is a bit more transparent
there you see but it is the same thing happening. Broadcasters wanting
to abandon OTA while in other countries OTA is going bananas.

This could well be true, but *not* for the reason you keep harping on.

It is very simple. If Canada had a COFDM modulation they would have more
OTA receivers today than homes. If they had COFDM modulation they would
be going bonkers with OTA and cable and satellite would be screaming uncle.

...
available without cable or satellite. The industry argues that between
80 and 90 per cent of Canadians are cable or satellite subscribers, so
the conventional broadcasting method can soon be eliminated. That could
save costs for the networks, who would otherwise have to spend millions
updating the infrastructure.
...
This is the part you refuse to see.

I absolutely see it and it is totally bogus.

It's not just modulation technique
that makes the U.S.A. and Canada unique. It's the nearly universal
availability of alternate content delivery mechanisms: cable TV and
Satelite TV. Haven't you noticed that *all* the markets you trumpet
for their booming OTA activity *DON'T* have alternate content delivery
mechanisms available to most people? Do you get it?

I get the fact that nations like Japan that have cable and satellite
similar to us, similar uptake, even HDTV satellite for years and years,
are going bonkers for OTA free HD. Germany where they have a higher
percentage of cable and satellite customers than the US has a 30%
penetration of OTA receivers even though the country is not fully OTA
DTV yet.

It is NOT cable and satellite penetration that limits OTA in these
countries and it is not in the US or Canada either. It is the lack of a
decent modulation so that decent OTA business plans can offer decent
content free or for a decent price.


It's not the
modulation scheme that hampers the acceptance of OTA DTV in the U.S.A.,
it's the choices! I'll argue that even if a *hugely* more capable
scheme could be implemented (which is ludicrous given the amount of
money already spent be broadcasters and consumers for a perfectly
workable system), it wouldn't change things much at all. I'll even bet
that at this point, the only thing that would really make a difference
is a big jump in the price of cable and satelite reception, or a big
drop in the amount of cable and satelite content.

Or a new offering that could easily be received both mobile and fixed at
a lower cost for selected content. Or maybe many new providers of free
and pay per view and ala carte services that cover all bases and offer
myriad new choices.

A big drop in cost of content along with a drop in amount of content.
But all that is up in the air. There could be a lot lot lot of content
delivered over channel 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59 and Crown Castles
5 MHz. Especially when you are using MPEG4 AVC and especially as it matures.

Well we are going to see aren't we. There are a number of COFDM based
DTV ventures coming to the US. Qualcomm will broadcast DTV to cell
phones and other smaller devices. Crown Castle will do the same but
possibly targeting larger screens as well. HiWire will target both
mobile and fixed TV sets. Others will offer more mobile/fixed services
after the 2008 FCC auctions of channels 52, 53, 56, 57 and 58.

Even XMRadio and Sirius plan on getting in on the action. At least they
say they will.

SO your "ludicrous" statement should be directed to them. Qualcomm
already has spent 800 million they say. Billions will be spent trying to
do what current broadcasters don't want to do, can't do because of their
modulation.

They will change modulations or they will be asking the FCC to let them
turn off their transmitters just like the Canadians.

And it is ALL about the modulation. We will see it right here in the
USA. One set of broadcasters going wild with OTA broadcasting using
COFDM while another group want to shut off their 8-VSB transmitters to
save electricity cost.

Bob Miller


...

Dan (Woj...)

"Bob Miller" wrote

....One set of broadcasters going wild with OTA broadcasting using
COFDM while another group want to shut off their 8-VSB transmitters to
save electricity cost.

Bob, this is a fantasy and a lie. Everyone who reads your posts knows it is
a fantasy and a lie. Give it up. In all your posts, no one, NOT ONE person
has been suckered in. You are a loser. Go away, find another interest, and
get an honest life.

Dave Gower wrote:
"Bob Miller" wrote

...One set of broadcasters going wild with OTA broadcasting using
COFDM while another group want to shut off their 8-VSB transmitters to
save electricity cost.

