[HN Gopher] How will ATSC 3.0 transform TV advertising?
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How will ATSC 3.0 transform TV advertising?
Author : 1970-01-01
Score : 51 points
Date : 2023-07-12 16:18 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.msn.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.msn.com)
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| NTSC, 1950: "Hey, it looks like we can create a compatible color
| broadcast standard by modulating the carrier phase relative to an
| initial subcarrier burst at the beginning of each scanline.
| Nifty!"
|
| ATSC, 2023: "Hey, it looks like we can sell more crap by force-
| feeding each viewer a targeted ad break for their specific
| targeting profile. Kewl beanz!"
|
| And people wonder why I, for one, welcome our new AI overlords...
| kogus wrote:
| Answering questions from the White Clown ala Fahrenheit 451 will
| finally be possible...
| defparam wrote:
| These lobbyists who drive specifications for OTA TV and CableTV
| are basically at the point of being a hammer looking for a nail.
| Cable/OTA TV is a dying medium (especially with newer
| generations) and with these tone-deaf advertisement solutions the
| only nails they are hammering are the ones to their coffin.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| This just doesn't make sense. If a broadcast is telling a TV to
| redirect to an internet stream; why not just go straight to the
| internet stream? That OTA spectrum is valuable...
|
| Also: It seems like whoever's pushing this forgot that people are
| really, really getting sick of ads. A major part of the rise of
| online streaming is... Lack of ads.
|
| The whole article looks like one of those "pie in the sky" tech
| utopia visions that never pans out.
| tenebrisalietum wrote:
| An idea that just popped into my head is that maybe phones will
| start including ATSC 3.0 tuners at some point, so the Internet
| connection is right there, ubiquitous, and everything can be
| integrated with an app. NBC, CBS, ABC, etc. could offer an app
| that "streams" in a local TV channel using ATSC instead of cell
| or wifi.
|
| You'll want to get a Yagi antenna case for the best results
| though.
| brewdad wrote:
| When phones bring back the headphone jack, you'll know the
| reason why. "External antenna"
| sheepybloke wrote:
| I would be excited about this if I could watch local TV without
| an OTA antenna. One of my biggest frustrations is that I either
| have to get a) cable or b) a flaky OTA connection to watch
| things like local sports. If I could stream local TV and more
| specifically sports like I would a normal broadcast, that would
| be amazing.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > A major part of the rise of online streaming is... Lack of
| ads.
|
| I think you might have missed the latest trend of offering
| streaming at a discounted rate by including ads.
|
| > The whole article looks like one of those "pie in the sky"
| tech utopia visions that never pans out.
|
| I can tell you this isn't something going away, and the tech to
| do this is here. Look into FAST, AVOD, and other OTT types of
| offerings. I know, because I work on the periphery of this
| stuff. If you are watching any kind of streaming video with an
| account number, your viewing habits are being consumed. It's
| been this way ever since the switch to digital cable. Forcing
| an account for OTA is the holy grail.
| jameson71 wrote:
| The tech to do this may be here, but the customers are not.
| Ad free streaming early adopters where techies. Those people
| are going to willingly eat this shit sandwich and evangelize
| it to others.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > If you are watching any kind of streaming video with an
| account number, your viewing habits are being consumed.
|
| This is the precise reason why I don't use streaming
| services.
| dylan604 wrote:
| The sentence you quoted was the set up for the next
| sentence. The implication there was meant more for the less
| obvious cable subscribers. Most subscribers are unaware
| that they've been tracked ever since they day they switched
| to a digital stream. I've heard comments like yours while
| explaining why they keep their cable. Of course streaming
| services track your viewing habits. That's how they can do
| "Recommended for you" sections.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Ah, I see. In my mind, cable is a form of streaming
| service -- so I didn't differentiate between the two.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Interesting that you think of cable that way. What makes
| it a streaming service to you? Because it's IP based?
| Cable started as a way to deliver OTA broadcasts to
| people that could not receive the broadcast (typically
| due to terrain issues). That then grew into channels that
| did not actually have an OTA broadcast. Maybe it's a
| generational thing?
| JohnFen wrote:
| Not sure if its a generational thing or not. I'm a
| graybeard, if that matters, and I remember when cable TV
| was a brand new technology.
|
| I think of it as streaming just because that's what it
| looks like. I never put any real thought into it. I
| didn't even realize that I thought of it that way until
| these comments.
|
| My conception of this might be related to the notion of
| "streaming" also being a pretty old one to me. I was
| working on such software years before streaming services
| were a thing, around 1990.
| bityard wrote:
| > A major part of the rise of online streaming is... Lack of
| ads.
|
| Sorry but ads are the new normal when subscribing to most
| streaming services.
|
| Netflix CEO in 2019: "Netflix will never have ads." Three years
| later, Netflix is "excited" to launch an ad-supported tier.
| This came shortly after a price jump on all of its plans, of
| course.
|
| We pay for Amazon Prime ($140/yr) more for the streaming than
| the "free" shipping or other perks. But increasingly, more and
| more content in the Prime library can only be "rented" or
| "bought", or watched "free with ads." The quality of the
| content that is available to watch "with Prime" (i.e. without
| paying even more) is going steadily downhill. The bargain DVD
| bin at my local grocery store has a better selection.
|
| We also have occasional access to Hulu, Disney, Peacock and
| whatever else through friends and family and it seems like the
| shows on all of these have ads on them. (Or at least most of
| them do?)
|
| I was quite happy to pay a monthly fee to watch stuff ad-free.
| Now since that is quickly not becoming an option, I may have to
| pull my wooden leg and eye patch out of storage.
