DTV Transition

Broadcast Technology & Strategy for a Recession

ndtvworldwide — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 10:19:35 GMT

Circa 1973, the Pink Floyd classic ‘Money’ seemed to assume a universal state of being cash rich, however in 2009 the current economic climate dictates the need for us to sing a different tune. As with all situations, there are numerous positives to be derived from the downturn as well and here are a few pointers to help get the ball rolling. Technology Selection These are converged times where the boundaries between broadcast, consumer technology and IT are increasingly blurred. High speed, low-latency internet and telecom networks are giving rise to attractive new paradigms for technology selection even in these troubled economic times. Consider live contribution links where a typical newscaster would do very well to deploy CCTV IP Cams from vendors like Sony, Panasonic etc that currently provide VGA resolutions and total remote control, in most cases eliminating the high recurring cost of deploying full ENG crews. If you have access to reliable 3G networks, then for newsgathering evaluate Web 2.0 options like kyte.com or its broadcast equivalent - Viz Reporter, working off 5Megapixel cellphones enabling you to contribute VGA resolution video or even go live to air from your cellphone. Look to deploy open source alternatives to commonly used software e.g replacing 50 MS Office licenses with Sun’s Open Office would save you upwards of $10k, try Gimp instead of Photoshop, Blender3D for 3DsMax, Audacity for simple apps like recording VO’s and basic audio editing. Look beyond the typical ‘Rolls Royce class of broadcast equipment’ like Avid, Quantel, VizRT, Thomson etc and evaluate lower cost alternatives that extensively use off-the-shelf h/w & s/w like VSN, Playbox, Editshare, Wasp3D etc that help you reduce capex as well as annual maintenance opex. At NDTV Worldwide tech (www.ndtvworldwide.com), we now deploy ‘Yoda’ which is a full multi-cam live production system in a laptop that allows us to switch and produce 3 cam setups using just a laptop saving us at least $20,000 in capex for a similar setup and about $3000 per shoot in opex. In all fairness you get what you pay for, however even with reduced functionality you’d be surprised the alternative might just deliver exactly what you need at a fraction of the cost. Get in touch with your ‘consumer side’- at the risk of offending the purists, for trade shows do consider CES and maybe give NAB/IBC a skip, simply because today consumer tech is really really hot, for e.g compared to a typical news format like DV25 the consumer tapeless Canon HF11 working at 24Mbs does a really decent job of AVCHD at a fraction of the cost. One of the cheapest ‘encoders’ you could find has to be the Slingbox for around $250 which we at NDTV Worlwide (www.ndtvworldwide.com) use extensively for monitoring our clients news channels over public internet – it simply encodes baseband HD and you watch the stream over the web wherever you are in the world! For your contribution links consider switching to MPEG-4 wherever possible, as a general rule of thumb you would pay 15-20% less for bandwidth if you did so. Efficiencies/Waste reduction Good times tend to mask inefficiencies in the system and a recession is a great time to revisit your broadcast chain, map out your process end to end, identify non-productive activities and make things faster, leaner and more efficient. Classic examples of waste are de-centralized facility management, multiple copies of media being made, poor media management leading to demands for more storage, unnecessary media ingest, re-entry of metadata, multiple approval steps etc. Performance metrics like average time taken per edit, raw footage per min of on-air time, percentage of new stories that get dropped from a running order, percentage of agency feeds actually used on-air etc are good indicators of how efficient a newsroom is or the level of waste there is in the system. As part of the consultancy services we offer to our clients (http://www.ndtvworldwide.com/Services_Consulting.aspx) we measure and use these metrics with LEAN and 6 Sigma techniques to help broadcasters achieve cost savings. Other typical examples of trimming could be strategic outsourcing, reducing the number of news bureaus, OB Vans, bandwidth of telco links between multiple sites, implementing digital archives to reduce tape library staffing and superfluous workflows, VOIP for phone calls etc. For managers The captain of a ship caught in a storm would naturally want his best hands on deck, so people management is crucial here. The opportunity here is twofold – · With a lot of firms retrenching employees you can actually hire some great talent for a song and secondly, · To create a bunch of top performers because by now you’re probably under pressure to cut staff levels thus giving you a chance to easily identify and ease out the non-performers A fresh, tightly knit and competent team will smoothen the ride and possibly even make a success story out of it. As a manager ensure that your broadcast tech spend should ideally be divided into essential and desirable, for e.g careful analysis could reveal that the playout server purchase you initially projected as an essential spend could, with a few spares or stepped up preventive maintenance or a new codec pack, be converted into a desirable purchase, deferred or even cancelled, saving thousands of dollars. Consider carefully the financial impact of adding redundancy to a system. Its nice to want a 100% redundant system with no SPOF, however my own experience (http://www.ndtvworldwide.com/ManagementTeam.aspx) with fully redundant setups tells me that in a lot of cases the extra cost and complexity are probably just not worth it no matter what the sales guy tells you – fall back on experience, exercise your judgement carefully and convert this into a pure business decision – you’d be surprised at some of the answers you get. For employees Your primary objective is to make yourself recession-proof. Blasphemous though it may sound, arm yourself with a very clear and basic understanding of finance, economics and trends within your industry – it will help you think and act strategically besides helping add something to the ‘nuts and bolts guy’ tag we technology guys sometimes carry. Ensure that you add value to your organisation and ask yourself if you’re ‘just doing what I’m told’ – people that think out of the box, provide solutions and thought leadership will always be considered valuable. It is critical to educate yourself further, increase the depth or the breadth of your knowledge and skills but do it now. Should the hammer fall, the least skilled would be the first to go. For e.g a programmer working on VizRT graphics at a broadcaster would be quite valuable if he also gained knowledge of baseband systems like the vision mixer, digital glue etc, the ‘video guy’ would greatly benefit by a Linux/Cisco or SQL certification, similarly the creative graphic artist should learn some programming. Besides allowing management to leverage each individual’s skills better, which in turn means you add more value, it also forces you to generate an additional career path upwards. Tough environments tend to naturally induce resourcefulness and ingenuity amongst the inhabitants, so bring out this natural resilience within your people. Economic conditions are cyclical in nature and it’s but a matter of time before this downturn will give way to a boom, however till such time as we’re in it, we have to take the best stride to minimize its impact.

