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Here comes the UHF Channel "Repack" for OTA

185K views 713 replies 85 participants last post by  argilo 
#1 ·
#2 ·
Thanks for pointing that out, Trip. Yep, here comes the UHF station "Repack" for OTA:
Canada will work with the U.S. to relocate over-the-air television to free up the low-frequency 600 MHz spectrum for wireless.
That's channel 35 and up being reassigned: http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showpost.php?p=837957&postcount=18

This could also mean redeployment in North America of VHF-LO for OTA, for better or for worse. Time will tell.
 
#3 · (Edited)
Does that mean everything down to and including the 600 MHz spectrum? Or will there be a "gap" like there is between the VHF Lo and Hi? Are OTA carriers just going to lose any channels? It appears that channel 51 is available to OTA at 698 MHz, which is mighty close to the 700 cellular spectrum. Perhaps 600 slots in neatly between channels 34 and 35?
 
#5 ·
This is already being done in the US on a "voluntary" basis with financial compensation. Another move is to allow wireless broadband use for unused local frequencies. Some US TV stations have moved to lower frequencies or survive as subchannels on another channel's frequency. The long term plan is to reassign all UHF frequencies for mobile broadband use. Outside of the GTA and a couple of other large border cities, OTA is all but dead in Canada anyway since dozens of stations have been shut down by the major networks. All that remains is for the government to drive home the stake by forcing another costly transition. Given the public pressure for mobile services, the huge profits to be made from such services and the pro-business stance of most governments, it won't take long.
 
#7 ·
But do you want a VHF-lo monster to get bad reception on an underpowered VHF-lo station? Many stations just moved from VHF to UHF because VHF-lo performance was so bad. Now, the FCC and IC want to force them back there. VHF-lo is especially bad in close urban environments due to RF noise and the way it easily propagates over long distances. That was very evident around here when we had distant VHF-lo stations on cable. Can you imagine what will happen when the 50 or so TV stations in and around Detroit are forced onto 12 VHF frequencies?
 
#8 ·
What about the spectrum between channel 13 (216MHz) and let's say, 400 Mhz. I know there's (there was) military activity, some ham and civil aviation activity throughout but do they really require the almost 200 full mégahertz of spectrum???

Propagation isn't bad at all in that area and our dear bay antennas would take us through the transition. And also what's the arm in a tiny weeny converter box :) ???
 
#10 ·
And H.265 (aka HEVC) is ABOUT TWICE AGAIN as Efficient as H.264 (aka MPEG4)...and a LOT more with bit starved data streams:
http://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/200925/files/article-vp9-submited-v2.pdf [HEVC vs H.264 AVC vs VC9]
http://iphome.hhi.de/wiegand/assets/pdfs/2012_12_IEEE-HEVC-Performance.pdf
http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/Editorial/What-Is-.../What-Is-HEVC-(H.265)-87765.aspx

BTW: No need to panic and re-Optimize all of the DIY Antenna Designs...at least not yet....it will take 5-10 years to clear out ALL of the stations between Ch38 and Ch51. And ALL that is happening NOW is a PROPOSAL to ALLOW some stations to VOLUNTEER to get Rich...Quick....let me makes you an offer youze can't refuse....
 
#11 ·
That's a good point about H.265, holl_ands, and I get irate over some unfairness I perceive about it from the FCC and the big mobile telcos: while new modulations are being devised that improve on OTA spectrum use, the big mobile communications companies still waste tons of spectrum servicing really old, really clunky technologies. They wouldn't need nearly so much spectrum if they would clean up their own act and force people off of legacy systems, but no... that would cost them money to replace all those handsets... :mad:

The OTA broadcasters are being coerced into repacking the spectrum, yet the big mobile communications companies routinely buy up chunks of spectrum simply to lock out geographical competitors, not to provide newer or more efficient services. The entire mobile spectrum needs to be repacked too.

As for VHF-LO, ExDilbert, I was only speculating idly about that but again with newer modulations I would hope that many/most/all of the OTA propagation problems in that band might be addressed with better error correction.
 
#12 ·
If the industry wants to move to H.264 or H.265, the relevant organizations need to start mandating its inclusion in new TV sets very soon. Sets sold today could easily last 10 years. (I have a couple of LCD sets that are now about 10 years old and have no ATSC tuner.) 5-10 years is a short timeline in technological terms. 10 years ago there were only a few ATSC stations in the US, mainly in larger cities, and none in Canada. The NTSC standard dominated for about 70 years.

