4 ms·

That's not what I'm talking about though. We should have repacked ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox onto a single channel.

by wmf 2mo ago

jyoung8607 2mo ago
Seventeen years ago, when we transitioned, the state of available and deployed equipment, codecs, and home receivers would not have permitted it. I mean sure, you could pack four streams into one 6MHz channel. They could even be "HD" insofar as the transmitted stream is 720p or 1080i. The result would have been MPEG-2 program streams of about 4.5Mbit each instead of about 18-19Mbit (assuming no other subchannels). That would make live sports or anything with significant motion look like absolute dogshit. You might say that you don't care about that, and that is fine for you. However, in that case, I would respectfully submit that opinion to be far from the center of the bell curve of television-viewing American public of that era. We could do a lot better with ATSC 3.0. So, there might someday be a second round of broadcast frequency reclamation, just as there was with ATSC 1.0.
- wmf 2mo ago
  If you limit it to 480i I think 4.5 Mbps would be fine. If you use a cherrypicker sports could burst to a higher bitrate.
  - jyoung8607 2mo ago
    The original transition (and release of extra frequencies) was a delicate and painful process with lots of involved parties who had to spend lots of money to make it happen. Politically speaking, it could only happen if everyone involved saw some actual benefit from the change. If you got into a time machine and tried your plan two decades ago, the conversations would have gone something like this: ----- Government: "Hey broadcaster, we need you to throw out and upgrade all your broadcast equipment that's working just fine today." Broadcaster: "Why?" Government: "So we can auction off some of the broadcast channel bandwidth." Broadcaster: "Why else?" Government: "That's really it." Broadcaster: "How about instead, I take a little bit of that money you're asking me to spend, and give it to your political opponent's campaign?" ----- Government: "Hey citizens, we need you to buy a new TV or buy an adapter for your current TV that's currently working just fine." Citizen: "Why?" Government: "So we can auction off some of the broadcast channel bandwidth." Citizen: "Why else?" Government: "That's really it." Citizen: "How about instead, I vote for the opposition candidate who says he'll let me keep my TV and my money?" ----- We're able to juggle broadcast frequencies more easily after the transition. Not only did we shrink the broadcast frequency range at the time of transition, we did it again about ten years ago with far less pain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_United_States_wireless_spectrum_auction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_United_States_wireless_sp... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_wireless_spectrum_auction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_wireless_sp... TL;DR: 480i would have been an absolute non-starter.
  - Kirby64 2mo ago
    480i? Nobody owns CRTs anymore, so interlaced content is inferior in many ways. 720p is already garbage for 2026. We shouldn’t be reducing resolution, if anything it should be going up.
- thomasjb 2mo ago
  A single 6MHz channel at the top end of UHF band would be enough to implement a universal cellular telephony service - simple calls and texts - at very low cost if phones had modems for it. I think that would be the better use of spectrum.
  - toast0 2mo ago
    RF Channels 38-83 have all been taken from (US) TV since the 80s. Mostly used for mobile phones. rf 70+ is 800 Mhz rf 52+ is 700 Mhz rf 38+ is 600 Mhz Lots of phones support these frequencies. Kind of annoying for tv, because cell towers on frequencies that used to be tv frequencies can overload amplifiers, so peeps need to go put filters up before the preamp.
TheAdamist 2mo ago
Atsc 3.0 does this in a lot of areas, it is in my area, all the channels are multiplexed from one broadcast, although it's hard to tell on the tv since you get the virtual channel numbers that are different and the same as the atsc 1.0 channels
- cogman10 2mo ago
  The very VERY unfortunate thing about ATSC 3.0 is it has an internet optional requirement which broadcasters have decided to use as a gate for watching ATSC content. They've turned it into a premium service rather than just simply using the open codecs.
toast0 2mo ago
If you're gonna smash everything onto a single channel, you may as well turn the whole thing off. Gonna look like absolute trash. Might be almost acceptable with atsc 3, except for the diaster of DRM and new proprietary audio codecs that brings.

