PSIP

[Radio3787]

Is PSIP a concept/technology that is only temporary to help the DTV transition? Or do stations plan on keeping their virtual channel and actual channel different indefinitely?

It seems to me, 10 years from now, having a station tell viewers they're on one channel when they're actually broadcasting on another just doesn't make sense. With the station's OTA channel, their PSIP channel, and their cable channel... That's a lot of different numbers!

 

[whit979]

Totally, 100%, without a doubt agreed on this. It is pointless, and within a relatively short period of time, people are going to be viewing this as a dumb move. Virtual channels may seem like the smart, hand-holding thing to do in the short term...but later on it's going to be viewed as a hassle and more confusing than beneficial.

 

[azumanga]

The main reason PSIP existed was that viewers could simply dial the same channel as they always dialled, without having to know the new channel. However, some stations are not following this practice, opting to ID themselves with the actual digital channel instead (such as WFME near New York City, which ID themselves as channel 29 instead of their analog channel, 66), using another station's channel (like WDCQ ch.35 in Bad Axe, MI, which uses the PSIP of "19", to represent the parent, WDCP channel 19 in Bay City), or using their cable slot (like WWSB in Sarasota, FL, which uses "7" as their PSIP instead of 40 (analog), 52 (current actual digital) or 24 (future actual digital)).

The FCC mandates that stations use PSIPs set to their analog signals, but, as you can see, some disobey that practice.

 

[tripinva]

I still think the FCC is going to slap WWSB at some point.

I think you're getting your terminology confused. PSIP is the overall data which carries the virtual channel number (what you're referring to) along with other data like the program guide. The FCC requires it on full-service stations. It does a lot more than just map channels.

The virtual channel number, however, is necessary to prevent consumer confusion. I expect to see them last for a very long time. One of the few things they got right about the transition.

- Trip

 

[willcail]

I can understand the reason for PSIP. There are people that doesn't understand that there are TV stations that used to broadcast their analog signals on the VHF band are now using UHF channels for the digital signals. (with the exception of UHF 37 and 52-69) After explaining it to my mom that WCMH 4 is using UHF14 for its digital signal by explaining how her local cable provider (Insight) have WTTE DT on channel 8 instead on channel 36. (That is the UHF channel that WTTE DT is using for its digital signal. I did notice that they're still using TV in parenthesis since they're no long broadcasting in analog.)

I did notice that there are some analog TV stations that still broadcasting their analog signals on the UHF 52-69. Didn't all full power TV stations that broadcast on UHF 52-69 was forced to turn off their analog signal on 2.17.2009 since the 700 MHZ band was auction off last year.

 

[dhett]

I did notice that there are some analog TV stations that still broadcasting their analog signals on the UHF 52-69. Didn't all full power TV stations that broadcast on UHF 52-69 was forced to turn off their analog signal on 2.17.2009 since the 700 MHZ band was auction off last year.

No. No TV station is being forced to switch until June 12 now. It's frustrating if you had bought a license to use the spectrum after full-service TV abandons the band, but to make up for it, the FCC automatically extended all license periods for those buyers for four months.

Channels 52-69 remain in use for full-service TV.

 

[Robnoxious]

Dial position hasn't really meant much since the proliferation of cable and satellite tv. With the exception of heritage channels like KTLA, WPIX, WWOR, or network O&Os many smaller stations have done away with channel number ID all together and opt with only call letters during the required TOTH station identification.

It won't be immediate but within ten to fifteen years I wouldn't expect most broadcasters to still be using channel number branding.

 

[jal41]

Dial position hasn't really meant much since the proliferation of cable and satellite tv. With the exception of heritage channels like KTLA, WPIX, WWOR, or network O&Os many smaller stations have done away with channel number ID all together and opt with only call letters during the required TOTH station identification.

It won't be immediate but within ten to fifteen years I wouldn't expect most broadcasters to still be using channel number branding.

Not correct. Most stations with a channel number below 30 or so still go by channel number...in markets small and large.

As for the future...once cable systems go digital, they can move VHF channel numbers to match the stations (if they had to be moved due to interference). A station can be on the same channel number OTA, cable, telco, and satellite. This makes a stronger case for using a channel number...if you can get one below 25 or so.

 

[Robnoxious]

As for the future...once cable systems go digital, they can move VHF channel numbers to match the stations (if they had to be moved due to interference). A station can be on the same channel number OTA, cable, telco, and satellite. This makes a stronger case for using a channel number...if you can get one below 25 or so.