| supertrope wrote:
| I agree. Broadcast TV that depends on broadband is an awkward
| hybrid. The surveillance capitalism and interactive features
| just sound like a worse version of the Internet (WebTV). That's
| combining the flexibility of broadcast TV with the increased
| system requirements of having a broadband connection and
| training the masses how to type their Wi-Fi password into their
| TV. A lot of TV viewers can barely program their VCR or change
| inputs.
|
| It would be more technically efficient to have 500-600 MHz 5G
| as YouTube and similar service are already a la carte and on
| demand. However the type of crowd that uses an antenna doesn't
| overlap a lot with the crowd that pays for 5G service.
| ralph84 wrote:
| OTA would die overnight if it had to pay market rate for the
| spectrum it occupies. I'm sure their lobbyists paint the sad
| picture of a blaring TV being the only connection to society for
| lonely seniors, but maybe there are better ways to solve the
| lonely seniors problem?
| PaulHoule wrote:
| ... sports betting during games will be the killer app.
| syedkarim wrote:
| That requires a return-channel; this is purely broadcast.
| parl_match wrote:
| ATSC 3.0 is not purely broadcast, it supports apps being
| delivered over broadcast, internet connectivity, and return
| channel. Did you read the article?
| xur17 wrote:
| > "When TV stations broadcast in ATSC 3.0 to ATSC 3.0-enabled TV
| sets connected to the web, all of this interactivity becomes
| available over the air for live linear broadcasts."
|
| So we're going to straddle both OTA and internet streaming.. At
| what point will OTA content providers give up and just allow
| users to stream the content over the internet for free? I imagine
| the vast majority of people have internet at this point, it would
| likely get your more people watching your ads, it frees up
| spectrum for other uses, and arguably would be cheaper (since
| bandwidth is cheap and antennas are expensive).
| supertrope wrote:
| While visiting your local TV station's website and clicking
| play would be convenient, it would cannibalize their
| retransmission revenue from cable TV.
| teeray wrote:
| > it frees up spectrum for other uses
|
| Right now, even though this spectrum is commercial, it still
| serves as more-or-less a public service that can be consumed
| for only the cost of a tuner and a TV. Streaming that same
| content over the Internet then incurs monthly costs for the
| connection that previously weren't present.
|
| Beyond the added monthly OPEX to consume that content, chances
| are good that spectrum would be snatched up by telcos for 8G to
| resell to you rather than for a similar semi-public benefit.
| xur17 wrote:
| > Right now, even though this spectrum is commercial, it
| still serves as more-or-less a public service that can be
| consumed for only the cost of a tuner and a TV. Streaming
| that same content over the Internet then incurs monthly costs
| for the connection that previously weren't present.
|
| Most people already have an internet connection, so the
| marginal cost is $0 (arguably it might be a negative cost for
| these customers since they don't need to buy and setup an
| antenna). And the service is better because the content
| providers are no longer limited by the amount of spectrum
| they own.
|
| > Beyond the added monthly OPEX to consume that content,
| chances are good that spectrum would be snatched up by telcos
| for 8G to resell to you rather than for a similar semi-public
| benefit.
|
| Auction it off to the telcos and use this money to reduce
| taxes. Potentially use part of it to help people upgrade
| their tvs, much like we did with converter boxes when moving
| to atsc.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > Most people already have an internet connection,
|
| This needs qualification. Having a smart phone means you
| have an "internet connection." Are these people truly going
| to get "better" service than with broadcast?
|
| > And the service is better because the content providers
| are no longer limited by the amount of spectrum they own.
|
| Sure.. now they're just limited by the amount of bandwidth
| they need to purchase, in the trade they no longer have any
| obligation to serve you, your community or to provide
| relevant news and public access.
|
| > Auction it off to the telcos and use this money to reduce
| taxes.
|
| This is not how spectrum auctions work. The auction money
| is used to fund the FCC itself. It's not a type of revenue
| that can "reduce taxes."
|
| > Potentially use part of it to help people upgrade their
| tvs
|
| Perhaps we should just let the free market decide what it
| wants for itself?
| water9 wrote:
| Its unique design allows broadcasters to send data to several
| users concurrently through a single signal. To transmit 1 GB of
| data to 1 million consumers with ATSC 3.0, broadcasters only
| need one-millionth of the capacity required by broadband.
| [deleted]
| bob-09 wrote:
| In my market, most local TV stations stream through their own
| app. OTA serves the users that struggle to understand how to
| get a TV antenna working properly, let alone an app or IPTV
| device.
|
| Local advertisers also like the assurance that their ad dollars
| aren't being wasted on out-of-market viewers. OTA provides that
| naturally.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| What are the current statistics for how many people still 1) have
| broadcast/cable live TV, and 2) actually watch live TV? Hopefully
| those numbers will continue to go down over time.
| KingLancelot wrote:
| [dead]
| HWR_14 wrote:
| This isn't cable TV. This is the free Over-The-Air (OTA) TV.
| You know, tune to ABC, channel 3 on the dial. The stuff
| floating around your head right now on VHF/UHF radio waves.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| I'm aware, but was using "cable" somewhat
| informal/colloquially. I've edited my comment for clarity;
| the point was really "how many people are still watching live
| TV".