Bob, this is a fantasy and a lie. Everyone who reads your posts knows it is
a fantasy and a lie. Give it up. In all your posts, no one, NOT ONE person
has been suckered in. You are a loser. Go away, find another interest, and
get an honest life.


You wish but unfortunately it is the truth.

http://www.betanews.com/article/Cana..._TV/1164755790

"CTV estimates the capital cost of converting its 114 transmitters at
more than $200 million. Since the vast majority of Canadian TV viewers
do not access their TV by antennae ("over-the-air"), it's urging the
CRTC to allow conventional broadcasters to "transition to digital and HD
transmission without the obligation to provide digital over-the-air
facilities and to gradually phase out analog transmitters." "

That is in Canada but the same conversation goes on in the US.
Broadcasters have told me that it makes no sense to keep their analog
transmitters on in most markets. The demographics of those who still
rely on OTA analog is pathetic and the number of those who actually use
digital OTA is more pathetic.

All US and Canadian broadcasters I have talked to said other than in key
cities they would turn off their analog transmitters.

And in ALL cases they would not have turned on their digital
transmitters with 8-VSB except for the fact that they had to to stay in
business with must carry.

No fantasies here.

And a number of Canadian broadcasters agreed that if they could have
they would have gone on the air years ago with COFDM and loved it.

Same with Sinclair, ABC, NBC, Pappas and Granite here in the US.

Bob Miller

On Wed, 29 Nov 2006, Bob Miller wrote:
It is very simple. If Canada had a COFDM modulation they would have more OTA
receivers today than homes. If they had COFDM modulation they would be going
bonkers with OTA and cable and satellite would be screaming uncle.

So, people in Fort Doggerel NWT will stop using satellite in favor of
COFDM based OTA? HAR HAR HAR!

I get the fact that nations like Japan that have cable and satellite similar
to us, similar uptake, even HDTV satellite for years and years, are going
bonkers for OTA free HD.

Bull****. Pure, unadulterated, Psycho Bob bull****.

Unlike Psycho Bob, I actually know something about the situation in Japan.

Psycho Bob intentionally confuses receivers that have OTA HD tuners with
OTA HDTV households. There is still very limited free OTA HDTV in Japan.
Most HDTV households are cable or satellite, and have been for many years.
Japan's COFDM-based OTA HDTV broadcasts can only be received in limited
areas (not even all of Tokyo!).

This is the same Psycho Bob who downplays HDTV sales in the US, claiming
that hardly anyone who bought an HDTV set is actually watching HDTV.

This is the same Psycho Bob who tried to convince us that one-seg is the
same as OTA television.

Germany where they have a higher percentage of cable
and satellite customers than the US has a 30% penetration of OTA receivers
even though the country is not fully OTA DTV yet.

Germany switched off analog, didn't they? And where is Germany's HDTV?

-- Mark --

http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.

Bob Miller writes:
[...]
One set of broadcasters going wild with OTA broadcasting using COFDM
while another group want to shut off their 8-VSB transmitters to
save electricity cost.

Bob,

I sm so tired of your false, misleading statements that it is time for
all to see that your pants are down around your ankles.

Just exactly what are your credentials? Do you have a degree in
electrical engineering? Have you studied digital communication theory?
Have you studied groups, rings and fields in abstract algebra? Do you
know what a Galois field is and how it is applied in FEC block codes?
Do you even know the difference between a block code and a
convolutional code? Do you understand the concept of trellis coding?
Do you know what the term "sufficient statistics" means? Can you show
how a correlation receiver is the optimal receiver for minimizing
the probability of symbol error? Do you understand Shannon's capacity
theorem, and can you tell me the significance of the number -1.6 dB?

I doubt it. Your statement above belies your ignorance. In fact, your
entire rant of "COFDM good/8-VSB bad" belies your ignorance of
digital communication theory.

Let me explain something to you, Bob. COFDM IN AND OF ITSELF DOES NOT
GUARANTEE ANY ADVANTAGE WHATSOEVER OVER 8-VSB. That's right. That's
because you're comparing apples to oranges. It's like saying a Chevy
350 V-8 engine is superior to Ford's C6 transmission. THEY'RE TOTALLY
DIFFERENT THINGS!

