Mobile DTV on the cheap

[Chip Fetrow]

Terry:

I am well aware.

It was tong in cheek, though I admit that is hard to convey in e-mail.

I wonder about the power costs as well.  One of the "Selling Points"  
of DTV was that with the lower power needed as a result of "digital  
gain," power bills would go down.

Of course, everyone has applied for more power, and more power, and  
more power.

I still saw my last OTA TV when NTSC went away.  I cannot receive any  
ATSC signals, and I am not quite as far out as Dulles Airport.

--chip

On Jan 15, 2011, at 6:19 PM, wb4jfi wrote:

> Remember Chip that the first (primary) DTV stream (which replaces  
> the old analog signal) IS FREE.  It's only any additional channels  
> or services that can use another revenue method.
>
> Plus, at least in 2006 when I left, any additional revenue that  
> stations received from additional streams/services were subject to  
> federal government "fees", based on a percentage of that revenue.  I  
> think those fees were "off the top" of the income (not net profit),  
> but I'm not as sure about that.  So, if a station made money on an  
> internet data stream for example, using extras bits derived from the  
> DTV spectrum and made money, a portion of any additional income will  
> effectively be "taxed" and sent to the feds.  We used to have to  
> track that additional revenue.  They gets you comin', and they gets  
> you goin'....
>
> It costs stations much more to purchase, install and often run the  
> new DTV facility, with no additional revenue associated with those  
> costs.  If a station went from a VHF to UHF channel, their MONTHLY  
> electricity bill alone more than quintupled (typically under 10k to  
> over easily 50k).  Plus recurring tube costs, if now UHF.  Typical  
> DTV conversion costs were about $3.5 million, just for the first  
> part, not including a new tower, building, or other costs.  Many  
> stations had to rebuy even more equipment at the end of the  
> transition to make the "hard switch" overnight instead of a month or  
> two.  And, viewership is declining at the same time.  Not a great  
> business model in the long run.
>
> So much for making more money with DTV...
> Terry
>
>
> On 1/15/2011 3:49 PM, Robert Stratton wrote:Pay OTA services aren't  
> all that new, at least in the DC area.
>> Channel 50 here in the the DC market used to sell a nighttime SSAVI- 
>> scrambled naughty movie service. Interestingly it happened to be  
>> the same type of scrambling (I won't dignify it by calling it  
>> "encryption") that Cox used for their local CATV service. My  
>> understanding is that when the pay service failed, the market was  
>> flooded with descramblers that didn't get returned. I wouldn't be  
>> surprised if that was a motivation for Cox to migrate to something  
>> a little more robust in the content protection department.It was  
>> fascinating to watch them flip the switch from their infomercial- 
>> saturated daily schedule. Some nights they would forget for a  
>> little while, which may well have been a marketing method. I should  
>> probably look to see how many FCC complaints were filed when that  
>> happened and people accidentally stumbled across people in  
>> flagrante delicto on their TV.--Bob S.
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> So much for FREE OTA TV.
>>>
>>> --chip
>>>
>>> On Jan 8, 2011, at 10:19 AM, tacos-request at amrad.org wrote:
>>>
>>>> Message: 4
>>>> Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2011 20:50:45 -0600 (CST)
>>>> From: Robert Stratton<bob at stratton.net>
>>>> Subject: Re: Mobile DTV on the cheap
>>>> [...]
>>>> One thing of which to be aware - some of the ATSC-M/H streams are
>>>> encrypted. There are two competing ventures of content providers  
>>>> and
>>>> broadcasters to try to develop pay services on top of Mobile DTV.
>>>> It's possible that you'll see streams in the software that it might
>>>> not be able to render because of encryption.
>>>> [...]
>>>> --Bob
>>> _______________________________________________
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>