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Cable mostly uses QAM, not ATSC. ATSC is for terrestrial
| broadcasts in the US.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| Whats "TV"? What does it need advertising for?
| charonn0 wrote:
| > The arrival of ATSC 3.0/NextGen TV--and its ability to combine
| broadcast with IP--has the potential to transform TV commercials
| from one-way mass-market blasts to two-way personalized
| interactive experiences.
|
| Why would anyone want this? Why would anyone purchase a
| television with this ability?
| joewrong wrote:
| I'd like to see open source solutions for blocking OTA TV ads
| conradfr wrote:
| > dynamic ad insertion plus things like overlays and interactive
| application ads
|
| > "a viewer who gets home at 6:10 pm and wants to watch the
| entire 6 p.m. local news will be able to 'start over' after
| watching a very short sponsorship message,"
|
| > Display ads will also occur whenever a viewer pauses their
| video feed under Scripps' 'Pause Ads' feature
|
| Obviously who doesn't want that when watching a dying media?
| toast0 wrote:
| I imagine ATSC 3.0 tuners will eventually proliferate, but as of
| now, the situation seems to be most TVs for sale don't have ATSC
| 3.0 tuners, Best Buy doesn't even include it as a filter. Of
| course, the installed base doesn't have them either. I haven't
| seen any external ATSC 3.0 tuner boxes for sale either.
|
| On the enthusiast front, ATSC 3.0 is hard to use, because it
| includes a new audio codec (AC-4) which is patent encumbered and
| difficult to use, so while I've got a tuner, I can't use it
| unless I don't want to hear the programs or I change to a
| proprietary software stack.
|
| Honestly and unfortunately, I think the end of OTA may happen
| before ATSC 3.0 has enough adoption to transform anything.
| ajross wrote:
| > I imagine ATSC 3.0 tuners will eventually proliferate
|
| Unlikely. There's not enough bandwidth[1] in traditional TV
| spectrum to be worth the hassle[2].
|
| At its absolute peak of value, broadcast TV is basically a
| bandwidth optimization on top of the already-very-acceptable
| streaming video delivery available to everyone at reasonable
| prices.
|
| Would you install a roof antenna for a few bucks a month off
| your Netflix or Disney bill? Me neither.
|
| [1] A quick google says 57Mbps is the maximum per-channel
| bandwidth in ATSC3, and you only get a dozen or so channels in
| a metro area without building more giant towers.
|
| [2] Because if there was, mobile telephone operators would have
| grabbed that spectrum already for their _vastly_ more lucrative
| industry.
| toast0 wrote:
| > [2] Because if there was, mobile telephone operators would
| have grabbed that spectrum already for their vastly more
| lucrative industry.
|
| Mobile operators can't take it all at once, in part because
| the TV lobby still exists, in part because it takes years to
| build out the network to use the spectrum they've already
| taken. But, at least in the US, this has happened three
| already: in the 80s, channels 70-83 were reallocated to cell
| phones; in 2008, channels 52-69 were reallocated to cell
| phones; in 2016, channels 38-51 were reallocated to cell
| phones. I'm guessing sometime in the next ten years, 19-36
| will be reallocated to cell phones (37 is reserved for radio
| astronomy). But 2-18 will probably still be used for ATSC 3.0
| at that point.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Low VHF isn't viable long term and they have to leave gaps
| in allocations so neighboring markets don't conflict. I
| doubt they'll shrink it any more. There's already going to
| be a crunch when the deadline to cutoff ATSC 1 approaches
| and everyone is going to have to simulcast both 1 & 3 with
| some likely delays extending the overlap phase.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| What exactly makes Low VHF non viable in the long term?
| Is the atmosphere going to start attenuating certain
| frequencies more in coming years?
| jkingsman wrote:
| I think physics is actually moving to a fee-based
| structure
|
| /s
| toast0 wrote:
| I thought ATSC 3 was supposed to make VHF viable again. I
| guess it depends on how many people got "HD" antennas
| geared for UHF with maybe marginal coverage for high VHF.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| The antenna situation is the problem. I have a pre-HD
| 4-bay bowtie UHF antenna that works great on high-VHF for
| my location. I'm not going to bother with the hassle of
| adding a second antenna for the low end because of
| unnecessary bureaucratic shuffling. Normies aren't going
| to bother sorting that out with all the marginal UHF-only
| antennas that have been dumped onto the market.
| water9 wrote:
| Although it leverages existing architecture, many of the ATSC
| 3.0 standard's capabilities are new. Unlike past broadcasting
| technology, the standard not only provides content on-demand
| but ensures the content is delivered rapidly. Its unique
| design allows broadcasters to send data to several users
| concurrently through a single signal. To transmit 1 GB of
| data to 1 million consumers with ATSC 3.0, broadcasters only
| need one-millionth of the capacity required by broadband.
|
| https://www.harmonicinc.com/insights/blog/understanding-
| atsc...
| ajross wrote:
| Sure, but "content on-demand delivered rapidly" isn't
| compatible with "transmitting to 1 million consumers", is
| it? Either you broadcast one show at a time (something you
| can do right now and no one wants) or you split bandwidth
| to a bunch of streamers (and compete badly with cable).
|
| And in any case the latter is already in the market! HBO
| and Comcast, working together, will happily send you the
| just-released Westeros episode to watch simultaneously with
| 10M other users for like $15 a month. And it works. ATSC
| needs to be significantly cheaper than _fifteen dollars_ to
| even be worth talking about. And let 's be honest: it isn't
| and won't be.
| water9 wrote:
| I think it's better to think of satellite (dish/DIRECTV)
| more than Comcast. You can imagine you have one satellite
| broadcasting an encrypted signal to an entire nation but
| only those who have a subscription are given the keys to
| decrypt streams of the channels they subscribe to.
|
| So then, by just changing a few parameters with a low
| speed connection between the box, they can enable
| different transmissions to come through or more precisely
| tune to different channels or sub channels, containing
| different content, like different ads in the same
| airwaves spectrum
| jerf wrote:
| "I imagine ATSC 3.0 tuners will eventually proliferate"
|
| Honest question looking for honest answers: What's the value
| proposition for a consumer to go get one of these things?
