I am well aware of the cost issues of operating two transmitters during the transition. That was just an observation. IIRC, many smaller markets in the US flash cut as well. OTOH, PBS was a DTV/HDTV pioneer in many markets. They not only operated two transmitters in many markets but two separate networks with one airing HDTV 24/7 for years before the official cutoff date. What can TVO manage? A last minute flash cut with SDTV digital in many markets. That's years later when HDTV conversion and HDTV production costs have significantly dropped. What's wrong with this picture?

OTOH, PBS was a DTV/HDTV pioneer in many markets. They not only operated two transmitters in many markets but two separate networks with one airing HDTV 24/7 for years before the official cutoff date. What can TVO manage? A last minute flash cut with SDTV digital in many markets. That's years later when HDTV conversion and HDTV production costs have significantly dropped. What's wrong with this picture?

First of all PBS is better funded than TVO. Secondly, they did a lot of test trials for ATSC broadcasting equipment and thus received support from the equipment manufacturers. This testing has now been done, so TVO has to pay full price.

And a lot of PBS stations (like WPBS in Watertown) got government funding for the transition.

And PBS has some national funding/fundraising which it used to help the local stations transition. TVO is only operated in Ontario.

TVO may only cover Ontario but cost per subscriber should be comparable. I'm not blaming TVO, just wondering where the funding and fundraising is in Ontario (and Canada as a whole.) If even small market PBS stations in the US can manage the tradition to HD ahead of schedule, why can't it at least be done on time, up to a decade later in Ontario (and the rest of Canada?) AFAIK, many communities are not getting HD this year, just the same NTSC or an SD digital repeater with no local programming. Compare that to PBS where all majors markets have local production and smaller markets, at the very least, have programming tailored to local viewers' tastes. Let's face it, TVO is broken as far as meeting viewers' expectations is concerned. Lack of funding plus poor delivery equals no viewers.

It's not just a TVO problem, its a larger issue in Canada of all the networks as well. It boils down to different models in Canada and America being adopted.

Had the CRTC prevented locals-inside-locals (i.e. letting me watch Vancouver or Calgary stations even though I live in Toronto or even some random market that doesn't have locals) then there would be greater support for all of this.

In Windsor for example, all they can get OTA is CBC, SRC, TVO, /A\ and a weak Global signal. As far as I am concerned, that's all the BDU's should be allowed to distribute in this 'market'. That would force other stations to come in and invest, and would also result in a lot less O&O's, especially if O&O's became capped like they are in the US.

Meanwhile in the USA your stuck with what you get and its all they can offer (well at least for the most part, there are some exceptions where consumers have received waivers from local stations allowing them to import distant feeds but its a very small percentage of the population).

If we want to have this conversation, a mod should consider spinning it off into a different thread... Otherwise back to our regularly scheduled programming...

I couldn't agree more. OTOH, this thread is about TVO's transition status, which, as far as viewers can see, is basically non-existent right now. I also really don't really care that much since they announced digital SD only for many areas outside Toronto. Now, back to watching the PBS pledge drive in spectacular HD. ;)

TVO may only cover Ontario but cost per subscriber should be comparable. I'm not blaming TVO, just wondering where the funding and fundraising is in Ontario (and Canada as a whole.)

For one thing, many Canadians support PBS, but I don't imagine may Americans support TVO. Also American state and federal governments were keen on funding the transition but here in Canada the government doesn't seem interested in helping out.

It all makes a difference.

The government will no doubt be interested in using the money from selling the freed bandwidth. It's a little self serving of of the ruling political parties if you ask me. It's like telling voters, 'Hey we reduced the deficit/cut taxes/financed this pet project', while hiding the fact it was on the backs of their TV entertainment budget. That's especially true of areas that are losing TV service. People outside the GTA and Ottawa are being treated like second class citizens when it applies to things like TVO coverage.

As for station support, it could be because PBS stations air programs Canadians in their viewing area want to watch, while TVO only has one English language master signal for the entire province.

I've been thinking about how I could make a special channel 39 antenna that could catch the Hawksbury signal from Orleans, to overcome a -13 Noise Margin in TVFool. This was crazy thinking, I figured there must be a better way. My emails to TFO had been ignored, so I needed something else to get this moving again.

I found some community committee in TFO's about page and emailed the Ottawa rep: why isn't TFO not asking TVO to carry them as a sub-channel in Ottawa ? There's lots of francophones in the area and for many, satellite or cable is not an option. She replied immediately and will follow up with TFO.

My neighbor decided to follow up with the local provincial MP. We'll see where this goes.

I posted a question to TVO on their Facebook page, and they responded.

Q: Will TVO implement a proper PSIP (Program & System Information Protocol) data stream? By "proper", will it contain accurate electronic programming information for viewers with tuners capable of displaying this info?

TVO's response: Yes we plan to deliver program information with the PSIP data. Initially we will get it to Toronto and Ottawa via fiber, and if possible to Paris, London, Chatham & Windsor via re-transmission. In time our intent is to get the program descriptions to the other digital over the air transmitters as well, but need to overcome some signal delivery constraints.

Not sure if this was mentioned but exact time frames (down to the hour) have been detailed out for the very organized TVO transition. So in a nuthshell they will be Off-Air from 1am until 6am.

