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NAB asks for ATSC 3.0 mandate by 2030

Mediafrog+ said:
XDS used the same scan line area (“below” the VITS signals and “above” the program video) as the various captioning services, so not affected by VCR head switching. Teletext appeared “above” the VITS signals higher in the raster, where head switching takes place.
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Are you quite certain? With the VHS and Betamax formats, it was always my understanding that the head switching occurred entirely within the usually-overscan-concealed final scanlines of the video portion of the frame, just before the vertical blanking interval began. That would have been the best "sacrificial zone" for the format designers to choose to locate any head switching signal disruptions. Not only because most viewers wouldn't be able to see that area, but because placing massive disturbances within the actual VBI would have trashed the -40 IRE synchronization pulses housed therein, making it difficult for televisions to maintain consistent vertical locks throughout playback.

I believe the actual reason for the difficulty people have recovering data in the VBIs of older recordings is mistracking. The VHS and Betamax formats' specs never dictated building machines to professional tolerances. Decks often could not play tapes recorded in other decks without at least a thin, faint band of weak signal grain -- or even outright mistracking sparkles -- appearing somewhere in the frame, especially in SLP. To hide that issue, auto-tracking circuitry within most VCRs worked to adjust playback tracking so that that band of grain/sparkles got positioned over the top of the VBI, keeping it out of sight. Fortunately, doing this didn't affect the vertical locking capabilities of late '70s+ era TVs, considering that their circuitry was already designed to cope with the heavy gaussian type noise that weak RF reception often put inside sync pulses anyway. (Only total signal dropouts, like if head switching were done in the VBI itself, was sufficient to confuse such TVs' sync circuits enough to make their pictures periodically jump or roll vertically.)

In any case, when you have gaussian grain or even "sparkles" randomly appearing over the tops of all those little white 1s and 0s making up your VBI teletext, XDS, and CC, you end up with unreadable teletext, XDS, and CC.

The only thing I can't explain is why some people experience success with recovering CC but not teletext. Could the visual teletext bits be finer/smaller in size than the CC and XDS bits? If so, the low luminance bandwidth of formats like VHS could just be smudging them, and them alone, beyond readability.
 
I have developed another headache trying to follow all that, and I have some technical knowledge.

Please pass the Excedrin.
 
Mediafrog+ said:
OTA subscription television was tried in the early 1980s and fell on its face. DFW had three such operations simultaneously, all were gone in three years.

Question is: Are we now more used to paying for video content as cable/satellite/streaming have all set the trend?
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I’ll pay for quality content. Not anything OTA.
 
thedesk.net

Move over, FAST: FreeCast introduces BEST channels

FreeCast is introducing a new initiative designed to unify over-the-air broadcasting and digital streaming, offering content providers a cost-effective and scalable solution.
thedesk.net thedesk.net

Here's another one as part of the ploy to push ATSC 3.0. This group is marketing this as BEST aka Broadcast Enabled Streaming Television as part of the move to get people interested in devices that pick up ATSC 3.0.

FreeCast is introducing a new initiative designed to unify over-the-air broadcasting and digital streaming, offering content providers a cost-effective and scalable solution.

The company’s Broadcast-Enabled Streaming Television (BEST) Channels aim to provide a seamless, high-quality viewing experience across both traditional and digital platforms.

The launch comes as the growth of Free Ad-Supported Streaming Television (FAST) channels begins to plateau amid market saturation, while the next-generation broadcast standard ATSC 3.0 remains underutilized. FreeCast’s BEST Channels leverage both technologies, targeting local broadcasters, multicast networks, FAST operators, and independent programmers navigating the complex shift from linear television to digital delivery.
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Those articles, combined with what I already know from my own research, tells me that forcing 3.0 on the public without allowing an overlapping transition period (such as when we transitioned from NTSC to ATSC in the first place) is going to result in a loss of viewership, not an increase.

I live in a top-55 market (Los Angeles, as most of the regulars here already know). That makes me one of the viewers who would lose ATSC 1.0 a mere three years from now, if the NAB gets its way.

I do not subscribe to cable television, although Charter/Spectrum does have me as a broadband customer. I am also less than 30 miles from the market's antenna farm on Mount Wilson, with a relatively unobstructed line of sight. My reception is still anywhere from acceptable to rock solid on most channels ... and that's using the building's decades-old antenna in the attic!

I have a TiVo which is designed specifically for ATSC 1.0 OTA. It does not have an option to use cable, nor does it have an option for me to add an outboard ATSC 3.0 tuner and feed its output to the TiVo. But it does work as well today as when I bought it, and I resent the NAB trying to force its obsolescence.

The network O&Os for CBS, NBC, Fox and CW are multicasting their ATSC 3.0 signals on one of the Fox-owned stations, and the ATSC 1.0 signals that "belong" to that station are scattered all over the particpants' other five stations. (This, amusingly, results in the primary Fox-owned ATSC 1.0 channel being a subchannel of the CW station.) But here's what NAB isn't telling you: The CBS and NBC ATSC 3.0 signals are encrypted.