You are putting a lot of faith in all those separately run companies to comply with all the traditional channel number placements their systems carry for local carriage. Other than OTA none of the other delivery systems are required or mandated to do so nor would I expect them to which makes channel branding more and more irrelevant.

 

[fybush]

As for the future...once cable systems go digital, they can move VHF channel numbers to match the stations (if they had to be moved due to interference). A station can be on the same channel number OTA, cable, telco, and satellite. This makes a stronger case for using a channel number...if you can get one below 25 or so.

You are putting a lot of faith in all those separately run companies to comply with all the traditional channel number placements their systems carry for local carriage. Other than OTA none of the other delivery systems are required or mandated to do so nor would I expect them to which makes channel branding more and more irrelevant.

You might want to go back and review the must-carry rules for cable. Systems are required to carry stations on their broadcast channel positions if the stations so desire.

There's no such mandate for satellite, but both satellite companies have traditionally mapped local stations to their OTA channel numbers, and neither seems to be in any hurry to change that.

 

[Robnoxious]

You might want to go back and review the must-carry rules for cable. Systems are required to carry stations on their broadcast channel positions if the stations so desire.

Case and point, KDOC-TV channel 56 (Ind.) in Los Angeles appears on no less than 18 different channel positions spanning across the 8 cable companies in L.A. County alone. Had I added in Orange and Ventura counties the number would surely be higher. More often than not, KDOC rarely appeared on it's true analog frequency 56 or it's true digital frequency 35.

And before you say, "Well, Channel 56 has to vacate after June so that example doesn't count." would you like for me to find out how many different places KCET-28 (PBS) lands? Oh sure the CBS, NBC, Fox, ABC, Univision, Telemundo and CW nets are in their proper places but the pattern seems to end there.

Channel position is not enforced as much on cable as the regulations make it seem, ergo channel number branding is on the way out.

 

[fybush]

Channel position is not enforced as much on cable as the regulations make it seem, ergo channel number branding is on the way out.

Beware the easy fallacy of assuming that because something is true in your market, it's true across the country.

KDOC's situation is common among high-dial UHF stations in big markets, and it's true that few of them are branding with channel numbers as a result.

Do please note that what's happening to KDOC is entirely covered by the must-carry rules. If KDOC wanted to be on 56 on every cable system in the Southland, it could do so. (Its DTV RF channel doesn't enter into the equation here.) But the rules also say that a station can be carried on a different, lower channel that's either mutually agreeable to the cable company and broadcaster, or on which the station was carried on a particular historical date.

KDOC doesn't have much leverage with the cable companies to get on a unified low-dial channel position across the sprawling LA market. Neither does KCET. So they brand without channel numbers.

But CBS2, NBC4, KCAL9, Fox11, My13? They're not giving up their channel-number branding any time soon, and the situation they're in is by far the more common one nationwide.

Oh, and I think you meant "case in point," not "case and point." (That's what being married to a copy editor gets me...)

 

[tripinva]

Channel position is not enforced as much on cable as the regulations make it seem, ergo channel number branding is on the way out.

Let me cycle through my channels here...

ABC16
CBS19
19 Now
FOX27
My C'Ville TV
NBC29
Community Idea Station
WVPT

Hmm... 83% of stations that have only one OTA channel number. At home...

WDBJ-7
My 19
WSLS-10
WSLS-10 Live Vipir Channel
ABC13
RTN 13-2
Blue Ridge PBS
FOX 21/27
CW5
ION Television

Remove ION with no local branding and the PBS with three OTA channels numbers, that's 75%. The other two brand with cable channel numbers and have no OTA analog channel number.

Yep, definitely, channel number branding is on the way out. It's clearly on death's door! ;D

- Trip

 

[Robnoxious]

Ok Ok, I'll concede to both of your points. The big nets obviously have more to fight for in regards to their channel branding and the majority of cable systems comply accordingly. I never said those channels were in places other than their branded positions as far as my market goes. The L.A. market's major channels have been on 2-13 since the beginning of television and as such have been entrenched into every cable companies channel lineup for decades. The pattern goes wonky on just about everything that has a RF above 13 (with exceptions of course).

In Bakersfield (a UHF only market), the nets on cable were moved to positions 2-13 since it makes a little more sense to keep everything tight and in one place (add to the fact that the cable television market in Bakersfield took a very long while to get with the changing times and expand beyond CATV 2-13 and CATV 21 for HBO). At least that's how I always made sense of it.

