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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 heard that they already doing this in england with dvb-terrestrial.
;)
does anyone know if they will be using DVB (Digital Video Broadcast) format? (I didn't read the article so don't flame me...)
in case they are, this would be easy to pick up on computer's equipped with a dvb pci card and software
Investing forum
Now if only they could do broadband over the same frequency range...for the same price.
That's just plain old broadcast digital TV, except that it reqires a decoder; I just don't see what is so revoloutionary... Also, the author cites "idle... frequencies" as if broadcasting on these is without enormous cost...
Is this encrypted like satellite TV? Or can I buy a receiver and not pay for the signal? Are these people going to sue all purchasers of smart card IO devices?
My other car is first.
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.
The UK have has a DigitalTV service that broadcasts to standard antenni for a little while now. FreeView
I live in BFE, where there is no cable and I'm too cheap for a dish (plus no Internet from a dish out here). I wonder since this is going thru the UHF/VHF frequencies, if it will be available farther out of town than cable is in most places. Also, most channels thru my standard antenna don't come in very well. I think 2 of the 6 channels I get are clear. I wonder if this will have the same problems for those of us stuck out in the country?
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).
We've now got FreeView, a free to air replacement. Same technology sans encryption. There's also a group called Top Up TV, who are looking to add some pay channels to Freeview, but they look likely to fail due to lack of new equipment to receive pay channels on, and a poor selection of channels (limited due to lack of UHF bandwidth).
I appear to have a blog. Odd.
They don't have Comedy Central, which is 1/3 to 1/2 of what I watch:
Child Development: South Park
Sociology: Dave Chapelle
News: Daily Show w/ Jon Stewart
There's even optional:
geography: Dave Attel
As I wrote to the CEO of Dish Networks, lack of comedy central will be the deal breaker.
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
Indeed, the service is a little cheaper than the common cable system, but brings about one major disadvantage: You will need a receiver and subscription for every receiver you own. So if you have 2 TV's and a VCR, you need 3 subscriptions, and this setup is more expensive than cable plus an amplifier and indoor coax cabling.
However, the service can be used on the road, allowing good quality TV reception in vehicles and on, for example, campsites.
I've seen the displays in our local Wal-Marts (Orem ,UT ~30 miles from SLC). The features look really good, but they just didn't have any options for adding other channels that they do NOT mention.
I prefer a lot of channels so I can skip the trash and find the good shows... I just don't see that as an option for this service. The HDTV aspect is attractive, but I don't have the money for the TV! (I know, I know, I am a bad bad bad geek)
With thier $19 price structure it looks like they are going after customers that want basic with some premium channels but not the high price, I think that is the same market that does NOT have HDTV's.
My brother is thinking about signing up so to add HDTV to his big screen, but he will still keep his dish.
~Z
Great selection for the test markets...
Salt Lake City - only watch the 700 Club
Las Vegas - too busy gambling
Albuquerque - can't afford tv's
Sounds like Digital Terrestrial TV currently rolling out across the UK - Information from the BBC and here's the UK Govt information.
Evil ZEN Scientist
A friend of mine found out about this awhile back and has been documenting his research into the matter. You can read what he has found here. Basically: "While surfing the web I have found out that USDTV is renting space for 3 of its 11 channels from KULC. While I am no lawyer I think that this is illegal as KULC is licenesed as an educational station."
In that case, you need a Lazybowl.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
In a previous comment I wondered about how they would go about protecting the digital stream from piracy.
I went ahead and did some reading and it seems that when you purchase the unit, you have to call customer service and read them the UID number and the serial number from the receiver.
I'm sort of disappointed in their engineering department. I give it 3 months of mass market exposure before you see a hack (perhaps opening the unit and being able to serial into it?) that will let you change the UID and Serial Number to perhaps an existing subscription. or even a universal unlock code (like region 0), who knows.
One day, we will all have a big fat fucking fiber pipe (fffp technology) right up to the door, and all this silly old technology for media delivery will die out, as it should. But, for the time being, this looks marginally interesting, as long as the consumer does not have to foot the bill for some box that will only become junk a year or so later (WebTV...).
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
What's USDTV? Did the Department of Television replace the Department of Education so soon?
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
Why is there a monthly fee to recieve it?
