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USDTV Announces Low-Cost, Localized Digital TV
pagercam2 writes "According to a CNN story, USDTV is about to roll out a new digital TV service, the difference being that it doesn't use cable or a satellite. They stream the DigitalTV signals on currently idle frequencies to standard UHF/VHF antennas. The service includes 35 channels, including local stations as well as many of the basic cable (Disney, Discovery, ESPN, TLC, FOOD...) with more to come. $19.95/mo is the price point for a basic service, though '...customers must buy a $99.95 set-top device to decode the channels.' Initially to be rolled out in Salt Lake City, Las Vegas and Albuquerque, could USDTV keep prices low and still support local content since they have no cable network to maintain, and no satellites to launch?"
I've never had any luck with antenna-based communication. How would service be affected by bad weather? I know digital is definently better than analog over the air, but it still brings back memories of moving my hand half an inch one way while holding up a large metal rod and dancing a jig.
I'm curious if the set top boxes use a form of authorization on the video stream like DTV or DishNetwork.
I know it's been a big deal lately that there has been a new sat. receiver released that can descramble Dish Network signals without the use of a SmartCard by simply providing it the latest decryption keys which anyone can get from a website.
Curious how long it'll take before they crack the protection on this system... so anyone can get free digital TV anywhere (well, if they roll it out everywhere).
I've also heard that Disney has invested money in USDTV. It appears that this is true, given the some of the channels: 2 pure Disneys, 2 ESPNs, 2 and Lifetimes. It looks like USDTV can't get away from one of the evils of cable: forced bundling.
Basically, the FCC says your neighborhood association can place restrictions on where you put the dish, but can't prohibit its installation.
I'd be peeved if someone decided that a station that I watch was too far away to matter, and set up a scrambled broadcast on the same frequency.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
the FCC auctions off bands of frequencies to companies all the time.
Right. But most TV stations have never had to buy the rights to their licenses at an auction. In the early days of broadcasting, radio and TV licenses were handed out to anybody who thought they could make a viable business out of it, and so long as they keep a signal on the air and don't seriously violate FCC rules, stations are allowed to renew their license infinitely. In fact, station owners are allowed to sell their licenses with nothing but a small transfer fee payable to the FCC and a rather trivial approval processes to make sure that the new owner can hold the license.
So, while TV stations are allowed to operate a for-profit business, they don't have to pay for their licenses... licenses don't come up for auction like cell phone frequences have been auctioned.
Personally, I'd love to see it an FCC rule that whenever a market worth of TV stations come up for a renewal, the station that has done the least to serve the public interest during the previous license period doesn't get renewed and their license goes up for bids in an auction. The booted company can try to buy their license back, but the idea is that this would make a shop-at-home TV station a lot more expensive to operate.
I don't know what gave you that idea. It's more like Albuquerque - highest per capita of PhD's of any large city in the nation - don't watch TV.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
The U.S. digital TV system allows for "subchannels". So, a single station can carry multiple programs simultaneously. This service uses those subchannels to transmit encrypted programs that need to be decoded by their subscriber box. So they are using the free public spectrum for a pay service.
Of course, if a station is broadcasting HDTV, this is taking precious bandwidth away from the primary video channel. For 1080i broadcasts, this can really degrade the quality of the HD video. Particularly when showing fast moving sports, they really need the full available bandwidth to do a decent job.
So, this service encourages stations to not carry HD programs, and instead get a cut of the revenue on these pay stations.
In the end, I think the market will reject this.. there are too many drawbacks (extremely limited number of channels that can be offered (no CNN, no HBO.. they will only be able to carry 6-10 pay channels depending on local conditions), very minimal ability to offer HDTV programming (both cable and satellite are now positioning HDTV as a competitive issue, by the nature of this service they will not be able to support ESPN-HD, HBO-HD, Discovery-HD, etc.).
I just checked their channel listings for the SLC area(where I live) and a quick perusing with the remote reveals that I already pick up the local channels for free with my rabbit ears on my Mitsubishi HDTV with a built in HDTV tuner.
The pay channels are not the HDTV versions, they are old 480i signals.
So 75% of what they offer for $19.95/month is already free so you are paying for only 11 pay channels that are non-HDTV format. That's about $1.81/channel each month.
A comparable Dish Network package comes with 60 channels at $24.99/month. Which comes to about $0.42/channel each month.
Now if I were to recalculate those numbers considering which pay channels are complete crap then they would get a little closer but I'm sure the satellitte will still be a much better deal. For now I think I'll stick with my rabbit ears and Dish Network subscription. But I am currently looking into switching to Voom satellitte TV which is ALL HDTV.
burnin