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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?"
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'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
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 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.
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.
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.
Yes, we are doing Digital TV over the airwaves like that. I'm not sure if it is DVB based (I don't think it is), but its all broadcasted in spare UHF frequencies. It started off as a pay service called onDigital. They weren't doing very well, as the channel linup was limited, compared to Sky (digital satellite) or ntl and Telewest (cable), they weren't doing too well, so the product was re-branded ITV Digital, in line with the ITV channels. They spent ludicrous sums of cash on rights to football matches nobody really cared about. The company ultimately folded about 18 months ago. What was left was just the free-to-air channels supplied by the BBC. A new service was launched, called Freeview which only carried totally free (as in beer) programming. You just had to spend 100 on a decoder, or you could use your existing ITV Digital decoder (ITV Digital subsidised the STBs, but wrote them off as a loss so everybody could keep them). A new service is now launching in parrallel with Freeview called TopUP TV, which carries some paid programming. Its so far caused problems as its added more channels than some of the latest generation decoders can support!
Freeview
topup.tv
It is not DVB based, but ATSC. Still mpeg2, but with a few changes. They are renting bandwidth from the local digital tv stations (including pbs) for these 10 or 11 channels.
Not only do we use DVB-T in the UK, there is also a cheap PCI card from hauppage which is supported in Linux (after a lot of driver fiddling) and works perfectly with mythtv. It is therefore nice and easy to set up a mythtv box without being a slave to the cable company or satellite company and having full control over everything. New channels get added all the time and they are basically multiplexes over individual channels (ie; what would be one analog channel is a mux of about 8 channels, though most of those are used for crap!) Check out the dvb-t linux docs and mythtv docs if you want to know more. There are a few main muxes all of which are encoded slightly differently (and so some channels do not get as good reception as others, BBC 1/2 are much clearer than ITV2 and Channel 5). The channels are basically MPEG2 streams so if you record them raw, they can be easily converted onto DVD with no analog problems. At its peak the dvb-t service when operated by ITV digital had about 60 channels IIRC. It is a great piece of technology but is not well suited to private companies IMHO.
Warhammer forums
Dang straight. I was talking to a Verizon field technician today and he says he and about a hundred and forty other techs are being trained to install fiber. Verizon is trying to push fiber out to the last mile to compete with cable companies. He said they already have one "test neighborhood" in Cerritos where they've been stringing fiber from the pole to the POD on every house they service. It is Verizon, though, so for internet connectivity they'll probably still only give you the option of $50/mo for a 1500/256 async, or $300/mo for a 3000/3000, offering absolutely nothing in between, the way they do with DSL. I can see them spending a crapload putting in fiber, then selling it like it's cable TV and DSL. "Yeah, we have the bandwidth to offer you a 10GBps connection, but since we charge $300 for 3MBps, that'll cost you $10,000 per month".
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
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/
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
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
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.