"equipment rental" my ass.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
What??? Using public airwaves to send for-pay content??? That is not right. These broadcasters pay NOTHING to lease very VALUABLE public resource (air-waves). The arrangement has always been that for leasing for free, they MUST broadcast open and clear signals. This kind of encrypted services is clear violation of that agreement. I have no problem if this company pays for the unused spectrum, but to use public resources to make profit seems like a very bad land grab by very greedy people. Where the hell is FCC??? Oh, I forgot, they are in the pockets of the broadcasters...
USDTV only really adds 10 channels that you can't get with a normal digital TV decoder. Namely, Disney Channel, Toon Disney, Lifetime, Lifetime Movie Network, HGTV, Food Network, ESPN, ESPN2, Discovery Channel and TLC.
Everything else they list on this page are channels that can be plucked out of the air with a standard digital TV tuner in the Salt Lake City area. So, in effect, viewers are paying $19.95 to get 10 channels... roughly $2 per channel.
Too expensive, competition from existing sat and cable made it poor value and finally went bankrupt paying over the odds for the right to air minor league football matches that nobody wanted to watch.
In fact the only success was the funny knitted mascot toy they made famous which was used in the advertisements these sometimes fetching crazy prices on ebay at the time.
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 have firsthand knowledge of these USDTV boxes and though it may just be another thing to blab about on here, can tell you for a FACT that the entire firmware and interface are both linux-based from the bottom up. I can't tell you how I know that, hence the AC post, but it is.
Maybe that fact will draw some more attention to them, but probably for the wrong reasons. Linux or not, they still suck pretty horribly.
Their boxes and the service are just a little bit too early to market. The firmware is HORRID, though my box grabs a new one every couple of days it seems. The interface is shoddy and not well-laid out. Don't even get me started about the remote control! It is a single-function remote, and poorly made at that. It has to be pointed directly at the box in order to work, and has a poor range. They claim they are working on this, but as of yet I still have the stock one that came with my system. It is the only remote that will talk to the box, so it's irreplaceable.
You need a UHF antenna to get their signal, and it is easily more difficult to maintain a clear consistent signal than it is with a satellite dish or regular antenna.
Their price plans to seem to fill a niche, but they didn't do enough beta testing on the boxes and interfaces themselves to where they are usable. Price lured in a lot of people, but as soon as they found the service sucked so bad, lots of people are dropping back out. Two of my neighbors got refunds from the company for their equipment and service.
The guy who came to set mine up told me that the "brain" of the box is a custom-designed ATI chip, and it has a basic mini-mobo (mini-atx?) inside that everything connects to. There are 2 USB ports on the back of the box (whose functionality is unknown as far as I can tell. Can't see any use for wi-fi access from the HDTV box), and outputs include component, composite, s-video, and digitial optical out. I also think there's Digital coax out for audio, but can't recall. I'd have to look at mine again.
If you're in an area with this service already, give it a miss. They're hoping to (and just may) give cable and satellite providers a big run for their money, but the way they're going they will be bankrupt before it comes to that. Just get DirecTV and be done with it.
1. Yes, the signals are encrypted, and they use a Conditional Access Module in order for you to descramble the content. The scheme works in a similar way as satellite.
2. Yes its on the "public airwaves", just encrypted. The FCC says no encrypting primary network feeds (either SD or HD), but they can do whatever with the extra space they have.
3. Its using the extra space in the digital channel. The 8VSB modulation scheme will allow for 19.4Mbit/s per channel. 1080i HD takes up about that much, 720p uses 14Mb/s or so, 480i/p take up about 3Mb/s. So if I own a digital channel and only transmit in 480i/p then I've got lots of extra bandwidth, and I can sell it to someone else.
4. A *very* important thing to note is that the receiver will output ANYTHING unless you fork over the $20/mo. If you pay the $99 or whatever to buy the receiver and decide you dont like it, you're out the money. You cant use it as a HDTV OTA receiver (to receive channels that are in the air and not encrypted). You must pay USDTV money to keep the box from becoming a really expensive doorstop. Likewise, if USDTV goes out of business, you will probably have a really expensive doorstop.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
Some research has been about USDTV's operation in Utah and they appear to be using channels that have been allocated to the "Utah State Board of Regents", which is the state board responsible for overseeing education in Utah.