Delaying DTV deadline compounds complexity of transition

clajoie — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 19:57:47 GMT

The "RF Update" newsletter just went out today, and already we're getting quite a few comments on the top story, "Delaying DTV deadline compounds complexity of transition":

GP 1 point

The transition to DTV was ill-conceived from the beginning oh so many years ago...To this day, it was all about auctioning off spectrum to fill the US Treasury....That DTV revenue was a Clinton/Gore idea I believe...sorry to be political here... Interesting that it very nicely had to be a requirement during the next admin (i.e Bush/Cheney). The dates and the money however were decided mostly by Gore and the Dems. In fact, VP Al Gore pushed for a receiver tax intially.....Sure we will get much better pictures but such lousy coverage and no graceful degradation due to "cliff efect". Cable will be the answer to distribution, not over the air. So then I ask; why the expensive upgrades to the transmitter plant?....It may have had it's faults but the analog system from B&W to the compatible color system will never be replicated again in terms of backward compatibility. The brilliant people who could see how to not turn everyone's B&W TVs into junk back then just don't exist anymore.

John 1 point

I'm sorry, but if people aren't ready after all the announcements that have already been made. Why do you think giving them more time will mean they will be ready when the next "dead line" approachs.

Gregg E Zuelke 1 point

CONCERNING THE DTV CONVERSION:

Note, I have worked in electronics myself for over 30 years before having to
retire for medical problems. I am a member of the 'National Association of
Broadcasters', associate member of the Society of Broadcast Engineers,
member of the IEEE, retired Electronics Technician 1st Class in the US
Navy, and have carried the [old] FCC 1st Class Radio Telephony
(engineering) licencing for many years.

Here is an observation I have about the "DTV" conversion from the area of
Nevada I live in:

I have been helping set up the 'converter boxes' for elderly people for about
a year now.