| Obviously it won't be because of the new and exciting frontier
| of advertising it enables, what's the actual headline feature?
|
| I ask that for the purpose of evaluating the interesting idea
| that
|
| "the end of OTA may happen before ATSC 3.0 has enough adoption
| to transform anything."
|
| Because I think that question comes down to the matter of
| consumer pull. They can push as hard as they want but without a
| consumer pull it's a hugely uphill battle. I struggle to think
| of what useful feature can be added to TV streams that isn't
| already present. I am reminded of the ever-present "oh we can
| present alternate angles" argument that has been banging around
| since the DVD era and which I have seen used precisely zero
| times, for instance; just because some marketer somewhere tries
| to come up with some bullet point feature to name it as the
| reason consumers will be pounding down the doors to buy
| something doesn't mean it's something anyone will actually care
| about.
| Spoom wrote:
| > What's the value proposition for a consumer to go get one
| of these things?
|
| ATSC 2.0 will be useless, because all OTA signals will be
| encrypted, so if they want OTA TV _at all_ , they'll need the
| new device.
|
| I know you're looking for value for the viewer but that's not
| who this is for.
| toast0 wrote:
| > What's the value proposition for a consumer to go get one
| of these things? Obviously it won't be because of the new and
| exciting frontier of advertising it enables, what's the
| actual headline feature?
|
| Higher video quality. Denser channel encoding gets you more
| bits, h.265 instead of mpeg-2 gets you better quality per
| bit, and new standards allow broadcasting 1080p and 2160p.
| More capable audio codec and more bandwidth for audio too.
|
| I don't think direct consumer demand is going to be that high
| though. But, eventually manufacturers will put them in some
| tvs, and then it becomes a checkbox item and everybody needs
| them. Also, broadcasters don't want to do ATSC 1 and 3
| forever (and don't have spectrum for that anyway, cell phones
| keep taking channels), so if there's adoption, ATSC 1
| programming is going to get squeezed into fewer physical
| channels and quality will get worse.
| keithwinstein wrote:
| Just to be pedantic, 1080p24 (and 1080p30, and the
| 1000/1001-rate versions) are already allowed by the
| existing A/53 spec and have been since 1995. The big
| (1080-line) broadcasters usually transmit their film-style
| programming as "effectively" 1080p24, in the sense that
| they're sending 24 or 24000/1001 progressive-scan coded
| pictures per second, but with flags that ask the decoder to
| perform a 3:2 pulldown to output 60 fields per second so it
| fits seamlessly within a 1080i30 sequence. (They could be
| sending "true" 1080p24, but then it would probably create a
| glitch when they transition to 60 fps content and back.)
|
| But anyway: 1080p itself is not a new feature of ATSC 3.0.
| 1080p60 or 1080p120, sure.
| cjensen wrote:
| A bit of a nitpick: 1080p24 was added in 2008 along with
| h.264. It was not part of the original spec, so the
| original HDTV sets could not decode it. Broadcasters
| sensibly don't send 1080p24 since 1080p60 is "good
| enough" and works on all TVs.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Higher video quality is and may remain hypothetical: they
| seem to currently be using the bandwidth for extra
| channels. I think you can count the number of ATSC 3 UHD
| broadcasters on zero fingers. You'd think the demand would
| be there for UHD sports, but sports is a monopoly, so
| :shrug:.
| toast0 wrote:
| Like I said upthread, it's not practical form to use the
| ATSC 3.0 broadcasts, so I don't have a real opinion on
| video quality; but hypothetical quality is a selling
| point. I don't recall the quality being significantly
| better or worse than ATSC 1, but I was more focused on if
| audio worked at all, and unfortunately it generally
| didn't because of codec problems.
|
| From RabbitEars listings [1], it looks like markets
| currently have 0-2 ATSC 3 broadcasts, and in many market,
| those broadcasts are the basically .1 subchannels from
| the major ATSC broadcasts. But I do see a lot of 1080p
| instead of 1080i, so maybe (but if the source is 1080i
| and just deinterlaced at the studio instead of the
| receiver, meh). If they can fit 4-5 subchannels at
| acceptable quality in one physical channel, that is a
| significant increase in quality, which is consistent with
| roughly 2x the bandwidth and the codec upgrade.
|
| There's a lot of chicken and egg here. Can't use more
| bandwidth for better quality if you only have spectrum to
| do a demo with all the local broadcasters. Don't want to
| bother with getting 4k content piped through the
| broadcast chain if nobody actually receives it, and you
| have to downconvert it to send over ATSC 1 anyway. Etc.
|
| With ATSC 1, there was a bunch of extra spectrum
| available for transition, and federal mandates, and
| subsidized converters. There's none of that for ATSC 3,
| so it's going to be slow.
|
| [1] https://www.rabbitears.info/market.php?request=atsc3
| brian_herman wrote:
| Too little too late.
| parl_match wrote:
| >20% of American TV watchers still use broadcast TV.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| I wonder which part of that statistic I'm in?
|
| I watch broadcast TV a few times a year. (But, if I didn't
| work, I wouldn't miss it.)
|
| I put an antenna (and HDHomerun) in my house so I wouldn't
| have to pay for cable; but one major motivating factor was
| for emergency broadcasts. In the five years I've been in my
| house, I used live TV to know how long to hide in my basement
| during a tornado warning.
| jaywalk wrote:
| That number just seems high. My (obviously very anecdotal)
| evidence from everyone I know sits at 0%. Even the ones who
| don't have cable aren't using OTA.
| dsab wrote:
| Same story. Even my mother, 50 is watching turkish soap
| opera online and learning turkish language, because she
| dont want to wait for official releases or subtitles. This
| ATSC standard arrived 20 years too late.
