On television bandwidth-who understands the Digital TV issues

[liveoaktx]

I need a primer.
Right now the broadcast airwaves are FREE for television stations to use, providing they dedicate a certain percentage to local programming, ie, in the public interest (or at least they're supposed to or they lose their license). Cable/Sat, on the other hand, uses proprietary cabling that someone has to buy into and get charged for.

So if the broadcast airwaves get re-allocated or freed up for say, public service entities like fire and police, and people are going to go to digital....

WILL watching television no longer be free? In other words, if the only way, with an analog television that one can watch tv on digital lines in the future is with a settop box (or buying a digital tv), it assumes it would be using the physical infrastructure of cable or sat, yes? Because it would no longer be broadcasting over the airwaves to be picked up by an antenna.

Assuming this Congress still wants privatization of everything, will this mean that television ceases to be free for the price of a television set and automatically becomes a monthly charged item? ie, because one would have, in order to watch television, subscribe to someone's infrastructure?

Yes? No?

[rawtribe]

1. No

you will be able to pick up digital broadcasts with an antenna on a digital tv or a converter box for your analog set.

http://www.dtv.gov/

[liveoaktx]

2. So, will it be that digital signals will be sent out on certain

frequencies for free?

In other words, will a settop box (or antenna on dtv) be the only expense a person has to watch network (broadcast) television stations?

And will there still be a clear division between (free) digital network stations and cable/sat?

[Rosco T.]

8. yes, the digital signals are 'in the clear'... not only that..

you will find some channels will have 'sub channels' for extra content..

cases in point...

our local FOX station is on (digital) 14-1. on (digital) 14-2 is a live, local weather radar loop with audio feed from the national weather service...

our local PBS station is on (digital) 13-1 with a simulcast of what is on their normal signal (channel 13), on 13-2 is PBS-HD, with nothing but HD programming...

[BiggJawn]

3. DTV will still be available over the air.

I'm a TV engineer (and I play one on TV, too!)
The spectrum the FCC is taking away is channels 2-13.
Channels 14-69 will be used for DTV.

I know of no plans for any broadcasters to stop terrestrial broadcasting.

But come 2009, get ready...

Hey, they did the same thing when the FM band was moved from 42 Mcs. to 88.

[TheWebHead]

4. my experience with a digital antenna

is that though when you get a signal it is perfect, it's much more difficult to get a signal than with analog TV. I think the more important issue for most people, since most already have cable, is that you can't record digital content w/ a VCR or computer because of broadcast flags. As I understand it, you need the cable company's DVR, recording to non-removeable media, costing $10 a month.

[liveoaktx]

5. I think it Congress manages to pass a broadcast flag law it will

be struck down in court due to issues like fair use.

[Rosco T.]

7. recording digital content.... not true...

the 'Broadcast Flag' has been shot down twice (and trust me, if they ever get it thru, you'll be able to get a gadget to strip it)..

I record to my DVD-Recorder, using both DVD-R and DVD-RAM (removable) from the HD signal all the time...

and getting the signal isn't exactly hart, but you do need a decent antenna. I live about 20 miles from the towers and using an INDOOR antenna (Google for "Silver Sensor") get ABC/NBC/CBS/FOX/PBS (we have no OTA WB/UPN) perfectly.

[TheWebHead]

9. Is that with just over the air channels?

I know I've read about people having troubles recording content with cable content. I have a HDTV card and have no troubles recording OTA, but I've heard otherwise with cable channels.

[Touchdown]

14. There's no flags on DTV signals. It's your VCR.

A digital signal is in, well, digital, meaning 1s and 0s. Your VCR, unless you bought a JVC or Mitsubishi $2000 D-Theater HD-VHS which is a digital VCR, is an analog recorder. Meaning it is only built to receive and interpret syne waves of the old analog variety. It has nothing to do with any draconian measures, it's all about compatibility between old technology and new.

What must be done is to send an analog feed from your TV to the direct inputs on your VCR (the red, white, and yellow RCA jacks on the back, or if you have SVHS an S-Video jack) and record in the "input" "Line in" or "video" mode, which should be accessible from your on-screen menu. The TV converts the digital signal to analog if it has any output jacks at all...some TVs don't. Even then, your HDTV signal, which you will see 1080 vertical lines of resolution is cut down to the standard 240 lines that VHS has had for decades, so it won't look any better than any other tape you own.

[Rosco T.]

6. The digital signal is a 1000% improvement over the current system..

.. ghosting and such are a thing of the past. If you can receive a strong enough signal to get a picture, it will be rock steady.

And yes, the only expense you will need it a set-top box. Right now you can get them for ~$100-150. Most of that cost is becasuse they haven't sold them in bulk as of yet. That will change.