So, not only is my TiVo slated for premature retirement in the NAB's eyes, I would need a ATSC 3.0 tuner that decrypts those signals ... and I am not going to pay for OTA channels that consist of a combination of major network programming, off-network reruns or the 11:00 news. (Thank heavens the one network that hasn't yet bought into this scheme is ABC, which airs the only prime-time series I care about and is also my go-to news station.)

What I want to know is ... why hasn't anyone confronted the NAB with these consumer-unfriendly facts?
 
K.M. Richards said:
But here's what NAB isn't telling you: The CBS and NBC ATSC 3.0 signals are encrypted.
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Encryption is going in in many markets. Here in Houston we have two full power ATSC 3.0 stations (KTXH and KIAH) both of which have five different subchannels simulcasting their ATSC 1.0 counterparts. The CBS, Fox, MyNetwork and Telemundo affiliates are encrypted.

Rabbitears.info not only indicates which stations are broadcasting in ATSC 3.0, but also which ones are encrypted.
 
Mediafrog+ said:
Encryption is going in in many markets.
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I presumed that to be the case. Give these stations a chance to make viewers pay to watch and they jump on it. Those are probably the station groups that are pushing NAB to lobby for ATSC 1.0 to be deprecated sooner. I predict that if they make themselves over as pay television, all they will do is push viewers to the streaming services in higher numbers ... where those stations get exactly zero of the revenue.

And that lower viewing will do wonders for their ad revenue ... if you consider going downhill to be a wonder.

Mediafrog+ said:
Rabbitears.info not only indicates which stations are broadcasting in ATSC 3.0, but also which ones are encrypted.
Click to expand...

Yes, @tripinva's site has been the "go to" resource for such information for many years now. I used it to verify the two encrypted ATSC 3.0 stations, as well as the juggling of the subchannels, for my earlier post.
 
I also want nothing to do with this DRM gestapo business, and refuse to buy (or in the case of recorders, re-purchase) any hardware that supports its regime.

Maybe that language sounds harsh or theatrical, but the ability to record what I'm seeing for fair use reasons, including personal time shifting (up to and including for the duration of my life, otherwise known as archival), is simply a non-negotiable right in my book. (The Supreme Court even affirmed it once, for Sony.) Which means ATSC 3.0-compatible DVRs are not options, as their capacities inherently cap the maximum material you can archive if there's no media export function ... which there wouldn't be in a DRM encumbered environment.
 
yeoldeschool said:
Which means ATSC 3.0-compatible DVRs are not options, as their capacities inherently cap the maximum material you can archive if there's no media export function ... which there wouldn't be in a DRM encumbered environment.
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Don't worry ... I'm sure the NAB will want to prevent the sale of those as well.
 
After replying a bit ago in the thread on WABC, I think I have part of the solution and can extrapolate the second part.

Part #1: Mandate that any programming in the clear already extant via ATSC 1.0 cannot be converted to an encrypted stream. That protects the major OTA network programming from becoming pay TV, and also would, by the economics of scale under the management of 3.0 bandwidth, reduce the number of diginets to only those which are really viable.

Part #2: Require a continued transmission of the major OTA network affiliates, stacked on one or more broadcast signals, just as the ATSC 3.0 primary feeds are being stacked on a single station per market. This would at least retain some of the viability of receiving equipment (TVs and DVRs) that cannot be upgraded to the new standard, by providing what are probably the most likely "lifeline" networks: ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, CW, Univision and Telemundo. This would probably have to go on for at least the same period of time as the original NTSC-to-ATSC overlap period.

Part #3 (optional): Allow LPTVs to continue to use the 1.0 standard to carry any programming that would otherwise be unavailable; I am thinking those would be the various non-English language networks such as those here in L.A. that are fairly numerous broadcasting in Korean, Chinese, and Armenian.
 
An extant network requirement would probably be just asking for lawsuits. Those networks would argue that they shouldn't be unfairly restrained from encrypting on account of what amounted to age discrimination.

A better approach might be one that was simply based on nature of service. Imagine a rule limiting ATSC 3.0 encryption exclusively to commercial-free pay services ("premium antenna TV"), and only to protect them from unpaid viewing. In other words, all ATSC 3.0 devices would be required to offer unencrypted outputs, even while receiving encrypted services.

Requiring that all encrypted services be commercial-free would serve two goals. One would be disincentivizing all those extant terrestrial channels and networks from locking down the entire OTA spectrum, since doing so would require abandoning their tried and true business model (ad sales) in order to sail into the uncharted territory of surviving exclusively on their viewers' disposable incomes. But the other goal would be addressing linear cable's imminent demise, by facilitating a pathway for continued access to the linear networks now residing there that people actually still want. Think premium movie channels, like HBO and Cinemax. But also picture FXM and TCM in that mix. Then add in the national, regional, and local sports networks, all of them de-commercialized. Everything from ESPN on down to the local, Spectrum SportsNet LA style MLB/NBA/NFL team channels that are, and that would continue to be, available only in their home cities. And of course, the door would be wide open for any other brand new broadcasters who wanted to try their own ideas for commercial-free premium antenna TV channels.

