Amateur Radio

There’s a group of people out there – men and women, both – who are more giving, more helpful during emergencies, and probably less appreciated than about any other collection of folks you could find.

 

Specifically, they’re amateur radio operators.

 

You probably don’t know much about them beyond those funny license plates that combine letters and numbers and, underneath say, “Amateur Radio” or “Ham Radio.”  Or they may be the group that you were blaming for interference with your television, though it’s far more likely that such interference was coming from a citizens’ band operator (an entirely different group, most of whom have no knowledge of radio technology).  The CB operator is interested solely in communicating with other CB operators – at their licensed or greatly-increased power.

 

Why am I writing about amateur radio operators?

 

Well, first, to say thanks.  You’ll find ham operators helping out in just about any emergency.  And the bigger the problem, the more they seem to offer.  Emergency radio traffic and messages, coordination of aid and relief, even first aid and delivery of medicine.  More than once, ham operators have been pressed into service as air traffic controllers operating at ad hoc air strips when airports have been closed.

 

In many places they’re still the backbone of the public’s side of emergency action.  

 

It’s for the money, right?  Uh, no.  Especially since operating on any of the amateur frequencies (bands) requires a license which explicitly forbids use of amateur radio for “pecuniary interest.”  No.  They do it for the service.  And they maintain readiness – regular meetings, field day operations (going out, setting up temporary operations and passing traffic on a regular basis), meetings with local, state and even federal emergency officials.

 

Quakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, lost children, just about any emergency you can imagine, you’ll find amateur radio operators mobilizing to help.

 

And you ask again, why am I writing about this?

 

Well, I spent a part of a recent weekend at a “hamfest”.  This is a convention of amateur radio operators.  It consists of learning sessions, FCC examinations, group meetings (like emergency operating groups), and an esoteric flea market offering items 99 percent of folks wouldn’t recognize, let alone want.  

 

If you have interest in radio technology – and by that I mean any sort of wireless communication – it’s a blast.  You can find everything from the latest computer and wifi gear to an iconoscope.  And if ever there were a place where one man’s junk is…well, this is it.

 

Cool.  And, yet one more time, why am I writing about this?  Well, by observation, I’ve established that the average age of a ham operator is somewhere between 60 and deceased.  There’s just been very little influx.  Nothing to interest the kiddies.  And that’s doubly disappointing since most amateurs acquired their first [usually “novice”] license in their early teens – or before!

 

So I got to thinking, why the lack of newbies?  Here’s what I’ve come up with 

·    The mystique is gone.  Once upon a time, you could tune up your homebrew rig into a homebrew antenna and “work” into any number of states and, depending on frequency, around the world.  You’d exchange QSL cards with the other party, noting the specifics of the contact.  Today, you boot up your factory-made computer using your factory-written OS into a factory-made modem and across a pair of wires (possibly through a factory-made wifi transmitter/receiver) to your Facebook page.  There, someone may have left a message wanting to contact you.  Afterward, you may even exchange emails.  There was a magic to waves leaving an antenna and delivering a message halfway around the world.  That’s been doused by the multitude of means by which we can achieve the same end.  For some, there’s a bigger mystery to data packets migrating from device to air to line to server to line to server to friend to deliver the message, “C U L8r.” 

There’s just no big deal to radio.

·    It’s a throwaway society.  Kids want the latest and the best.  Build something?  Nah.  Takes too long.  And, besides, I want the same xyz that everyone else has.

·    There’s not a lot of interest in helping others.  Wow!  Where’d that come from?  Well, with FEMA around along with a number of other government agencies, a lot of people feel that their taxes are taking care of paying for emergencies and for the help needed in the middle of them.  “Hey, I pay my taxes.  I shouldn’t have to do more than that,” seems to be the battle cry.  Worse, though, are the reports that some government agencies have become uncooperative – eschewing the help of dangerously suspect outsiders like ham operators.
 

The real loss is in the technology that’s not being developed.  If you look back through the history of radio and television, you’ll see so much of the development came from individuals applying for and operating experimental stations, or holding “ham” tickets.  2XG was Lee DeForest’s experimental radio station in New York.  If it weren’t for DeForest’s audion, we’d still be waiting for anything beyond Morse code. Charles Herrold’s 6XF became KQW which then became KCBS. There are many of others – launched by rugged individualists rather than corporations.  And Philo T. Farnsworth and his work with television changed the “face” of communication.  I call them rugged because you have to know that they were bitten by their power supplies once or twice.  No fun. 

 

Usually on their own, they develop circuits, write software, and spend their own time putting it all together to create a new product or service.  And they do it because they just want to.  Most realize that they’ll never see an ROI.  But that’s not what they’re about.  It’s that big smile when they break the distance record at 243gHz or do a moonbounce, or radio-control their lawnmower.  

 

And a lot of products have come from them – not all from the knowledge required for the license, itself, but from the analytical thinking that it brings about.  And we owe a lot more to ham operators than we admit.  For everything they’ve created, for the services they perform, and because, by a far greater percentage than the general population, they’re genuinely good people.