I live in a mountainous area about 40 miles east of where the primary
television transmitter group is located at, near Reno, NV. Our 'analog'
1.8MW ERP station often does not have a decent signal with homes behind
the mountain and hill ranges. In many cases, neither the analog or digital
signals come through in areas behind mountains for the seven primary
stations in the area.

We operate four 'translators' in the area for stations whose signals were
known not to make it this far. The two stations that do not have translators
in this area will be lost for those hidden from the signals even with outside
antennas if no digital translators or new digital to analog translators are
erected now for the three to five year period of translator change-out.

For those I have set systems for, quite a few had purchased the 'digital only'
converter boxes since they were not aware the 'rural' areas would remain
analog through translators for awhile. I had to install A/B switches so they
could go between the standard TV and the box since their TVs were old
enough not to have an auxillary signal input. (Quite a few are handicapped
so they have to roll to the TV every time they need to switch signals, more of
an inconvenience to their life.)

Others who purchased the boxes with the pass through but no auxillary
inputs to the TV, have to turn the 'box' on and off to get either analog or digital
since the boxes do not have the 'TV/VCR' [type] function that VCRs do.
(Warm up and turn off times have been as much as a minute.)

The few that do have auxillary inputs can basically run their TVs regularly, but
I did have to rig antenna splitters for them so the box and TV could each get
a signal and install amplifiers since more splitting eats up signal strength.

MANY places I put a 'rotor' on the antenna due to where the analog
translators to the digital transmitters were located at, as well as the
distances and the mountain blocking, so to change channels they also
have to rotate the antenna, both on digital and analog.
(Some I had to put an external antenna up because they live in older metal
mobile homes.)

TWO things that have upset MANY people that do not have more modern
equipment, include:

MANY were not aware that their [older] VCRs would 'NOT' record any digital
channel. They have only heard their 'TV' would not work. I explain they can
put another 'converter box' in line with the VCR, but, unless they change the
converter box channel at the time they want to record another channel since
the box does not operate like a VCR where you can set channel AND time to
record, if they go out they only get the first channel they tuned to on the box.
And that the 'other' box has to be different or the one remote will control
both.
(And, of course, for those who had to have rotor antennas, if the antenna is
aimed at one area and what they want to record has to have a different aim
or a TV in a different room that someone wants to watch a different channel,
they may not get that channel anyway.)

AND, that their [older] radios with analog TV audio, will ALSO fail for any
channel that will not have an analog translator out here. (MANY radios ---
including the 'American Red Cross' emergency radios --- are STILL being
sold w/o a warning that the analog TV audio will not be usable.)

FEW manufacturers make VCRs with BOTH analog and digital tuners; the
few I've seen are in the $350 range; the few only record on a DVD for the
digital side. Those I've set that do not have auxillary inputs to their TVs
--- if they have multiple locations such as their living room and bedroom ---
cannot move a DVD from their living room to bedroom to watch what they
recorded. MANY 'CANNOT AFFORD' to buy new items so to be able to
handle this. And MANY are not quite capable to operate so many different
items and remotes.

As I installed the boxes, I would inform my "local" television stations of:
where the box was being installed and what signals were available,
including if I had put a rotor on the antenna what 'point' the antenna was
aimed at --- I usually rotated the antenna at 15° points --- how the
signals were affected.

I also sent results to the "National Association of Broadcasters", to the
"Nevada Broadcaster's Association", to commissioners at the "FCC",
talked about this problem to the local "Society of Broadast Engineers" where
at a couple of different meetings we had members from the "National
Association of Radio and Television Engineers" and "National Motion
Pictures and Television Engineers", put my observations on several
websites, mentioned what I found to the couple of local "big box" stores that
were doing 'so-called' "DTV TRAINING" seminars, and talked to whomever I
could when asked about the conversion. For those who are in the industry, I
essentially was turned aside. (I had heard that the "NBA" did "ONE" 1/2
hour show for Nevada, known as "Observations", about the DTV change-over
with a little bit of information in what I was mentioning, but it is not advertised
as such in the local TV guides; for the few other shows that have been
put out for the "DTV" conversion such as on "PBS / KNPB-TV 5", it did not get
in to as much detail as what I had been telling them.

