There are two (of many) problems facing the FCC right now – the stranglehold cable companies have on the downstream consumption of their content (cable boxes and the lackluster uptake and workability of CableCard and tru2way) and the pleading from wireless companies for more spectrum. Oddly enough it crossed my mind that these two issues could cross over and help each other out.
The idea lies in TiVo’s request to the FCC asking for a standard to be created for an in-home “gateway” from the cable (or satellite) provider to putting the audiovisual content that the user subscribes to onto their local network.
First is this underlying assumption – that many homes that the use of an antenna to capture OTA signals also has either cable or satellite on at least one TV. What keeps them from hooking up other TVs is the cost – both running the cables necessary and any needed set top box, plus additional fees from the cable or satellite company.
The goal of this solution is to reduce the number of homes in urban areas that need antennas and OTA television reception. As the number of homes in urban areas that use OTA reception shrinks, the cost of upgrading the OTA structure and those needing support in upgrading decreases as well. For rural areas, translators currently provide the necessary broadcast infrastructure and remained unchanged as the main need for additional infrastructure is located in very dense urban areas.
The use of the TiVo suggested “gateway” would allow all of the television and interactive services (on-demand, DVR) offered by your provider to be pushed over the local IP-based network in your home. Using 802.11n, you could push several HDTV streams at 12-15Mb/s (MPEG-4/AVC) over the network to computers or set top boxes for each TV.
The goal of the set top boxes would be to have them cost much cheaper than traditional set top boxes because they would lack the local storage necessary for a DVR (handled by the gateway or even further upstream in the cable plant) and tuners and the associated circuitry to decode analog signals sent over coax. The box would be equipped with antennas for wireless reception, hardwire gigabit ethernet, and HDMI and optical outputs. Inside, a decoder capable of decoding high bitrate MPEG4/AVC and the necessary chips to run the box. Eventually these boxes would be built into the TV.
One necessary feature that would be extremely useful would be the ability to lock out channels and features for the various set top boxes around the home. Because the devices are already hooked up to the in-home IP network through wires or wireless, people would be able to program these devices from their computer or perhaps even their iPhone to control what channels are available and viewable to children. This would be much more consumer friendly than some unfriendly on-screen menu.
Beyond the push to remove as many devices from relying on OTA broadcasts, the next step would be to once again change out the infrastructure that local television stations use to broadcast their equipment. The CEA/CTIA recommended the use of SFN (single frequency network) to allow for more, smaller, lower powered broadcast antennas. Beyond that, it would be advisable to switch from ATSC/8VSB coding using MPEG-2 as the codec to a LTE-based Multicast-Broadcast SFN (MBSFN) with MPEG4-AVC codec in a MPEG-2 TS (transport stream, much like many Blu-Ray discs). Using a 5MHz channel (with 0.5MHz guard bands on each side in the 6MHz channel) for LTE-based broadcasts should allow for 29Mb/s of bandwidth at 2/3 coding rate (1/3 used for forward error correction). In exchange for the hassle of more towers, the broadcasters are rewarded with more bandwidth and a more efficient codec (MPEG-4/AVC) which would allow for more advanced features like 3D HD, more sub-channels, etc. This could also allow broadcasters to use cell phone towers to co-locate their broadcast equipment, reducing total cost and maintenance (subcontracting the tower work out to contractors that manage all the towers in town for all the cell phone companies). The frequency savings would come from removing the restrictions on the adjacent channel rules, allowing TV stations to occupy consecutive 6MHz blocks instead of having empty 6MHz blocks between them.
While this is quite ambitious, and the transition of the existing OTA system is of questionable value, the goal is to free up frequencies for urban usage to alleviate bandwidth problems.
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- Apple Getting Interest in Video Subscription Services
- Why a la carte Cable/Satellite TV is a Pipe Dream
- Have they finally woken up?
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