Another way to justify limiting encryption to only commercial-free services would be by saying that to allow otherwise would be double-dipping of a public resource.

Incidentally, there is a precedent that would support the FCC requiring all ATSC 3.0 devices to offer unencumbered outputs. Throughout the QAM era, the FCC mandated that all cable providers offer working firewire ports on their digital STBs so that other devices, like D-VHS recorders, could have access to the raw MPEG transport streams decrypted by those STBs. If that mandate survived all those years unscathed, I don't see why a similar one couldn't be instituted requiring all ATSC 3.0 equipment to offer always-unencrypted outputs, whether they be conventional ports like analog/DVI/HDMI, USB ports for writing directly to storage media, or ethernet ports for streaming to other home LAN devices via MPEG-TS HLS endpoints. In plain english, to preserve the ability to "tape movies off HBO" with the modern equivalents of VCRs, even if "HBO is scrambled.".
 
yeoldeschool said:
Incidentally, there is a precedent that would support the FCC requiring all ATSC 3.0 devices to offer unencumbered outputs. Throughout the QAM era, the FCC mandated that all cable providers offer working firewire ports on their digital STBs so that other devices, like D-VHS recorders, could have access to the raw MPEG transport streams decrypted by those STBs. If that mandate survived all those years unscathed, I don't see why a similar one couldn't be instituted requiring all ATSC 3.0 equipment to offer always-unencrypted outputs, whether they be conventional ports like analog/DVI/HDMI, USB ports for writing directly to storage media, or ethernet ports for streaming to other home LAN devices via MPEG-TS HLS endpoints. In plain english, to preserve the ability to "tape movies off HBO" with the modern equivalents of VCRs, even if "HBO is scrambled."
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Brendan Carr: "WHAT??!!?? That never got repealed? Get it on the next meeting's agenda!"
 
K.M. Richards said:
Brendan Carr: "WHAT??!!?? That never got repealed? Get it on the next meeting's agenda!"
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I know, right? :(

I still have a bunch of MusicChoice airchecks around here somewhere, made with CapDVHS.exe from my DCT 6416's firewire port twenty years ago. For nerds, it's somehow just fun seeing something like that playing in VLC.
 
kevtronics said:
Encrypted (scrambled) over-the-air TV is almost as old as TV itself. But all previous attempts to do it failed.

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But those attempts were all based on securing pay services. What failed was the idea that people wanted to pay for TV, not attempts to scramble what was free against being recorded. This current scheme of building paywallability into ATSC 3.0 is ostensibly being trumpeted as a means for facilitating a new generation of pay services. But in actual practice, it is being double-used to terminate the public's ability to make personal, recopyable (backupable), lifetime recordings of any service under fair use doctrine. The evidence of this intent is amassing before our eyes as we see market after market encrypting their plain vanilla network affiliate channels.

I don't mind more attempts at ONtv. I'm even all in favor of the handful of actually-worthy cable networks finding a life raft in encrypted terrestrial television after cable itself dies, as I alluded to in my previous post. I just don't want corporate greed decapitating our supreme court-affirmed right to remember.

That's what recording broadcasts really is, in the end. The right to have a clear memory of the past -- the portions of it that were televised, anyway. If anyone reading this hasn't noticed this phenomenon before, go dig through the countless channels on Youtube filled with randomly scrounged VHS recordings. There are people who hunt estate sales for "grandma's VHS collection." They buy and search through every videotape they get their hands on hoping to find items of historic value. Those items then go into their Youtube channels by the hundreds if not thousands. Old 10 o'clock newscasts, live breaking events, "6 hours of Nickelodeon from 1985 in SLP" type finds ... some people do nothing but assemble reels of old TV commercials. It's amazing how much history has been saved from the memory hole thanks to analog TV not having had copy protection. Frankly, it's my sincere opinion that had the old analog NTSC standard not been designed to save broadcasters money by encoding the luminance part of the signal inverted (100 IRE = 0% AM modulation), the purveyors of Macrovision for VHS may have very well identified broadcast TV as another target for their "product" to "secure," and all the abyssal TV archives popping up online today would have never existed. I truly hate to think that our future generations' ability to look back at the televised portion of our time will be denied them simply because technologically illiterate corporate lawyers actually believe stopping casual copying will frustrate professional pirates. To run their $9.95/month pirated live TV streaming services off Russian servers, they will circumvent ATSC 3.0's DRM by tapping off the R G B drives inside sacrificial TV sets if necessary. "Grandma" will not.
 


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