IANAL, but according to FCC regulations (47CFR73) "noncommercial educational broadcast stations will be licensed only to nonprofit educational organizations upon a showing that the proposed stations will be used primarily to serve the educational needs of the community; for the advancement of educational programs; and to furnish a nonprofit and noncommercial television broadcast service."
We feel USDTV might be in violation of these regulations and we've been searching for answers as to the nature of the agreement between the two entities. So far our efforts to contact them have not yeilded results. Does anyone have any understanding of how they are able to license this "non-commercial" bandwidth?
Credit for most of the research goes to Luke Jenkins. There's a complete history of the research he's been doing to get to the bottom of this matter here: http://a.zzq.org/kulc/
I don't normally bitch about modding, but give me a friggin break! Flamebait?
The point is - there's such a thing as too many set-top boxes. I've got enough already. When someone starts to integrate features rather than selling me another box for each, I'll buy another. In the meantime, forget it.
Awesome. I'm going to install a C-band dish on my balcony now!
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.).
Wow, they're actually just sending the television signals RIGHT THROUGH THIN AIR?! WHAT'LL THEY THINK OF NEXT!
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
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
Utah? Linux? Darl? Is that you??? If so, I have an open message:
;P
BITE ME.
Un-news
There was something like this here in Rochester, NY, some time ago. It failed horribly and the company has long since disappeared.
Plus, their channel lineup SUCKS. Really, you only get six channels you didn't get before. Disney, Lifetime, ESPN, Discovery, HGTV, and Food. Just because you get two channels of the same shit doesn't make it different.
Then again, now that I look back on it.. this is actually a perfect channel lineup for Utah, where every family is like some stereotype out of a 50's sitcom - you're unamerican if you're a woman and you're not a stay-at-home wife, or a man that doesn't care about sports, because that means you're a fag...
The difference that digital TV makes is spectrum efficiency - the US HDTV standards can fit a digital HDTV signal in the same space as an analog TV channel, or they can use the same bitstream-over-radio to carry about four lower-resolution TV channels, using protocols that are uglier than you'd expect to multiplex them on the bitstream. The ugliness of the protocols reflects the ugliness of political process that led to the design, with the FCC, the existing broadcast TV license-holders, the big networks, the cable TV companies, and several competing hardware folks in on the deal. They sold it to the public as High Definition TV, but of course there's not too much content where HDTV matters (mostly sports and movies, but not most sitcoms or dramas or news or talk shows), so by the time the standards were mandatory, the broadcast license owners got to convert their analog stations to "Digital TV", which can use the bits for HDTV or lower resolution content, giving them multiple low-res channels instead of the one they used to have, which they can essentialy sublet out to other people if they don't want to package their own content for it.
The US FCC essentially nationalized the public's airwaves back in the 30s, along with the rest of the New Deal power grabs, and rents it back to big media companies or occasionally small well-behaved media companies in return for the ability to bully them around about content. Occasional gaps in the coverage have slipped by, allowing things like WiFi, but most of the spectrum is subject to political control, and that means of course that everybody lobbies the FCC.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
So we get all our tv transmitted in unencrypted, 6Mbit (or there abouts) MPEG, widescreen. Each channel has about 21-25 Mbit of bandwidth so most stations also transmit a HD signal as well. Currently I think one of them transmit at 1080i, and the rest at either 720p or 576p as the high definition channel.
Also the leading cable/sat tv provider has just started transmitting their cable pay service using DVB-C.
The land down under. It's not just Steve Irwin anymore.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
The service is not using "idle frequencies", it is using active frequencies but spare bandwidth. I.e., it is including its scrambled signal in with the standard digital broadcast signal of one or more other stations.
If these stations have the spare bandwidth, this is a win/win for both the station and USDTV, since they get the cost of a tower and transmitter underwritten by USDTV, and USDTV gets a medium they don't have to worry about licenses for.
This will be a benefit to those areas where the local stations are hard-pressed to come up with the funds to go digital (even though they must). It will also be a big help in areas currently served by translators, since those are sometimes operated by small groups within the community they serve. They can still translate, and sell the excess space to USDTV, who pays for the hardware.