Everyone is backtracking on analog shutoff

[w9wi]

Now how much longer are stations going to hold on to the virtual numbers?

Forever.

They're required by the FCC to program their digital transmitters (actually, the stream multiplexers) to show their old analog channel number as their virtual channel. WHIO-TV will be 7-1 forever, or at least until the FCC changes the rules. (which is extremely unlikely to happen)

The station can brand itself however it likes -- if they want to replace the 7 in their logo with a 41, that's perfectly legal. If they want their announcer to say "WHIO CBS-41 News starts now", they can. But OTA viewers are going to continue to punch in "07" on their remotes to watch the station. Cable and satellite viewers are going to continue to punch in whatever number it is they're punching in now.

The "real" RF channel number of a digital station is of no more importance to the viewer than "174.31MHz".

 

[kc8kfg]

I can just see this being a nightmare, somehow. AFAIK, it's only 12, 16, and 26 around Cincinnati/Dayton that are going back to their original frequency?

And I've noticed that every DTV "device" I own, except for a PC tuner, will assume the virtual number when you type in a channel number. For example, since my TV has found WPTO (Analog 14, Digital 28 pre/post Feb 17 for those not in SW OH), when I type in 14, it imediately assumes 14.2. For now, this is OK, since I have no interest in watching their analog channel, and I'm too close to it to get any DX there, but after Feb. 17, that frequency will be free*. However, when I enter '14' to look for stations actually on that frequency, my TV will automatically tune to 28 and tell me it's 14.2.

I don't know enough about the PSIP system, but is it possible for broadcasters to use two virtual channels simultaneously, for example, WHIO decicing to go with the NewsCenter 41 imaging (which most likely won't happen without a word from the FCC), and the virtual channel 7.1 just takes them to virtual channel 41.1, and leaving 7.1 active for 3 months or so, giving viewers time to adjust?



*or whenever they do decide to pull the plug on the analog. I'm not sure if their date is final yet.

 

[gr8oldies]

WHIO's date (as well as the rest of Dayton) is set in stone..the analog plug gets pulled at 11:59pm on 2/17. 7's analog will remain in "nightlight" mode until the end of Feb (meaning it will have a message about the digital transition and severe weather information if applicable). On March 3 the analog antenna comes down and the digital antenna becomes top-mounted. There's no danger that "7" will ever be anything but "7". You'll pry that 7 branding only out of the Cox family's cold, dead fingers

 

[tripinva]

Virtual channels are only a problem to people like us who go out specifically searching for things. Most people will set up their box, scan it, and that's it. No more worrying about what channel anything is actually on, they just know that when they want channel 7, they go to 7-1 on their box.

- Trip

 

[w9wi]

I can just see this being a nightmare, somehow. AFAIK, it's only 12, 16, and 26 around Cincinnati/Dayton that are going back to their original frequency?

Read Trip's response. He's absolutely right: no ordinary viewer will ever know or care about channel remapping. I've answered dozens of viewer emails about the DTV transition (and a handful of phone calls) - no viewer has ever expressed any confusion over this.

Let me take a few bytes to reiterate something I've posted to a different thread.

WHIO-TV does not broadcast on "channel 7". There is no such physical concept. Right now, WHIO-TV is broadcasting an analog video signal on 175.25MHz.

Your analog TV contains a "lookup table". When you punch in "07" on the remote, your TV checks this table. It cross-references "channel 7" to 175.25MHz. It tunes to 175.25MHz, and it finds WHIO-TV's analog signal there.

Your digital TV also contains a lookup table. When you punch in "07" on the remote, your TV checks this table. It cross-references "channel 7" to 632.31MHz. It tunes to 632.31MHz, and it finds WHIO-DT's digital signal there.

The lookup table in your analog TV was programmed in at the factory. (the figures appear in the FCC regulations)

The lookup table in your digital TV was created when you scanned for channels.

Your digital TV (or converter box) forced you to do this channel scan when you first turned it on. Once it's done that scan and loaded the lookup table, you never have to mess with it again. It behaves precisely the same way as the lookup table in your analog TV.

I don't know enough about the PSIP system, but is it possible for broadcasters to use two virtual channels simultaneously, for example, WHIO decicing to go with the NewsCenter 41 imaging (which most likely won't happen without a word from the FCC), and the virtual channel 7.1 just takes them to virtual channel 41.1, and leaving 7.1 active for 3 months or so, giving viewers time to adjust?