Now read this carefully: OFDM DOES NOT DICTATE A SPECIFIC MODULATION!
That's right. OFDM is in reality a type of access method known more
generally as frequency division multiplexing. The *modulation* used in
each individual carrier of an OFDM signal can be anything: BPSK, QAM,
or even (ha!) 8-VSB. OFDM is a multi-carrier method as opposed to
a single-carrier method (like plain old BPSK, 16-QAM, FSK, etc.).

Now, also get this, which is to the false point you made above. For
any given modulation, OFDM is actually LESS power efficient than the
corresponding single carrier system. That is because the
peak-to-average power ratio of OFDM is much higher than a
single-carrier system. Independence of the carriers in OFDM create the
possibility of phase alignment on all carriers, which causes the
signal amplitude to spike way above average. The use of data whitening
algorithms prevent an analogous thing from happening in single-carrier
systems.

My suggestion to you is that you stop spreading dis-information on
subjects you are ill-prepared to discuss.
--
% Randy Yates % "Bird, on the wing,
%% Fuquay-Varina, NC % goes floating by
%%% 919-577-9882 % but there's a teardrop in his eye..."
%%%% % 'One Summer Dream', *Face The Music*, ELO
http://home.earthlink.net/~yatescr

Not this thread again! I come here for information and all I find is this
Bob that keeps starting OTA is .......

Damn and people keep responding to his trolling.....

Just my two cents.

Rich







Randy Yates wrote:
Bob Miller writes:
[...]
One set of broadcasters going wild with OTA broadcasting using COFDM
while another group want to shut off their 8-VSB transmitters to
save electricity cost.

Bob,

I sm so tired of your false, misleading statements that it is time for
all to see that your pants are down around your ankles.

Just exactly what are your credentials? Do you have a degree in
electrical engineering? Have you studied digital communication theory?
Have you studied groups, rings and fields in abstract algebra? Do you
know what a Galois field is and how it is applied in FEC block codes?
Do you even know the difference between a block code and a
convolutional code? Do you understand the concept of trellis coding?
Do you know what the term "sufficient statistics" means? Can you show
how a correlation receiver is the optimal receiver for minimizing
the probability of symbol error? Do you understand Shannon's capacity
theorem, and can you tell me the significance of the number -1.6 dB?

I doubt it. Your statement above belies your ignorance. In fact, your
entire rant of "COFDM good/8-VSB bad" belies your ignorance of
digital communication theory.

Let me explain something to you, Bob. COFDM IN AND OF ITSELF DOES NOT
GUARANTEE ANY ADVANTAGE WHATSOEVER OVER 8-VSB. That's right. That's
because you're comparing apples to oranges. It's like saying a Chevy
350 V-8 engine is superior to Ford's C6 transmission. THEY'RE TOTALLY
DIFFERENT THINGS!

Now read this carefully: OFDM DOES NOT DICTATE A SPECIFIC MODULATION!
That's right. OFDM is in reality a type of access method known more
generally as frequency division multiplexing. The *modulation* used in
each individual carrier of an OFDM signal can be anything: BPSK, QAM,
or even (ha!) 8-VSB. OFDM is a multi-carrier method as opposed to
a single-carrier method (like plain old BPSK, 16-QAM, FSK, etc.).

Now, also get this, which is to the false point you made above. For
any given modulation, OFDM is actually LESS power efficient than the
corresponding single carrier system. That is because the
peak-to-average power ratio of OFDM is much higher than a
single-carrier system. Independence of the carriers in OFDM create the
possibility of phase alignment on all carriers, which causes the
signal amplitude to spike way above average. The use of data whitening
algorithms prevent an analogous thing from happening in single-carrier
systems.

My suggestion to you is that you stop spreading dis-information on
subjects you are ill-prepared to discuss.

"Rich" writes:

Not this thread again! I come here for information and all I find is this
Bob that keeps starting OTA is .......

