Dish Also Fights BIT rule

[kstuart]

I agree. The program producers make a product and hand it over to the OTA, cable and satellite carriers for delivery. They have a right to expect it to arrive as produced, not “fiddled with” for the benefit of the carrier.

But this doesn't say "reproduce it bit for bit as arrived from the program producers" That would take one satellite per channel ! (I'm serious -do the math).
It says "After the channel has applied digital compression that may be several years out of date, and thrown out most of the bits, then for some reason, you can't apply more up-to-date compression technology to the feed".

If this is any indication, the farther we get into the 21st Century, the more we will get bureaucrats making engineering decisions about things they don't understand.

 

[Cyclone]

I don't think that this will be a big deal for the FiOS and cable companies. They will only have to worry about the locals stations in each market. Here both FiOS and Comcast carry nearly all of the local digital broadcasts (and analog) already. Heck, they even carry the digital sub-channels (the tube, weather plus, weather now, doppler radar, PBS subs). So they pretty much already have that covered.

Its Dish and DirectTV which have to worry about the thousands of channels in the hundreds of markets. It was amazing that they were able to get so much done with just the SD channels, now they have to do it over again with the HD (er Digital) channels.

 

[AllieVi]

But this doesn't say "reproduce it bit for bit as arrived from the program producers" That would take one satellite per channel ! (I'm serious -do the math).
It says "After the channel has applied digital compression that may be several years out of date, and thrown out most of the bits, then for some reason, you can't apply more up-to-date compression technology to the feed". …

Let me clarify - by producers, I mean whoever owns rights to deliver the signal to the carrier for distribution. They’re the ones who must make the signal fit into existing channel requirements and the carriers should deliver those signals without alteration. The owners of the signal should have the last word on degradation by carriers.

 

[David_Levin]

Downrezzing 1920 to 1440 would have to be considered degridation. mpeg2 to mpeg4 at the same resolution is open to argument (Charlie would probably go for it a ask for forgivness later).

Like I said - We don't know if the current encoders can do 1920x1080 (unless there are currently channels arriving in that format).

Now, what about an STB with digital and analog outputs ? I assume that will be allowed since the original digital signal is still available to the consumer. As a matter of fact, the OTA boxes to be offered with rebate are not allowed to have digital outputs.

I just don't believe the FCC will force dish to turn-off people's signals due to a down-rez requirement. They'd get hell.

 

[David_Levin]

Is this going to be a problem for satellite or national (non-localized) carriers? Yup. My stance is "so what?" Locals via satellite has always been the most idiotic waste of bandwidth ever in the first place.

I agree, but it's a necessary evil. Fact is, satellite competes better when is has Locals on the system. I just don't see this is going to change.

It would be nice to get national network feeds but I don't see that happening. Only scenario I can see is if PVR and internet use eventually destroys the current free TV model and the networks turn themselves into national pay services.

 

[TiVoPrince]

Promise HDTV?
then deliver HDTV. Locals via satellite seems to have been a 'shell game' with available bandwidth. We all find the HDlite distracting and allowing some signals to be degraded is a slippery slope. Letting the standard slip anywhere, is going to setting a precedent allowing it to slip everywhere. Establishing a 'standard' that is not 'true HD' seems to be the current method to keep us all guessing if it is truly HD or something less just being billed as HD.

Dish and other multicasters have rushed to provide as many local channels as thier hardware will allow. When multicasters run out of room for more the options are to gain additional customers by reducing overall quality or to add more customers in the areas they already serve.

We the consumers are not at fault for wanting the HDTV quality promised by Dish...

 

[DishSubLA]

This is a typical "shoot for the moon" tactic in negotiations to get leverage to agree to something lesser, but still the goal. The broadcasters really want their video to be delivered in the same high quality as the broadcast, and for all data "bits" that very well may be related to revenue (discreet or interactive ads, etc.), to be passed along. Broadcasters know that the FCC will never go along with eliminating compression techniques from cable and satellite.

 

[TNGTony]

I do not believe this to be the case, the HD my local cox carries is compressed, using 256 QAM. In fact I believe that they have 3 full HD channels squeezed into one 6 Mhz Carrier.

Scott. I understant that cable WANTS to compress the local channels, but right now on analog cable, which they have to offer by FCC rule, your cable company and everyone elses has a full 6MHz channel devoted to the analog channel. ON TOP OF THAT somewhere in the digital tier, they have the compressed sugnal you are talking about. Locally on cable channel 6 has channel 5's analog channel. It takes all of 6 MHz because it is analog cable passing through the signal from the OTA channel. At the same time they have channel 5's digital channel compressed on channel 87.1 (or there abouts) and mapped to 5.1.

Cable is whining about how they won't be able to grab the bandwidth used for the analog channel and use it for something else. The fact that the will no longer have to carry the compressed digital channel and give them room for something else there is lost to them.

See ya
Tony

 

[drdroo]

I'm surprised that cable HAS to carry a thing really. Back when Time Warner came in, they almost lost the CBS affiliate here because of unfavorable terms. If the rules are FCC oriented, I'm surprised that potential to lose the channels would have existed. It would've affected both the CBS and the CW feeds (the latter of which is digital only).

 

[Claude Greiner]

I think the first thing they would do is to get permission from the broadcaster to down rez the picture and use compression.

As long as the broadcaster is getting paid for their signal, they should not really care!

If they don't agree to it, then Dish does not carry their signal!

 

[waltinvt]

Personally I think it's probably a good thing that there is some kind of quality oversight by the FCC - they're just trying to implement it with technical constraints they apparently don't even understand (I should talk).

Despite what some tell you, left to their own devices, "D" & "E", will pass on as minimal HD PQ as competition will allow - they've already demonstrated that - and Tony's right - DBS carrying locals is the single biggest waste of bandwidth. Maybe if the possibility of no locals is real, they will come up with a better system.

The bottom line though is still education. Currently most people don't understand any of this and wouldn't know if they were watching real HD or not, let alone what bit rate. Hell there are still many installers that still don't know how to correctly hook up an HD system.