I don't know offhand of a technical reason you couldn't create two TVCT entries pointing at the same set of elementary streams but containing different virtual channels. It would however be illegal, as a violation of the ATSC PSIP standard which is incorporated by reference in the FCC regulations. (violations do exist)

Even if it were legal, it would be to WHIO's disadvantage to do it. It would confuse the viewers and throw away 60 years of identity. It would be like WHIO Radio deciding to change their call letters to WZMF.

*or whenever they do decide to pull the plug on the analog. I'm not sure if their date is final yet.

WHIO-TV is on the list of stations that filed to sign off their analogs on the 17th. However, so are the other three Dayton major-network affiliates. And because of that, the FCC put all four stations on a list released yesterday of stations that will have to meet additional criteria to be allowed to sign off on the 17th. ISTR one of those criteria involved at least one Dayton analog remaining on the air until April 17th with transition information and local news.

 

[FreddyE1977]

Will Congress and the President stick with the JUNE 12TH deadline or can they extend it again? I am wondering if 2 weeks before the June date, and there are still lots of people without DTV Converters, Will Congress extend it 4 more months till October or Beyond?

My guess is that we have not seen the last delay, and that the Obama administration and Congress will now pressure broadcasters to keep the analog going until the powers that be feel it politically safe to do otherwise. Could be a few extra months beyond June, or it could be years. The fact that they are pressuring those stations to backtrack from the 2/17 date seems to bear this out. Once again, I have to feel for the broadcasters who are now caught in no-man's land on this issue.

 

[TheRob]

The FCC is now asking many of those 491 stations to justify why they need to stick to the original date. This could get messier yet. And I agree, I don't think we've seen the last delay.

 

[fybush]

The FCC is now asking many of those 491 stations to justify why they need to stick to the original date. This could get messier yet. And I agree, I don't think we've seen the last delay.

I do.

The broadcast industry and the wireless industry were willing to humor some powerful forces on Capitol Hill for a few months and go along with the delay - but one of the conditions, especially on the part of companies such as Verizon and Qualcomm that are waiting for access to channels 52-69, was that it be a one-time delay.

Many commercial TV stations were willing to go along with the delay so that they don't lose viewers during sweeps, which were moved from Feb. to March in anticipation of the 2/17 transition date.

The politics of an additional delay, come June, would be much more difficult. VZW and Qualcomm could tolerate a short delay in getting access to the spectrum they've paid for, since the down economy means they weren't in any hurry to build out anyway, but they won't tolerate any longer wait.

As for broadcasters, it's not just an issue of power bills - it's also a question of elderly analog transmitters that are on their last legs. Even if the date keeps getting extended, few if any broadcasters will be willing to spend on heavy maintenance or new transmitters for an analog signal that's reaching maybe 2-4% of their total audience, and there's nothing the FCC or Congress can do to force them on that issue.

(And that's not even getting into the question of the digital viewers who are being denied full service because stations aren't able to cut over on their former analog channels - remember, there are entire stations that are off the air while waiting for channels to open up for DTV service. They can't stay silent forever.)

 

[gr8oldies]

Dayton update...At least according to the on-air crawls, it looks like WKEF-22 and WRGT-45 drew the short straw and will be remaining on analog until 6/12. WDTN and WHIO are still saying that the analog will shut down 2/17. I'm not sure of Dayton Public Television and WBDT-26's plans.

 

[TheRover]

On that list of stations switching to DTV on Feb. 17, What does the term NITE LITE stand for?

That would be the Analog Nightlight program, which allowed some stations to continue broadcasting in analog until one month after the analog shutoff. Rather than regular programming, they would air information about the DTV conversion and public safety information, if necessary. Only in-core (chs 2-51) stations not going back to their analog channels were eligible to participate in the Analog Nightlight program.

So the Night Light program is Optional and not required for one month after June 12th ? ? ?

Of the stations that have already gone all digital, some have opted not to have a night light on the analog signal.

 

[dhett]

On that list of stations switching to DTV on Feb. 17, What does the term NITE LITE stand for?

That would be the Analog Nightlight program, which allowed some stations to continue broadcasting in analog until one month after the analog shutoff. Rather than regular programming, they would air information about the DTV conversion and public safety information, if necessary. Only in-core (chs 2-51) stations not going back to their analog channels were eligible to participate in the Analog Nightlight program.

So the Night Light program is Optional and not required for one month after June 12th ? ? ?

Of the stations that have already gone all digital, some have opted not to have a night light on the analog signal.