Bakersfield's KERO-TV is usually on cable 10 because at one time they were VHF-10 until the FCC told KERO to beat it to 23 in 1963. For years they IDed as KERO-TV 23/Cable 10 but dropped the Cable 10 part sometime in the early 80's. The cable position at 10 was accepted because historically that's where KERO was in the past. That position even extended to cable systems way out in the Antelope Valley where Bakersfield and LA markets were piped in concurrently (pre SYNDEX rules... I haven't a clue if the Palmdale/Lancaster market still pipes in Bakersfield anymore). Ironically, KERO will be returning full digital power to it's historic position on VHF-10 after a 45 year absence in June.

KBAK-TV 29 is always on Cable 8 and IDed as such much like KERO until they too dropped the cable IDing around the same time as KERO. That made less sense because KBAK was always a UHF station and I guess was just "gentlemanly agreed" that's where it would be found on cable and has remained there ever since. 2,4,5,7,9,11 and 13 were filled with the usual LA market suspects leaving 3,6 and 12 the only spaces left to fill. Local KGET-TV 17 took cable 3 and the remainder was filled with KCET-28 (PBS) and KMEX-34 (Uni).

Maybe I have been brought up in strange areas where the cable systems did weirder than normal things and sort of still do. As such, channel branding has always been arbitrary from my standpoint, hence my stance that it will be phased out to just call letter branding over time. I could very well be wrong but now you know where it comes from.

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

Then, of course, there's the cable ingress problem...which leads a lot of stations to voluntarily abandon their over-air channel number position on cable.

Here in the Cleveland market, Akron's original Warner Cable (now part of the TWC empire) placed all the VHF OTA affiliates on different channel numbers, presumably due to ingress issues. WKYC/3 is on 2, WEWS/5 is on 9, WJW/8 is on 11, etc...and have been, in Akron, since I was a small child playing with the "A/B" switch box back in the day.

By the time the city of Cleveland got cable, it was late...in the mid-1980's, when the city granted a franchise to North Coast Cable. 3/5/8 were on cable positions 3, 5, and 8, and are still there today on the system that eventually became Cablevision, then Adelphia, and is now the Cleveland arm of the local TWC empire. Along the way, Cablevision expanded to the Cleveland suburbs that didn't already have cable (with what eventually became Cox and Comcast, the latter now also absorbed into TWC).

My guess is that North Coast Cable felt it could shield from the 3/5/8 ingress by the mid-1980s.

I haven't checked the lineup lately, but I'm pretty sure Cox, which serves the Parma area, shifts 3/5/8 to other cable channels. Parma is the center of the local TV antenna farm area.

Here, the branding is:

WKYC/3 - "Channel 3 News" or just "Channel 3"
WEWS/5 - "NewsChannel 5" (or "WEWS Channel 5" now occasionally on non-news branding)
WJW/8 - "Fox 8"
WOIO/19 - "Cleveland's CBS 19", and "19 Action News" for news branding
WUAB/43 - "My 43"

Of the major/minor network affiliates in the market, only WBNX/55 doesn't use channel number branding. It did at one time, but is now "WBNX/Cleveland's CW".

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

Oh, I forgot the PBS affiliates, but as in other markets, they don't really brand with channel numbers.

WVIZ/25 Cleveland - "WVIZ/PBS ideastream"
WEAO/49 Akron - "Western Reserve PBS" (simulcast with WNEO/45 Alliance, which serves the Youngstown market)

Speaking of that nearby market:

WFMJ/21 - "21 WFMJ" or "21 News"
WKBN/27 - Mostly brands with its news branding, "27 First News"
WYTV/33 - "33 WYTV" or "33 News"
WYFX/62 - "Fox 17/62", though more recently has been phasing in "Fox Youngstown"

WYFX is both a pair of LPTVers/Class A (WYFX-LP 62 Youngstown/WFXI-CA 17 Mercer PA), and a subchannel on WKBN-DT (27.2). It would appear that they're moving away from the "Fox 17/62" branding as the digital TV subchannel becomes more important to their over-air viewership.

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

Oh, again...the Youngstown market does have CW and MyNetwork TV affiliates, but both are subchannels...CW on "WBCB" (WFMJ-DT 21.2), and MyNetwork on "MyYTV" (WYTV-DT 33.2).

No channel number branding there of any sort, though the Youngstown Vindicator newspaper lists WBCB as being on "Channel 20" (WFMJ's digital RF channel number). That's in the TV listings section. I mostly bring that up only because the Vindicator owns WFMJ/"WBCB".