Damn and people keep responding to his trolling.....

Just my two cents.

My two cents is that when a troll offers information that some people
might not have the knowledge to discern is BS, then it is incumbent
upon those who do have the proper knowledge to publicly expose the
mis-information.
--
% Randy Yates % "Bird, on the wing,
%% Fuquay-Varina, NC % goes floating by
%%% 919-577-9882 % but there's a teardrop in his eye..."
%%%% % 'One Summer Dream', *Face The Music*, ELO
http://home.earthlink.net/~yatescr

Mark Crispin wrote:
On Wed, 29 Nov 2006, Bob Miller wrote:
It is very simple. If Canada had a COFDM modulation they would have
more OTA receivers today than homes. If they had COFDM modulation they
would be going bonkers with OTA and cable and satellite would be
screaming uncle.

So, people in Fort Doggerel NWT will stop using satellite in favor of
COFDM based OTA? HAR HAR HAR!

I get the fact that nations like Japan that have cable and satellite
similar to us, similar uptake, even HDTV satellite for years and
years, are going bonkers for OTA free HD.

Bull****. Pure, unadulterated, Psycho Bob bull****.

Unlike Psycho Bob, I actually know something about the situation in Japan.

Then tell us about Japan. Here is what they tell us in Japan.

http://www.dibeg.org/news/news-5/news-e5.htm#dn066e

Psycho Bob intentionally confuses receivers that have OTA HD tuners with
OTA HDTV households. There is still very limited free OTA HDTV in
Japan. Most HDTV households are cable or satellite, and have been for
many years. Japan's COFDM-based OTA HDTV broadcasts can only be received
in limited areas (not even all of Tokyo!).

If you read the URL I posted above you will see that people are free to
order an HDTV set there with or without an OTA receiver. Unlike the US
where the FCC mandates such receivers into your TV set.

Mark would suggest that such mandated receivers in the US, whose
purchasers in most cases don't even know they bought one and which they
never plan on using, count while freely purchased HDTV receivers in
Japan don't.

This is the same Psycho Bob who downplays HDTV sales in the US, claiming
that hardly anyone who bought an HDTV set is actually watching HDTV.

I don't claim that I post numerous studies that have been published by
many of the trusted names in TV news who all concur in that fact. Maybe
you could post some authoritative sources for a different opinion.

At least you could try.

This is the same Psycho Bob who tried to convince us that one-seg is the
same as OTA television.

One seg TV is what it is. The fact is that you can also receive the main
ISDB-T HDTV broadcast mobile in Japan. The one seg is for cell phones
but if you want you can watch the full HD while mobile.

http://www.dibeg.org/PressR/Venezuel...Venezuela).pdf

So One Seg is not the same as HDTV OTA and I never said it was. Mark
likes to put words in my mouth. The Japanese ISDB-T was designed such
that you can receive the HDTV on 12 of 13 segments mobile or fixed while
you can receive another broadcast on ONE SEGMENT of 13 on your cell phone.

BOTH are OTA DTV. Both can be received mobile. I have described this
many times and Mark seems to be able to ignore it. Check out the URLs
and see for yourself. Brazil did and they and the rest of South and
Central America will follow Japan using COFDM based ISDB-T.

Germany where they have a higher percentage of cable and satellite
customers than the US has a 30% penetration of OTA receivers even
though the country is not fully OTA DTV yet.

Germany switched off analog, didn't they? And where is Germany's HDTV?

Making my points for me again Mark. Germany has NO OTA HD. HD is that
wonderful all important resolution that is a must for OTA. But in fact
Germany has been able to turn off most of their analog broadcasting
while 30% of their households have freely purchased OTA receivers for,
(drum roll) SD TV. Who would have thought! How extraordinary.

It would seem that if you have a working modulation you don't even need
HD for a successful OTA DTV transition. People will be happy with a dull
SD. Amazing.

Can you imagine how successful Germany would have been with both COFDM
and HDTV?

Can you imagine how successful the US would have been?

Bob Miller

-- Mark --

http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.