With the extension, I'm not certain how the night light program will work where at least one station is remaining on analog until June 12. It looks like markets where all stations are shutting analog down Tuesday will be required to have at least one night light broadcast for two months.

 

[bpatrick]

In Greensboro/Winston-Salem/High Point ABC affiliate
WXLV (analog 45/digital 29) and MyNetwork affiliate
WMYV (analog 48/digital 33), both owned by Sinclair,
are making the changeover Tuesday as planned.

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

All the Dayton commercial stations are now off the February 17th train:

http://ohiomedia.blogspot.com/2009/02/oh-never-mind.html

WPTD (PBS) also has authorization to go Tuesday, but is looking into what sounds like asking for a delay on its own.

WHIO and WDTN made their analog-holdover announcements in the afternoon. WHIO is now aiming for May 3rd, when tower crews have been rescheduled.

That all fell apart inside of a day!

 

[mjlarochelle]

My guess is XETV will end up rebroadcasting XEQ from Mexico City. Tijuana already gets XEW and XHGC on relay transmitters.

 

[wrsg915fm]

Cable companies serving 200 or fewer subscribers should have been forced to tell customers that such systems will probably not be ready, and to make suitable arrangements. I'm losing cable service next week, based on stations in my area. Area Radio Shacks and independent dealers are being inundated with customers, as 300 families are losing service in my area. I'm not looking forward to buying the antenna, tower, coax, converter box and so on, and putting everything up in a West Virginia winter.
[/quote]

I guess that cable station must be pretty darned broke! You mean, they can't afford some digital-to-analog converters in the interim so they can feed their system in with an analog signal and then redistribute that? Just buy X number of those digiboxes going at Wal-Mart for $50, use the component video output and feed that into the headend, or if it demands input on that old analog channel, use a RF modulator between the component video output and feed that in. A bit of labor and possibly anywhere between $300 to $1000 of equipment... and then they're providing service just as before.

Mark.
[/quote]

The way I interpreted the original post was that the cable system's head end was located somewhere that could pick up acceptable over the air signals from major networks using specially tuned antennas but won't be able to pick up the major networks new digital signals due to terrestrial issues, perhaps the local stations are using VHF stations for DTV... Is the cable system shutting down or just losing the major networks? This is where I believe Dish or DirecTV could step up and provide feeds of local stations to smaller cable systems, for a fee of course.

As for Dish and DirecTV being an alternative for subscribers of this local cable company, if houses are on the wrong side of the mountain they wouldn't be able to get a satellite signal while a cable head end on the top of the mountain may have the line of site needed.

I live next to the Gulf of Mexico and my local cable system picks up stations OTA. It's always been hit or miss with picture quality for local stations on cable. Now with DTV were having tiling and drop out problems with the locals. Since Dish and DirecTV get the local stations by fiber (I think), they have an advantage on picture quality. It would be cool if cable systems could get local stations feeds from a satellite uplink instead of relying on OTA reception.
[/quote]

Windjammer was planning on cutting off service next Tuesday. We had high winds this past Wednesday that knocked out the cable for two days, so I complained last night. I just figured the system would be put down one week early. Fortunately, it came back today, but the quality isn't good. As to houses being on the wrong side of the mountain, that's usually not a problem here. Just about everyone that gets a dish gets exemplary reception. I wish we would just get into the 21st century, require Dish and Direct to offer all markets, and be subsidized for carrying the handful of allegedly unprofitable ones, then stand back and watch cable die.

 

[Poledo]

I wish we would just get into the 21st century, require Dish and Direct to offer all markets, and be subsidized for carrying the handful of allegedly unprofitable ones, then stand back and watch cable die.

That was just another one of the FCC's big mistakes, to cut off New York and LA network feeds from Dish subscribers in markets without their stations piped up to the birds.

The problem with the Dishes is they can't offer me internet service. My cable company started offering high speed about 18 months before Southern Bell, and I can't get DSL now because I don't have landline phone service. High Speed Internet and the local forecast on the Weather Channel are the only reasons I have cable.
I don't believe the Dishes offer all of the local channels here, at least in HD, but they probably offer the useful locals. If I could get high speed internet for a reasonable price from my cell phone company, I'd switch to Dish/DirecTV just to get reliable signals from local OTA TV stations.
That's just plain wrong... there's only about 25 miles of flat land between me and the 1500+ foot towers of the local TV stations and I can't always get the signals OTA with a good rooftop antenna. My cable company's head end is about 45 miles from the same towers and they have a much harder time providing solid OTA signals, and their antennas are mounted on a 100+foot tower. What we need here is that Verizon FIOS or a similar fiber service.