There may have been $1.25B put out to educate the public that we are
changing to digital, but the implementation of the plan to explain the massive
extent of the change, especially to those who live in RURAL areas where
translators are norm; in areas of mountains; of the OTHER equipment that
will ALSO be affected, washorribly done, on websites --- which MANY people
I worked with ALSO did not have internet access --- nor when calling in to
find out what was going on since they did not know what questions to ask.

We may need an extra few years and money to bring people more up to date.
When we went to color, it did not affect B/W TVs. The addition of stereo did
not affect mono TVs. VCRs were a simple upgrade. Going from analog
to digital is a massive change-out that just telling people that your TV will go
dark as of Feb 17, 2009 w/o a converter box or new TV, was poorly done.

Here is an interesting item: I can get both the 'analog' signal directly from
one TV station where I live. I can get the 'translator' channel from the same
station, which the translator has a digital to analog converter installed since
translators will be around for awhile and our units do 'donate' their signal to
other units down the path. During one of the tests, I changed from the
primary channel to the translator channel and on my 8 year old TV, I passed
one test and failed the other test, without having a converter box installed.
Cool, isn't it? What do you think OTHER people who normally tune in to
translator channels ONLY, will think when it says their [older] TV will 'PASS'
or the digital conversion even if they do not have the converter box installed?

Sincerely,

Gregg E Zuelke
Silver Springs, NV

ET1 USN (retired / medical)
IEEE member
NAB member
SBE associate member
FCC 1st class R/T licensed
AmRad Operator

.........

What's your take on the issue?

Obama team urges Congress to postpone DTV transition

clajoie — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 14:52:54 GMT

Hot off the AP wire, President-elect Barack Obama is urging Congress to postpone the Feb. 17 switch from analog to digital television broadcasting, arguing that too many Americans who rely on analog TV sets to pick up over-the-air channels won't be ready.

This news came out just yesterday, but weren't many broadcasters already expecting this? I remember reading a story on BE's site about many lawmakers and broadcast professionals saying months, possibly even years, ago that the $1.34 billion limit set for the distribution of converter box coupons, as well as the amount set for the public awareness campaign, was completely inadequate.

Some of you are already commenting on the story:

PhyllisE ParkerPiontek 1 point

throwing rabbit-ears TVs away is stupid! That's what I'll have to do as I could only get two coupons and I'm on a fixed income!

Carl

As a Broadcast Chief Engineer, I ask how could the government possibly delay the transition at this point after the transition date has been pushed multiple times already? Or in todays economic environment, what is the new President and his team thinking? The public has been informed over the last few years that this is coming and pushed to purchase the new equipment whether it be in the form of a new HD television or DTV converter box, Broadcasters have gone to the expense to purchase and install new equipment at a cost of hundreds of thousands dollars if not millions, promotions have been made daily, don't forget the countdown that we broadcasters are airing each day, retailers have pushed the technology on the consumer and the consumer is now wanting to watch HD as they see the improvement in the viewing expierence. It's a little late in the game to delay the conversion now, what do you think the majority of the public will say when they hear this after they have gone to the expense as well? And finally was it not the government that mandated that this transition occur in the first place as they wanted to auction off the bandwidth to the highest bidder?

What do you think? Was this inevitable? Could the government have done more to prevent this, or did it do the best it could given the resources and deadline? How will this affect broadcasters and the people the Obama administration is so concerned about -- elderly, minorities, low-income families, etc.?

[Poll]

smart antenna

sales@soggybottomcamp.com — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 18:33:10 GMT

I have a converter box and it suggests a smart antenna. I have seen some on the internet for sale and they mentioned a color of Zone with that antenna.

Aren't all smart antennas alike, or do I need to find out what zone I am in before I purchase a smart antenna.