| PhazonJim wrote:
| IIRC OTA use is climbing. I believe a lot of the market is
| lower income and/or rural. New user so not sure if I can
| post a link but a 2022 Nielsen report:
|
| > Nielsen divides OTA home into three segments, those with
| no streaming subscription VOD services (and maybe no
| broadband); those with SVOD, but without a virtual
| multichannel video programming distributor, such as Hulu
| Plus Live TV, YouTube TV or Sling TV; and those with SVOD
| and vMVPDs.
|
| > The largest group uses OTA and SVOD at 9.3% of the
| country, up from 7.2% in 2018. The OTA homes with vMVPDs
| rose to 1.9% from 1.2%, while the OTA only home fell to
| 4.1% from 5.9%.
|
| > People in homes that go over-the-air but don't stream
| have an average age of 61, only 13% of them have children
| and their median income is $22,800.
|
| > People in homes that combine over-the-air viewing with at
| least one streaming service have an average age of 45, 40%
| of them have kids and the median income is $49,000. In the
| homes that have OTA and a vMVPD, the average age is 49, 35%
| have children and the median household income is $77,000.
| bityard wrote:
| The set of people you know is not a random sample of US
| demographics...
| Dwedit wrote:
| Over the Air broadcasts are not worth watching, unless your goal
| is to watch a bunch of commercials with the occasional program.
| matthewmcg wrote:
| Gross. Unencrypted OTA TV is one of the last areas you can enjoy
| a modicum of fair use with respect to personal recordings. DVRs,
| skipping commercials, transcoding to watch on a different device
| or in a different place. Too bad this is being closed down.
| deepsquirrelnet wrote:
| Sometimes I read an article and think the Amish might be the last
| hope for humanity.
| E39M5S62 wrote:
| If you ignore the physical and emotional abuse directed at
| women and children, sure.
| [deleted]
| kmbfjr wrote:
| I worked on the original NTSC to ATSC conversion at three
| stations.
|
| ATSC 3.0 is dead. There are no market incentives for uptake like
| the original conversion, no deadlines and zero incentive for
| broadcasters to produce or pay for compelling content.
|
| The standard is written so broadcasters can compete with big
| tech, but what are they going to show, local news and M*A*S*H?
| nikanj wrote:
| OTA TV is for old people, so they're going to show what old
| people want to watch: Fox Newsian "democrats bad, kids lazy,
| black people criminals" drivel 24/7
| rootbear wrote:
| I am an old person and your notions of what we watch are
| insultingly uninformed. I have played around with OTA on my
| upstairs TV, where the signal is better, and it's fine for
| local news, PBS, etc., but I rarely watch much else on it.
| And I never, ever, watch Fox "News".
| tasty_freeze wrote:
| I'm at the very tail end of the "boomer" generation, 1964.
| I laugh at the people who blame everything on boomers and
| things will be a lot better when they all die off. What
| that fail to recognize is that in time, their generation
| will have power and the types of people attracted to power
| will be the same as with the boomers.
|
| There will still be racists (Nick Fuentes); there will
| still be greedy corporate overlords who profit off of sick
| people (Martin Shkreli); there will still be scam peddlers
| dressed up in sheep's clothing (Sam Bankman-Fried); there
| will still be political grifters making life worse for
| everyone (have your pick).
| pizzalife wrote:
| This sounds like a security nightmare.
| graton wrote:
| Related is the fact that encryption is being turned on for ATSC
| 3.0 broadcasts.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36661524
| pierat wrote:
| Yes, because shitty-encryption-where-we-give-you-the-keys-but-
| dont-at-the-same-time has worked so well for....
| DVDs, Blu-ray, HD-DVDs Playstation 1,2,3,4,5 games
| Nintendo SNES,N64,Wii,GameCube, Switch
|
| And plenty others.
|
| Oh wait, Switch is so bad, that an emulator is already superb,
| and had a 7 day early leak/release of Zelda, with patches that
| make it better on computer than Switch.
|
| So, I'm not super worried about "shitty encryption".
| mh- wrote:
| Encryption can simply be a strategic choice, because it will
| prevent devices being commercialized that rely on using
| "stolen" keys to function.
| phone8675309 wrote:
| > because it will prevent devices being commercialized that
| rely on using "stolen" keys to function
|
| Only if all humanity collectively forgets that China
| exists.
| jdofaz wrote:
| I've had an HD Homerun with ATSC3 for a couple years now, but I
| haven't yet seen an ATSC3 TV in person.
|
| This sounds complicated to implement compared to "ordinary"
| digital broadcasts, what is the incentive for TV manufacturers to
| implement it? It seems like every tv maker has their own plans
| for streaming and ad tracking, I would think they would view
| implementing ATSC3 as helping the competition.
| vvpan wrote:
| I am blown away that we, as human species, drive our world with
| advertising. It feels like cromagnon stuff.
| usrnm wrote:
| But we are the same species as cromagnons, not sure what you
| mean
| geodel wrote:
| I think it just means that cromagnons were real tech-bros.
| zac23or wrote:
| I tried watching some American talk shows. On some talk shows,
| every minute is an advertisement. In addition to the normal
| commercials, the interviewee is usually selling something. And
| the host (Jimmy Fallon is the worst) is always trying to be
| funny, sympathetic to the excruciating point, being kind of a AD
| himself. It's unwatchable.
|
| I can't imagine talk shows with ATSC 3.0...
| RF_Enthusiast wrote:
| Historically, I've been a huge fan of OTA TV, but I just can't
| watch it anymore, because it's primarily an ad delivery platform.
| Even newscasts have home shopping segments now. The only
| exception is Public TV, as they are prohibited from interrupting
| a program for sponsor underwriting acknowledgement [1].