 

[TexasTom]

Virtual channels are only a problem to people like us who go out specifically searching for things. Most people will set up their box, scan it, and that's it. No more worrying about what channel anything is actually on, they just know that when they want channel 7, they go to 7-1 on their box.

It could also be a problem for new stations that might eventually occupy the vacated analog channels.

For example, here in DFW, channel 21 will be vacant once the transition is done -- KTXA-DT will map to 21.1 but will actually be transmitted on channel 19.

But let's say that someone launches a low power DTV on channel 21. As I understand the FCC's rules, that new station would need to map as 19.1, since there can't be two stations mapping to 21.1 in the same market. Problem solved? Well, not really -- because it still leaves the question of how viewers would be able to find the new station. If they just punch in 21.1 on their remote, they'll get KTXA-DT, not the new station. But if they punch in 19.1 they'll get either KTXA-DT or nothing at all -- unless they first do a full rescan on their tuner (or go into their tuner's sub-menus). So a new station under these circumstances can't just tell potential viewers to type in their channel number, but must instead tell viewers who might want to check out their programming that it isn't possible to do so without either doing a full rescan or else digging deeper into their television's menus than most viewers would ever want to do.

So it seems to me that while the channel mapping will work fine for stations that are currently in existence, it could be a real pain for new stations that come on the air using the soon to be vacated analog channels.

 

[tripinva]

It could also be a problem for new stations that might eventually occupy the vacated analog channels.

For example, here in DFW, channel 21 will be vacant once the transition is done -- KTXA-DT will map to 21.1 but will actually be transmitted on channel 19.

But let's say that someone launches a low power DTV on channel 21. As I understand the FCC's rules, that new station would need to map as 19.1, since there can't be two stations mapping to 21.1 in the same market. Problem solved? Well, not really -- because it still leaves the question of how viewers would be able to find the new station. If they just punch in 21.1 on their remote, they'll get KTXA-DT, not the new station. But if they punch in 19.1 they'll get either KTXA-DT or nothing at all -- unless they first do a full rescan on their tuner (or go into their tuner's sub-menus). So a new station under these circumstances can't just tell potential viewers to type in their channel number, but must instead tell viewers who might want to check out their programming that it isn't possible to do so without either doing a full rescan or else digging deeper into their television's menus than most viewers would ever want to do.

So it seems to me that while the channel mapping will work fine for stations that are currently in existence, it could be a real pain for new stations that come on the air using the soon to be vacated analog channels.

Zenith boxes have the ability to do a scan which adds new channels to the existing channel map. The CECBs are supposed to have this functionality, though not all do. That's how it's supposed to be handled.

- Trip

 

[Mediafrog+]

For example, here in DFW, channel 21 will be vacant once the transition is done -- KTXA-DT will map to 21.1 but will actually be transmitted on channel 19.
But let's say that someone launches a low power DTV on channel 21. As I understand the FCC's rules, that new station would need to map as 19.1, since there can't be two stations mapping to 21.1 in the same market. Problem solved? Well, not really -- because it still leaves the question of how viewers would be able to find the new station. If they just punch in 21.1 on their remote, they'll get KTXA-DT, not the new station. But if they punch in 19.1 they'll get either KTXA-DT or nothing at all -- unless they first do a full rescan on their tuner (or go into their tuner's sub-menus).

Perhaps a new station in such a circumstance would have to brand themselves and map to a completely different unused channel designation in the market. The underlying RF allocation is irrelevant. If existing stations mostly map to "virtual" channels, then there should be no issue with a new station pulling a channel number out of thin air and (with a thumbs up from the FCC) going with that as their identity.

 

[w9wi]

But let's say that someone launches a low power DTV on channel 21. As I understand the FCC's rules, that new station would need to map as 19.1, since there can't be two stations mapping to 21.1 in the same market. Problem solved? Well, not really -- because it still leaves the question of how viewers would be able to find the new station. If they just punch in 21.1 on their remote, they'll get KTXA-DT, not the new station. But if they punch in 19.1 they'll get either KTXA-DT or nothing at all -- unless they first do a full rescan on their tuner (or go into their tuner's sub-menus). So a new station under these circumstances can't just tell potential viewers to type in their channel number, but must instead tell viewers who might want to check out their programming that it isn't possible to do so without either doing a full rescan or else digging deeper into their television's menus than most viewers would ever want to do.

Viewers are going to have to rescan once in awhile if they want to receive new stations.