I agree that this will have little impact on antenna design. It will allow for better optimization and existing designs will continue to work just fine. I can't wait to see the new crop of antennas optimized for H.265 that we will see on eBay. :rolleyes:
 
#15 ·
IC should be taken to task for their shortsighted implementation of the digital transition. It's only been 3 years since it happened and there was already talk of clawing back more UHF spectrum in the US when it took place. There are 6 free allocations here on lower frequencies yet they allowed stations to operate on 48 and 51.

The moratorium should only be issues for new stations above channel 26. If a station wants a lower frequency it should be granted, with the caveat that existing stations be allowed to intervene in order to claim a lower frequency for immediate use.

Shouldn't there also be a moratorium on the issuing of new cell phones
That makes no sense. It's like saying we should stop selling TVs. IC has already placed conditions on the sale and allocation of new wireless communications frequencies, the equivalent of placing conditions on the creation of new TV stations.
 
#16 ·
I was being ironic. But actually there is a difference. My individual ability to add a new TV and antenna does not impact on the use of that same spectrum and signal of any other tv viewer. Whereas the growth in individual smartphone usage is the driver and rationale behind the demand from the telcos for more spectrum.
 
#18 ·
Context is king, my friend.

And really, on the analogy/congestion thing, given that no broadcaster at all is clamouring for wide scale expansion of OTA in Canada no moratorium is needed at all. They are just doing it to satisfy the demands of the Americans (for whom smileys were invented).
 
#19 ·
I say FINE, let them have the added spectrum PROVIDED there are ZERO barriers to T-Mobile, ATT, Verizon etc. joining the fray up here. Besides Bell, Rogers and Telus we have zero networks of any note so prices are set by the big three, if just ONE of those big pocketed US companies made it up here we would actually see competition....never gonna happen.
 
#22 ·
holl_ands said:
No need to panic and re-Optimize all of the DIY Antenna Designs...at least not yet....it will take 5-10 years to clear out ALL of the stations between Ch38 and Ch51
Theoretically it would be possible to phase in the repacked spectrum in Canada's non-border areas, so this could happen sooner up here than down south of the border. Cities like Calgary and Edmonton have huge mobile telecommunications demands yet relatively few OTA stations in comparison to the Vancouver, Toronto, and Southern Ontario border areas. I can imagine a piecemeal repacking happening here in certain parts of Canada.
 
#25 ·
Hardware availability and Audio improvements too, hopefully

Depending on the speed with which manufacturers can ramp up H.265 chipset production it would not be long for USB and set top box products to take to market. It was inevitable that ATSC's MPEG-2 would become obsolescent, but skipping H.264 (MPEG-4) for H.265 would make for a whole new hardware market, and of course a selling point for new OEM HDTVs.

I would presume that a similar technological jump in OTA audio modulation would also happen, with common broadcast of DTS, TruHD, 7.2, etc. etc. formats via OTA.
 
#26 ·
Audio formats may make a move to Dolby Digital Plus (AKA Enhanced AC-3, DD+, E-AC-3 or EC-3.) It has the advantage of allowing widely variable bit rates. Netflix already uses it with compatible devices such as the Chromecast. It can have bit rates from 32Kbps to 6.144 Mbps and from 1 to 15 channels. It's suitable for anything from a low bit rate monaural voice stream to high definition surround movie sound with multiple audio programs.

Don't confuse compression with encoding. H.264 and H.265 are compression algorithms. Things like DTS, Dolby Digital and TrueHD are audio encoding schemes. They are completely independent, though better compression often provides enough capacity to allow better audio formats to be included.

The future of the UHF spectrum will decide if we need to use it to put 6 - 720, 4 - 1080 or 2 - 4k stations on each channel.
That will require a radical change in thinking in organization such as IC, the CRTC and most Canadian broadcasters. Rather than have widely spaced transmitters with haphazard coverage they might need to consider sharing towers and providing uniform OTA coverage to Canadians. How un-Canadian is that? It would almost be like the UK where 99% of OTA viewers can get every network OTA. It could lead to a situation where 90% of Canadians could once again get our publicly funded, national TV network, AKA the CBC. It might even lead to an unthinkable situation where some company launches a service like FreeSat Canada and TV viewers would not need to pay ridiculous fees to get basic TV service. :confused:
 
#28 ·
Don't confuse compression with encoding. H.264 and H.265 are compression algorithms. Things like DTS, Dolby Digital and TrueHD are audio encoding schemes. They are completely independent, though better compression often provides enough capacity to allow better audio formats to be included.
Those are ALL audio compression algorithms (yes even "Lossless" TrueHD)....PCM and DSD (e.g. SACD's) are the usual uncompressed audio encoding "formats" used in the original recordings:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_TrueHD
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_compression#Audio
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_codecs [YIKES....that's a plethora of acronyms....]
 
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