That's not what I'm talking about though. We should have repacked ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox onto a single channel.

by wmf 2mo ago

That's not what I'm talking about though. We should have repacked ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox onto a single channel.

Seventeen years ago, when we transitioned, the state of available and deployed equipment, codecs, and home receivers would not have permitted it. I mean sure, you could pack four streams into one 6MHz channel. They could even be "HD" insofar as the transmitted stream is 720p or 1080i. The result would have been MPEG-2 program streams of about 4.5Mbit each instead of about 18-19Mbit (assuming no other subchannels). That would make live sports or anything with significant motion look like absolute dogshit. You might say that you don't care about that, and that is fine for you. However, in that case, I would respectfully submit that opinion to be far from the center of the bell curve of television-viewing American public of that era. We could do a lot better with ATSC 3.0. So, there might someday be a second round of broadcast frequency reclamation, just as there was with ATSC 1.0.

wmf 2mo ago
If you limit it to 480i I think 4.5 Mbps would be fine. If you use a cherrypicker sports could burst to a higher bitrate.
- jyoung8607 2mo ago
  The original transition (and release of extra frequencies) was a delicate and painful process with lots of involved parties who had to spend lots of money to make it happen. Politically speaking, it could only happen if everyone involved saw some actual benefit from the change. If you got into a time machine and tried your plan two decades ago, the conversations would have gone something like this: ----- Government: "Hey broadcaster, we need you to throw out and upgrade all your broadcast equipment that's working just fine today." Broadcaster: "Why?" Government: "So we can auction off some of the broadcast channel bandwidth." Broadcaster: "Why else?" Government: "That's really it." Broadcaster: "How about instead, I take a little bit of that money you're asking me to spend, and give it to your political opponent's campaign?" ----- Government: "Hey citizens, we need you to buy a new TV or buy an adapter for your current TV that's currently working just fine." Citizen: "Why?" Government: "So we can auction off some of the broadcast channel bandwidth." Citizen: "Why else?" Government: "That's really it." Citizen: "How about instead, I vote for the opposition candidate who says he'll let me keep my TV and my money?" ----- We're able to juggle broadcast frequencies more easily after the transition. Not only did we shrink the broadcast frequency range at the time of transition, we did it again about ten years ago with far less pain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_United_States_wireless_spectrum_auction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_United_States_wireless_sp... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_wireless_spectrum_auction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_wireless_sp... TL;DR: 480i would have been an absolute non-starter.
- Kirby64 2mo ago
  480i? Nobody owns CRTs anymore, so interlaced content is inferior in many ways. 720p is already garbage for 2026. We shouldn’t be reducing resolution, if anything it should be going up.
thomasjb 2mo ago
A single 6MHz channel at the top end of UHF band would be enough to implement a universal cellular telephony service - simple calls and texts - at very low cost if phones had modems for it. I think that would be the better use of spectrum.
- toast0 2mo ago
  RF Channels 38-83 have all been taken from (US) TV since the 80s. Mostly used for mobile phones. rf 70+ is 800 Mhz rf 52+ is 700 Mhz rf 38+ is 600 Mhz Lots of phones support these frequencies. Kind of annoying for tv, because cell towers on frequencies that used to be tv frequencies can overload amplifiers, so peeps need to go put filters up before the preamp.

TheAdamist 2mo ago

Atsc 3.0 does this in a lot of areas, it is in my area, all the channels are multiplexed from one broadcast, although it's hard to tell on the tv since you get the virtual channel numbers that are different and the same as the atsc 1.0 channels

cogman10 2mo ago
The very VERY unfortunate thing about ATSC 3.0 is it has an internet optional requirement which broadcasters have decided to use as a gate for watching ATSC content. They've turned it into a premium service rather than just simply using the open codecs.

toast0 2mo ago

If you're gonna smash everything onto a single channel, you may as well turn the whole thing off. Gonna look like absolute trash. Might be almost acceptable with atsc 3, except for the diaster of DRM and new proprietary audio codecs that brings.