|
| The major broadcasters (meaning full power commercial licensees
| with network affiliations only) have the legal ability to charge
| cable and satellite retransmission fees [2]. That means that they
| can monetize (1) cable, (2) satellite, and (3) their own OTT
| services beyond advertising. However, 20 percent still watch free
| OTA TV, which is a wrench in the spokes of their funding model.
|
| The major broadcasters lose their statutory right to
| retransmission fees if they drop OTA broadcasts. So they next
| best thing they can do is switch to ATSC 3.0, and enable
| encryption, which would effectively kill off that 20%, who they
| would hope go to cable, satellite, or their own OTT service that
| they can charge for at their discretion.
|
| It's my opinion that, in cases involving the major broadcasters,
| ATSC 3.0 has the upside of killing off OTA viewing and that is
| the reason why the major broadcasters like it.
|
| [1] 47 CFR 73.621(e):
| https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/part-73/section-73.621...
|
| [2] https://www.fcc.gov/media/policy/retransmission-consent
| nu11ptr wrote:
| Am I the only one who thought: Who still watches over-the-air TV?
| (yes, I know there are some, but it can't be all that many
| relative to the streaming market)
| [deleted]
| midwestemo wrote:
| For local live events, you can't really beat OTA.
| ABC/FOX/NBC/CBS is all I really need for TV.
| jimktrains2 wrote:
| Unless you can't because they aren't broadcast for
| contractual reasons. E.g. hockey, blacked out football games,
| &c
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| > Who still watches over-the-air TV?
|
| Some previous owner of our house put a large TV antenna in the
| attic and had it wired to all of the coax ports. The signal is
| outstanding and we get a wide variety of channels.
|
| One of the no-name stations has a Spanish subchannel that
| broadcasts a bunch of pretty interesting soccer matches from
| central and South America. I only understand about 30% of what
| they're saying, but it's a soccer match, I know what's
| happening on the field, and there is a worldwide standard for
| referee hand signals. On a different channel, there have been a
| few US National team matches broadcast OTA in Spanish that
| aren't available for free in English - weird, isn't it?
|
| If something I am interested in is on ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, PBS,
| etc and I find out about it, I'll watch that too. But I'm not
| going to spend money or go out of my way to do this ATSC 3.0
| DRM crap. If they switch, I'm done with it.
| Tommah wrote:
| I watch soccer games on the OTA Spanish stations too. I'm
| nowhere close to fluent in Spanish, but my high-school
| Spanish has served me well. The announcers tend to say the
| same types of things over and over again, so over the years,
| I've kinda built up a phrase book in my head of all the usual
| stuff they say.
|
| In addition, I find the announcers in Spanish much more
| exciting than the ones in English.
| btgeekboy wrote:
| I just watched the MLB All-Star game OTA yesterday. We also
| watched the Jeopardy Masters Tournament a few weeks ago. And we
| do tend to pick up the local news in small doses just to see
| what's up around town.
|
| We do stream more than we watch OTA, but when I'm using an
| antenna I bought almost a decade ago and a HDHomeRun that
| doesn't have a recurring cost, it still has its uses.
| jrm4 wrote:
| I do. And the last thing I want is this.
| swader999 wrote:
| OTA is not as compressed as typical services from what I
| remember. Might be the only way to really use your hi end tv.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| 4k blu rays have an extremely high bit rate; and a much much
| better picture than OTA.
| mrweasel wrote:
| I think it was meant as "compared to streaming". My parents
| still have cable tv and the image quality is still
| noticeable better than even 4K streaming of the same
| channels.
| mastercheif wrote:
| > OTA is not as compressed
|
| Sadly this is no longer always the case with the advent of
| ATSC 1.0 and sub-channels.
|
| An OTA TV license grants you 20Mbits of bandwidth in your
| market. The license holder is free to divide this bandwidth
| amongst however many sub-channels they desire.
|
| In the last 7-8 years, the license holders (including
| CBS/NBC/et al) have continuously reduced their bitrates on
| their primary feeds in order to stuff as many sub-channels in
| their slice as possible.
|
| Some of the majors in NYC (I'm looking at you ABC) resemble a
| RealVideo stream from 2002 more than a high-definition video
| from this decade.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > Some of the majors in NYC (I'm looking at you ABC)
| resemble a RealVideo stream from 2002
|
| I honestly didn't realize that this wasn't true
| _everywhere_. Every time I 've seen a digital TV broadcast,
| it's looked like this. Very nearly unwatchable,
| particularly on a large screen.
| zinekeller wrote:
| > I honestly didn't realize that this wasn't true
| everywhere. Every time I've seen a digital TV broadcast,
| it's looked like this. Very nearly unwatchable,
| particularly on a large screen.
|
| Canadian broadcast networks does dedicate all of that
| stream into one (or more rarely two) streams per physical
| channel and it shows up (especially compared to some
| cable providers which squeeze up bandwidth).
| rootbear wrote:
| There are some channels on my cable service that seem to be
| rebroadcasts of these sub-channels. They are unwatchable.
| Sadly, PBS likes to make use of the sub-channels to offer
| various educational program streams, but their main channel
| suffers for it. Fast motion degenerates into blocky
| artifacts quite often.
| e40 wrote:
| I haven't watched over-the-air OR live TV for more than a
| decade, except I sometimes watch NBA games live (rarely,
| though, I like to skip commercials and 1/2 time) on YTTV.
| teeray wrote:
| I _wish_ I could watch OTA TV. Still the cheapest way to watch
| local market sports.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Wait, how? I assume this is all enabled by having the tuner also
| connect to the Internet and then switch the viewer off of the
| actual video stream in favor of specific inserts. Why not just...