Part of the plan is for the Gov't to help you pay for them to get them down to about $50. I SUSPECT that when the time comes, you will see local stations selling them (or giving them away) to make SURE you can get their signal. Once they get to the point of making millions of them, the cost will drop to $25 or less. The stations could get away with giving them away by 'branding' the program guide (and that's one other big thing on digital, you get a cable/sat style Program guide for FREE (the data is being transmitted by the station).

You also can get ahead of the game (and have stations doing digital in your area) if you have a sat system. The DIRECTV/DISH HD receivers will also pick up your local stations and integrate them into the Program Guide. The DirecTV HD-Tivo will also record the over-the-air stations.

[welshTerrier2]

10. question on antennas and other stuff ...

i recently watched the Senate hearings on this subject that were carried on C-Span ...

the set top converter boxes will cost about $50 ... Congress is considering making all or part of the boxes free ... no decision yet as far as i know ... the converter boxes will enable non-digital tv sets to view digital signals after passing through the converter ... otherwise, your set goes black ...

i have a large VHF and UHF antenna on my roof to receive local channels ... i'm too cheap to pay Direct-TV for something i can get on my own ... it also let's me get other nearby cities ...

will my antenna still be useful (at least the UHF part) when the signal conversion takes place? is there such a thing as a digital UHF antenna or will my antenna pick up anything on the regular UHF frequences regardless of whether the signal is analog or digital?

and after the conversion occurs, should i just get rid of my VHF antenna?

one last point ... the testimony seemed to suggest that each digital broadcast "channel" could actually be divided up into a total of 10 "channels" (in my words: "sub-channels") ... does this mean that a broadcast station, say for example channel 25, will now have 10 "frequencies" they can use instead of just one? does anyone know how this will work or how it's likely to be used?

thanks for any info you can provide ...

[BiggJawn]

16. Your old antenna should work.

I think the term "HD Enhanceed" is marketing hype, like "Deep Fringe" used to be.

What the congresscritters may have been talking about is the number of TOTAL services you can pack into one channel. 4 Standard Def video streams, and audio subcarriers and text services, too.

[AirAmFan]

11. New digital tech could INCREASE the # of local TV broadcast channels

and network affiliates if the commercial entities who get the new bandwidth decide to limit deployment of high-definition TV. But don't count on it--US media oligopolies know they'll earn more and more $$ through elimination of independent local stations, rather than proliferation. And, as with PCs, hardware makers make billions of $$ more with more radical periodic changes in operating software.

In parts of Germany, where analog TV already has been eliminated, and corporate greed has been kept in check, it has been a different story.

From http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/careers/careerstemplate.jsp?ArticleId=n100305

"PERHAPS THE BEST EARLY INDICATORS of what will happen with the freed-up bandwidth are recent events in Berlin--the first city to turn off analog television... The "Berlin Switch" is an intriguing novelty. It was possible because the region affected is relatively small, with 1.8 million households in the TV market, and because an overwhelming number of those households--all but 160 000--subscribe to cable or satellite television. Nonsubscribers each coughed up at least $200 to buy a set-top converter, and for less than $1 million, the government subsidized the purchase for families on welfare.

What the switch gave Berliners, mainly, was an increase in the number of broadcast stations--from 12 to 27. Multiplexing allows four digital channels to fit in the space previously allotted to a single analog channel. (This excludes HD broadcasts, because they require more bandwidth.) The switch also gave the government 35 MHz to use--or sell--for new services.

With more channels, viewers of broadcast television in Berlin have access to niche programming and channels previously available only to cable or satellite subscribers. Programming now includes Eurosport; Arte, with art movies, documentaries, poetry, and theater; Phoenix, with political news; Viva II, with pop culture for people in their 20s; and several new local channels."

[liveoaktx]

12. How many digital channels equal one HDTV channel?

[AirAmFan]

13. HD channels would each take up the same bandwidth an analog

channel takes now--6 MHz. Multiplexing would allow up to four digitized standard channels in place of one HD channel.

But digital TV removes interference between channels, allowing them to be packed tighter together than analog channels, currently allocated between 54 and 806 MHz. The upper 108 MHz (analog UHF channels 52 to 69) are to be auctioned off for new uses, mainly for cellphones. See the diagram of the freed-up TV spectrum, at http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/careers/careersarchive/news-trends/oct05/dtvf3.html . This diagram shows how MHz bands currently are allocated to TV channels at the upper end of the analog TV spectrum.

[BiggJawn]

15. Four.

The channel is 6 megahertz wide, (just like now) and you can stick 4 Standard Definition or ONE High Definition signal in that bandwidth.