 

[markwooldridge]

As far as channel numbers go there is this station in Charlotte that has had a confusing branding image: I think it was WCNC... at one time they were using the cable channel as their ID, then no channel number, now they're using their over-the-air analog number.

However numbers do matter - the lower the better, generally - especially when in EPGs. WFMY in Greensboro has always been known as "News 2" for many years, they've always been on Channel 2 on VHF. In the digital world they've flipped - they're at the top of the new dial on UHF 51. They're not going to change to become News 51, because when someone buys a new digital TV and hooks it up to an antenna and it does its scan: first channel it will usually display will be 2-1. However round here the cable system just plonks them all in any order they like: WFMY on TWC is on Channel 9 round these parts. 2 has the school district's channel.

It's not just USA: low number EPG slots are coveted everywhere. When the UK domestic broadcasters negotiated carriage on Sky, they demanded EPG slots similar to their historical user pre-set locations. Therefore BBC 1 is on 101, BBC 2 is on 102, ITV 1 is on 103, Channel 4 is 104 and Five is on 105.

 

[w9wi]

Is PSIP a concept/technology that is only temporary to help the DTV transition? Or do stations plan on keeping their virtual channel and actual channel different indefinitely?

It seems to me, 10 years from now, having a station tell viewers they're on one channel when they're actually broadcasting on another just doesn't make sense. With the station's OTA channel, their PSIP channel, and their cable channel... That's a lot of different numbers!

To nitpick a bit, PSIP is a rather inclusive technology of which virtual channels are a small part. PSIP is also responsible for the program guide, and for grouping the datastreams that go with each subchannel. Among other things. Without it, your TV wouldn't know which video and audio streams go with 4-1 NBC and which go with 4-2 Telemundo. Without PSIP DTV simply won't work.

But obviously you were asking about the virtual-channel provisions. IMHO they will be around forever.

I answer viewer emails (at least 3-4 a day, plus an occasional phone call) about DTV reception issues at the most popular station in Nashville. NO regular viewer has ever expressed confusion over virtual channels. It simply isn't on their radar. The only places I see concerns over remapping is on forums like this one, where technically-oriented people meet.

Look at it this way.

There is no such physical concept as "channel 4". Does it mean TV channel 4? Or CB channel 4? Or marine radio channel 4? Or the 4th channel programmed into the officers' handheld radios by the Metro Police Department Radio Shop?

WSMV-TV broadcasts on 67.25MHz. Your TV contains an internal lookup table; when you punch in "04" on the remote, it checks that table, and tunes to 67.25MHz. Assuming you're within range of Nashville... it finds WSMV there, and displays our program.

WSMV's digital signal is broadcast on 192.31MHz. Your digital TV contains an internal lookup table; when you punch in "04" on the remote, it checks that table, and tunes to 192.31MHz. Assuming you're within range of Nashville... it finds WSMV-DT there, and displays our program.

The only difference... The analog lookup table is pre-loaded at the factory. The digital lookup table is loaded when you scan for channels. Since even analog TVs have demanded you scan for channels when you first turn them on, there really is no difference as far as the ordinary viewer is concerned.
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Now, let's look at the situation where there was no virtual-channel table. Let's consider the Los Angeles market.

Without remapping... when you buy a digital TV, EVERY station moves to a different channel.

In June, when the analogs go off, nine stations will move again -- will go back to their old channels. That includes five of the seven most popular stations.

Channel 9 has become channel 43 - but will become 9 again in June. Channel 2 has become channel 60 - and will become channel 43 in June. Channel 43 -- is it CBS? Or is it K-Cal? Likewise with channel 35 -- is it KMEX in Spanish? Or KRCA in Korean?

I'm sorry, but it's FAR simpler to use remapping and let every station stay where it is. It'll confuse the techies but there aren't enough of us to put a dent in the ratings. (especially because those of us who work in the business can't have a ratings book anyway...)

 

[Garrett]

I guess I didn't see it mentioned in this thread, so if it was, please excuse me. But for TV stations to go by their digital position instead of their orignal mapped channel is kinder stupid, because some converters (like my RCA from Walmart) do not let you dial up the DT channel. For example, KAMC TV broadcasts on 17.1, but don't bother dialing it up, nothing happens.

So why would a TV station even bother? It would only confuse the viewers, and turn them away. If KCBS can only be called up by typing 2.1, than that's is their channel. Am I missing something here?