| have an Internet stream?
| pierat wrote:
| Cool. Add this to "Yet another reason why I pirate".
|
| Nobody EXCEPT the parasitic data miners/advertisement class want
| this. I'm certainly never going to entertain hooking up a
| internet connection for continual adverts and data mining to a TV
| tuner. Fuck that, no way.
|
| Torrents, Usenet, and DVDs have everything I could ever want. And
| that list is also decreasing.
| jchw wrote:
| People have become so obsessed with movies and TV franchises,
| but I wonder if by adding enough sadism and masochism to the
| process of trying to watch TV and movies, media companies will
| eventually succeed in changing the tides and pushing people to
| find other hobbies. The enshittening hasn't spared a single
| thing. When will the self-deprecation of having to deal with it
| overcome the FOMO of not watching the latest thing they shit
| out?
| supertrope wrote:
| The 1996 Telecommunications Act was intended to increase
| intramodal competition between incumbent phone companies and
| newer competitors on local and long distance phone calls.
| What actually happened is the landline phone companies moved
| on to cellphones and broadband. You can get TV service from
| your phone company, and phone service from your cable TV
| company.
|
| Kids physical toys sales declined in the face of computerized
| entertainment. Satellite radio merged saying the market niche
| wasn't big enough for two companies to survive. Netflix said
| its biggest competitor is a video game Fortnite not other
| Internet TV subscriptions, and it even competes with people's
| sleep hours.
| callalex wrote:
| This transition is already happening. The younger generation
| seems to be spending a lot more time watching "streamers" and
| "vtubers" when they are in the mood for passive
| entertainment.
| jonhohle wrote:
| As a gen-x, I have too, but probably for a different
| reason. YT channels have basically replaced local and
| network TV for me. The "shows" are interesting, free, and
| have the feeling of live or current content that streaming
| services don't have. I know the schedule of my favorite YT
| channels like I used to know network TV line ups. On the
| other hand, there's something so dead, for lack of a better
| word, with streaming services and, imho, streaming audio.
| robertoandred wrote:
| Can we stop appending "class" to everything? It's neither
| clever or accurate.
| pinkcan wrote:
| can we agree to abolish the pedantic class, they produce
| boring commentary
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Usenet?
| notatoad wrote:
| >Nobody EXCEPT the parasitic data miners/advertisement class
| want this
|
| they might not want this specifically, but there's a whole lot
| of people out there who want free TV, whatever the easiest way
| to get it is.
| amelius wrote:
| > they might not want this specifically, but there's a whole
| lot of people out there who want free TV, whatever the
| easiest way to get it is.
|
| Meanwhile they spend $10 on a frappuccino with hazelnut
| syrup.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Except the current standard of ATSC 2 provides free OTA TV
| without the datamining and personalized ads.
|
| It's not like the choices are ATSC 3 or we cannot figure
| anything out.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _It 's not like the choices are ATSC 3 or we cannot
| figure anything out._
|
| Theoretically there are other options, but in practice, the
| choice is exactly that - ATSC 3 or GTFO - because the
| people with money and power to push standards through
| _want_ to subject consumers to datamining and personalized
| ads, and they know perfectly well there 's nothing
| consumers can realistically do about it. Like increasingly
| many markets, it's a supplier-driven "take it or leave it"
| situation.
|
| And don't anchor your hope to current/legacy protocols - if
| people keep sticking to them to avoid the data mining and
| personalized ads, those protocols will get deprecated
| because they "don't support newest industry standard
| encryption models", or some other plausibly-deniabe
| bullshit.
| LocalH wrote:
| I mean, those are _effectively_ the choices, since the
| major impetus for ATSC 3 is the encryption. I 'd honestly
| be fine with it if it were things like major sports events
| and other _network_ programming that were going to be
| encrypted, but individual broadcasters (whether station
| group owned or not) are probably not likely to set things
| up where they can selectively encrypt, I expect most
| channels that broadcast _any_ encrypted content will have
| the switch flipped to encryption 100% of the time.
|
| It should be _illegal_ to encrypt OTA news and local
| interest programming.
| joecool1029 wrote:
| > I'd honestly be fine with it if it were things like
| major sports events
|
| Why? These are heavily subsidized by taxpayer money and
| the broadcasters are already making money off advertising
| on these events.
|
| > It should be illegal to encrypt OTA news and local
| interest programming.
|
| It was on hybrid cable systems, (analog and digital
| channels). Since they went all-digital they lobbied and
| got the FCC to make it legal to encrypt broadcast
| stations: https://www.fcc.gov/document/commission-
| relaxes-cable-encryp...
| asveikau wrote:
| My hunch is that over-the-air broadcasts are much less
| popular in the US than they were 30 years ago. A lot of
| Americans probably don't even know they can get digital
| broadcasts with a coax antenna. One group is probably paying
| for cable or satellite, and another, probably the one with
| more growth, is mostly watching stuff on phones and tablets.
| babypuncher wrote:
| That second group still uses TVs, but they don't watch OTA
| TV. They use streaming services.
| hn8305823 wrote:
| Or, when they do watch live OTA programming they do it
| via a streaming service like Hulu+/YoutubeTV
| m_myers wrote:
| Or they use a device like a Tablo to get free OTA TV with
| all the advantages of streaming to devices, no
| subscription needed. I've done this for several years. I
| can be out working in the yard and pull out my phone to
| watch couple minutes of a football game on ABC or
| whatever, as long as I'm in WiFi range.
| asveikau wrote:
| That's true, I do a lot of that myself but somehow I
| overlooked it in my description.
|
| For me the larger screen provides a social aspect, it's
| something to do with family or with guests, vs. consuming
| alone on a phone.