Deb

Microsoft's failed prototype, CBA's outrage

clajoie — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 19:37:08 GMT

Who's surprised that the DTV transition is already floundering? Anyone? Well, definitely not me. To start, we all know that with the transition, all of that spectrum will be freed up, so the FCC has been testing prototypes of those "white space devices" designed to sense spectrum use to avoid introducing co- and adjacent-channel TV band interference. The big news? The most recent prototype submitted to the FCC from Microsoft unexpectedly shut down. So, I'm torn on this issue. Sure, it's reasonable to make use of spectrum that's going to be freed up. On the other hand, I very much agree with MSTV and the NAB that if there is not 100% assurance that these new unlicensed devices won't interfere with the existing signals, they should be greatly restricted. I think that the importance of an unhindered emergency report or breaking news story is quite a bit more than the convenience of a wireless "hot spot," though I can't say that everyone agrees -- obviously not the consumer electronics producers.

[Poll]

What about Mobile/Handheld DTV?

MisterDTV — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 20:18:59 GMT

Just thought I would put the question out there...what are the kinds of business that a M/H capability might enable? Not just linear (streaming) broadcast related 'stuff', what else would be of an economic interest? What kind of devices might we be providing services to in 2010? 11? 123? etc.?

The Future of Broadcast Television

aball65 — Mon, 12 May 2008 20:20:49 GMT

The most important statistic in assessing the value of a service is its usage by its target population. In the case of TV broadcasting that is of course the TV homes that rely solely on the service, i.e. OTA-only TV homes. Since the launch of the broadcasters' $12bn+ DTV service back in Nov. 1998, the percentage of OTA-only homes has fallen from 30% then to 12% today. With the end of analog TV broadcasting in sight (February 17, 2009), the percentage of OTA-only homes could drop to 5% or less by 2010 triggering perhaps the end of our only free TV service. Certainly those that need spectrum for other services and are prepared to pay for it would welcome such an event.

The failure of the broadcast TV service conversion to digital can be largely attributed to the total lack of support from the nation's TV dealers who do not promote nor demonstrate the service. Best Buy and Circuit City restrict their DTV displays/promotions to one of the two direct-to-home satellite DTV services or the local cable DTV service, though both will sell federally subsidized digital-to-analog converter boxes. Curiously, neither Congress nor the FCC, nor indeed the broadcasters, have expressed any concern about the lack of TV dealer interest in the OTA DTV service. Add to that the fact that the FCC, with no apparent objections from the TV industry, discontinued reporting on the declining percentage of TV homes that rely solely on the OTA service. Maybe the FCC is already convinced that OTA broadcasting is "irrelevant." Now along comes Internet TV to deliver the coup de grace as it surely will if the transition to digital continues on its current path. Internet TV, if packaged properly by the broadcasters, has the potential to give our only free TV service a new lease on life rather than making it irrelevant as predicted by Mr. Gates. FreeDTVPlus^TM would do just that if it is adopted by the broadcasters.

Ask a Swede

MOLB — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 20:39:36 GMT

Hey - we're already all DTV in Sweden, (except maybe on some cables). The last terrestrial transmitter was turned off in October last fall.

So what do you wanna know?

Verizon, ATT&T own 700MHz auction

clajoie — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 21:26:31 GMT

As I'm sure you all know, the federal government auction for the 700MHz spectrum that will be freed up after the analog shut-off in Feb. 2009 ended last week after weeks of bidding. You can check out some stories about the outcome in this week's Beyond the Headlines e-newsletter. Obviously, the big winners were Verizon and ATT&T, both of which spent a hefty sum for more than 100 licenses each.

Two of the more interesting plays in the bidding war, I would say, were those of Google and Dish Network, though I feel like Dish is being more shady whereas Google was totally savvy -- not expecting to win, but just to influence the bidding battle so the C block would be open to more than just the buyer (which makes sense w/ the announcement of its Android Open Handset Alliance platform -- nice, strategic move). But, what is Dish going to do w/ the spectrum it bought and why is the company tight-lipped about it? Well, they're going to have to talk on April 3 anyway, according to the rules.

Did the auction pan out as you had hoped/expected? Has good overcome evil?

[Poll]

60P at 1080

paulthurston — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 18:20:37 GMT

One of the points I've wondered about ATSC broadcasting is why 60 frames per second progressively scanned 1920x1080 video is not part of ATSC? I can’t find a technical explanation either that explains why it’s not convenient to include it now as part of ATSC. Any thoughts?