In London, Kitchener, Ottawa and Thunder Bay, TVO will cease analog transmission at 1 am and begin digital transmission at 6 am on Tuesday August 16 on the following channels:
London: digital channel 18
Kitchener: digital channel 28
Ottawa: digital channel 24
Thunder Bay: digital channel 9
In Windsor, Chatham, Toronto, Belleville and Cloyne, TVO will cease analog transmission at 1 am and begin digital transmission at 6 am on Thursday August 18 on the following channels:
Windsor: digital channel 32
Chatham: digital channel 33
Toronto: digital channel 19
Belleville: digital channel 26
Cloyne: digital channel 44


http://www.gopublic.org/?page_id=914

[...]My emails to TFO had been ignored, so I needed something else to get this moving again.

I found some community committee in TFO's about page and emailed the Ottawa rep: why isn't TFO not asking TVO to carry them as a sub-channel in Ottawa ? There's lots of francophones in the area and for many, satellite or cable is not an option. She replied immediately and will follow up with TFO.

My neighbor decided to follow up with the local provincial MP. We'll see where this goes.I guess we should all be putting in a request to TFO for Ottawa OTA. We know TVO and TFO are now different crown corps. with "separate" budgets, but let's hope red tape doesn't prevent them from taking advantage of this inexpensive sub-channel possibility. Quebec market "overlap" (I don't really get the issue, if TFO and Tele-Quebec are both provincial crown corps.? - owned by the people) could be mitigated based on the fact that it would most likely only be an SD channel anyhow.

I posted this question on TVO's facebook the other day and no answer.

Using subchannels for TVO and TFO is against CRTC policy and any application would likely be denied. I also don't want to hear the outcry from the French/English communities when TFO/TVO gets carried as a subchannel. They both deserve a full service channel. Then we can talk about innovative new services on subchannels.

ScaryBob,
While I am sure TVO and TFO "deserve" their own channels, I also know that with the new technology, the cost of having 2 sets of everything approved, maintained, etc. is like double dipping our pockets. Lots of companies in the private sector own 2 stations and they carry a main channel and a subchannel. Prime example around Ottawa is the US channels WWNY & WNYF, CBS and Fox owned by the same company. They did not fuss over this kind of thing, it made economic sense to have both under the same digital channel, so they did it.

I don't really care whether TFO partners with TVO or any other station and has a different solution in every market. My proposition is about sharing costs in this difficult budget environment to stretch our tax dollars and giving us more services for our money.

They could still cut costs by co-locating equipment, sharing a tower, sharing other equipment and distribution feeds. There is probably no need to go furter by degrading one or both of the signals.

Sharing towers, equipment buildings, standby generators and similar items is the norm for broadcasting. In some cases, transmitters are combined to share the transmission line and antenna. The cost of a shared installation can easily be in the half million dollar range for each channel not counting the tower.

Sharing a digital channel is cheap by comparison. The cost of an SD encoder plus multiplexer and other items can be significantly less than fifty thousand so the two approaches are an order of magnitude apart. Even better, if the two broadcasters sharing the digital channel are operating from multiple transmission sites, the multiplexed signal can be sent ready for input to the transmitter. One set of encoders and a multiplexer can feed the satellite or fibre system to the transmission sites at 19.3Mbits/second. A local PSIP generator is used to insert the correct channel numbers at each transmitter.

Sharing a digital stream could be accomplished several ways. The party paying the most money could have an HD signal and the other party could have SD widescreen at DVD quality. As a second option, both signals could be converted to 720P30 HD to allow equal quality for both broadcasters. Fox, ABC, ESPN and some other US networks use 1280x720 for so spacial resolution should not be an issue. Temporal resolution at 30 frames per second is half that used by US 720P60 broadcasters but remember that motion pictures are only 24 frames per second. Considering the type of content typically shown by educational/public broadcasters is not high action, high detail like sports, 30P should not be a problem. The HD encoder can also be configured to automatically switch to 24P whenever the original program is shot at standard film rates. A third, but likely unpalatable option, would be mode switching between SD and HD on each service. The two broadcasters would have to agree on a schedule for using the HD capability. ATSC decoders will tolerate this format change provided that it is done correctly.

Putting TFO on the same digital transmitter with TVO would be a simple matter technically but the two broadcasters are now separate organizations so cooperation will be more complicated because no single individual can force the decision. The simple fact that they split off TFO from TVO suggests there were issues between the French and English parts of the operation. I wouldn't hold my breath on this one.

This has been discussed earlier here, but the issue with TFO here in Ottawa is that T-Q is the French Educational channel here. I am not sure if they have a gentleman's agreement and don't want to compete with each other, if the CRTC only wants one French Educational channel in the market or if it is a programming rights issue, but I don't think we will see a TFO transmitter here in Ottawa. The Hawksburry TFO transmitter is to fill in the hole between the Montreal and Ottawa T-Q transmitters.

The only way it might be possible is if TFO put a transmitter in Herbert's Corner's with a null to the north so that the protected contour doesn't extend across the river. One issue with that is many Gatineau residents have better elevation and might be able to receive the signal better than those in central Ottawa. Also, the Gatineau T-Q transmitter covers far more of Ontario than it does Quebec (due to the hilly terrain in the Outaouais and flat terrain in the Ottawa Valley), so they may not be happy with TFO transmitting in Ottawa.

Guys, transmitting towers overlap all the time. T-Q overlaps in Ontario near Gatineau, TFO overlap in Quebec near Hawksbury, so TFO overlapping in Quebec should not be an issue at all. This is all small potatoes. I believe the real issue is cost. I also cannot assume and will not assume anything the CRTC would do. If it's good for OTA and 2 stations wish to partner and cooperate for the greater good, no matter if they are 2 public, 2 private or 1 public with 1 private entities, I don't see how the CRTC would stand in their way.