| JohnFen wrote:
| A whole lot of people (including myself) became incapable
| of getting OTA television after the digital switchover.
|
| Personally, I don't actually mind. OTA TV had already
| become a shitshow of advertisements anyway. Once they
| started overlaying them on top of shows and even embedding
| them within shows, it all became too much to put up with.
|
| But I also don't use streaming services. If I want to see a
| TV show or movie, I get it on physical disc. But I mostly
| don't want to see them -- because I've filled my time with
| stuff that is much more useful and fulfilling.
| scintill76 wrote:
| I'm curious, why can't you get digital OTA TV? I haven't
| tried to use it myself.
| JohnFen wrote:
| This is speculation, but I think that it has to do with
| the geography of the area. Digital TV is much pickier
| about line-of-sight, and there are large parts of my city
| where that doesn't exist to the broadcasting antenna.
| flyinghamster wrote:
| Also, I wouldn't be surprised if it's more susceptible to
| multipath interference. Analog multipath leads to
| ghosting, but in the digital realm it might be too much
| for the ECC to handle.
|
| Analog degraded gracefully with distance, but digital
| works until it doesn't.
| gabesk wrote:
| As I understand it (and I'm not an expert just curious
| reader), it's part of what ATSC 3 is fixing by moving to
| OFDM instead of 8-VSB. Multipath in OFDM leads to some
| (hopefully few) number of subcarriers fading out, which
| error correction can manage. Conversely, 8-VSB is a
| regular single carrier (ish) (with 8 different analog
| signal levels, hence the name), so in order to decide the
| value of any bits at all the TV needs to identify and
| delay (line up) many of the ghosts up with the main
| signal. That's a more challenging signal processing task,
| especially given the diversity in age of the TV tuners
| (the ones from the late 2000's didn't have as advanced
| DSPs).
| asveikau wrote:
| In addition to what others say in the thread, I think the
| range is worse than analog was.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > My hunch is that over-the-air broadcasts are much less
| popular in the US than they were 30 years ago.
|
| Well, obviously.. there's a lot more than 3 choices for
| most people now.
|
| > A lot of Americans probably don't even know they can get
| digital broadcasts with a coax antenna.
|
| The people who watch sports know this, and it is reflected
| in the Nielsen ratings... this is still a huge market.
| tgorgolione wrote:
| I see a lot of impressions on this post that antenna tv is a
| dying, but I think there's potential for antenna tv usage to go
| up.
|
| As a value proposition, you have an initial cost of $50-$300
| (depending on what kind of reception you get and what features
| you want, like DVR), but if you consider basic cable these days
| being $20/mo it's a nice way to save money on the one thing you
| can't get fully yet - live news and sports. Also, if we are
| allowed by the broadcast overlords, you can DVR movies and tv
| shows and keep a library for yourself without another
| subscription.
|
| I have an antenna at home but I don't use it primarily because I
| get poor reception. ATSC 3.0 has been proven to fix this in many
| cases, so I'm hopeful this could be a great way for many people
| to save money.
| notatoad wrote:
| >the one thing you can't get fully yet - live news and sports.
|
| i'm not sure how many people really care much about the live
| news side of it. sports are definitely a big one right now, but
| that's only a licencing and rights problem, not a technology
| problem. as TV dies, those rights will get bought up by people
| who want to put sports online. Your $300 investment is only
| saving you money for as long as those sports are actually
| available on broadcast TV
| tgorgolione wrote:
| > but that's only a licencing and rights problem, not a
| technology problem
|
| A lot of good points here, but I would still prefer antenna
| TV to internet live sports because of the buffering. I feel
| like when I have to resort to using an internet live stream
| I'm not getting it truly live.
| noahtallen wrote:
| > As a value proposition, you have an initial cost of $50-$300
|
| You can get a cheap antenna off Amazon for $10-$20, and even my
| budget-oriented TCL Roku TV has a built-in tuner. In cities,
| this works pretty well! I don't think many young people realize
| this is just available to everyone basically for free.
| zerocrates wrote:
| Anything that calls itself a "TV" has to have a tuner.
|
| I bought my current Vizio in the period where they were
| omitting them and selling as "displays" but they've since
| switched back to just being TVs again and including the
| tuners.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > In cities, this works pretty well!
|
| Not in my city. You have to be lucky enough to live in a
| neighborhood where the signal actually reaches. My decidedly
| not scientific observation is that's about 75% of the city.
| cogman10 wrote:
| This is certainly not going to help the industry.
|
| It was already hard enough to kill off NTSC. Now, with ATSC 3.0
| they want anyone that's still watching OTA to also need to
| provide internet access to their receiver so it can give them
| advertisements?
|
| Have you watched the ads for OTA content? They are all geared
| towards geriatrics. That's because almost nobody under 60 is
| watching OTA (except maybe exceptions like you and I that don't
| mind older TV shows and are willing to DVR it).
|
| So, for a media format primarily consumed by geriatric people
| the new standard proposes they now need a functional internet
| connection hooked up just to watch M*A*S*H. The previous
| standards just needed a coax cable hooked up to an antenna.
|
| I love that ATSC 3.0 uses better codecs. But, it's really dumb
| that they added the internet backend requirement. The entire
| point of OTA is you don't want to stream stuff over the
| internet.
| snapplebobapple wrote:
| I would be more ok with this if copyright was still in the realm
| of reason (they probably got it right with the original 14 year
| term). This just seems like yet another abuse of government
| mandated monopoly to milk yet more unjust profit out of everyone
| at the expense of the public good.
| lxe wrote:
| This is just combining broadcast with internet-based streaming
| into some weird convoluted mess for the purpose of "targeted
| advertisement". Which as a concept just needs to go away.
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