 

By the way, if you’re one of those genuinely good people and you’ve always wanted to figure out how things work, or build something electronic, an amateur radio ticket isn’t that hard to get.  You can ask around or check the web.  Arrl.org (American Radio Relay League) is a great place to start.  If you have a kid who’s interested in the subject, send him or her there, too.  In fact, it can be a pretty cool family pursuit.  For younger folk, besides the radio experience, a ham ticket today provides a good foundation for the IT world.  And, by the way, the converse – IT being a good foundation for radio/television – isn’t necessarily true!

 

So thanks, to all of you out there having fun helping.  

 

NB:  Just a few additional noteworthy hams:  Howard Hughes, Nolan Bushnell (Atari)  Reginald Aubrey Fessenden (first transmission of human voice), Robert Moog, Julian Hirsch, Luke Montgomery, Steve Wozniak, Joseph H. Taylor, Jack Kilby, Leo Fender, David Packard (the “P” in “HP”), Wilson Greatbatch (invented the pacemaker), Perry Spencer (inventor of the microwave oven)  Norio Ohga and Akio Morita (Chairman and Founder of Sony, respectively) and about half of all astronauts!

Give me an L-F-ing Break

This is a general request.  It goes out to all the folks mixing audio for television.  It's a simple request, too:  Listen to your product before it goes out the door.  I mean, really listen!

 

Eight thousand years ago, when we laid back a final track, we listened to it.  Yeah, yeah, everybody listens to their tracks.  But, at the time, before stereo, MTS, BTSC and all the other acronyms, we listened on the studio monitor, then on a four-inch Quam squaker atop the audio console.  (We also viewed release video on a mono monitor, too, but that’s for another day.)

 

Any number of times the great audio on the JBL or Altec sounded like garbage on the Quam…and far worse than just what the poor response of that midget caused. 

 

Often the problem was the desire to pump a lot of bass into the signal.  Cool idea.  And on a console TV system with some semblance of an audio reproduction system, it sounded pretty good.  But that bass, when pushed through the 5 watt amp to a small speaker suddenly suffered from A) heavy distortion from the amp and B) even worse distortion as the tiny voicecoil, now getting some nice square waves from the amp, bottomed and topped out, taking the midrange with it. 

 

So, you listened on the small speaker and you heard the problems…and you remixed so that folks could actually hear intelligible audio. 

FADE TO BLACK

 

FADE IN

It’s 35 years later.  We’ve jumped over stereo, forgotten about quad and moved into at least 5.1 sound.  And, hurray for the dot-one.  That is if you have the audio system for it.  No, wait.  Even if you do have the system for it, it’s not a hurray.

 

Why, you ask?  No, really, I just heard someone ask why.  

 

The thinking on the creative side is, “Now we have some real audio.  Let’s use it all.”  And the production guys try to give creative what they want.  So when that Hummer is thundering across the salt flat, they mix the LFE’s (the low frequency effects…the dot-one part of 5.1 content) hot – really hot.

 

But, guess what.  After they listen on the studio monitors – in 5.1 and properly adjusted – many apparently don’t listen in other formats.  And, as far as I can tell, no one in the studio is listening through a TV broadcast audio processor…and, get this…I’m revealing a big secret here…all broadcasters are using them.

 

I’m not going to go into a lot of technical detail here.  But let me offer one example…You’ve produced a “smokin’” (hey world, would you stop with that word!) make that “driving” audio track.  Lots of LFE information.  It hits the station’s audio processor.

 

More than likely, that unit is a multiband processor.  If so, depending upon on its settings, it may squash the dynamic range considerably and completely change the ratio of LFE to audio.  And, again, depending upon settings, if there is a “bass coupling” control, that driving bass will upset the reproduced levels of the midrange and high frequencies, usually reducing them considerably.  

 

So you dump in a thunderous series of 40Hz sfz notes and the track pulses wonderfully.  Then, it hits the processor which, when it sees those pulses, lowers the overall gain – and you lose the dialog!

 

Right.  The dot-one tail is wagging the 5 dog.

 

Now, these days, finding good dialog is hard enough.  But then, to have to dig it out of the mud because of the LFE channel, well, that's just not fun.  It means either backing up with the DVR and trying to pick out a few of the words or just changing channels.

 

Then, don’t forget to figure in processing to comply with the CALM Act.  I have earlier posts on that so I won’t rehash it…but that has to be figured in and should be in the monitor chain at the post house.

 

And to go one step further...most home units put out 2 channel stereo, relying on external audio amps to decode to 5.1.  Oh, and that stereo may pass through a set’s processing, offering EQ and even “audio leveling” which, in most cases, is compression.  If the station processing didn’t crunch your track and destroy the ratio of LFE to music and dialog, the receiver’s waiting like a safety in the game you’re watching, to step on your mix with cleats.

 

Now, let’s say the viewer has a nice LED screen – flanked with its internal 2x6” speakers.  They don’t even hear the LFE information.  It may get to the speakers but it may not even generate any sound at the speakers.  So what does the viewer/listener hear?  Nothing but the audio level dropping and, probably, the dialog disappearing.  And, frankly, as a consumer, I don’t particularly like that.

 

Hey creative folks:  try to remember as you mix that pushing the excitement envelope can, in some cases, render the audio unintelligible.  I won’t point fingers but listen critically to just about any one-hour crime drama.  It ain’t pretty.

 

If your finishing house doesn’t have at least some gear to simulate the broadcast transmission process, ask ‘em why they don’t.  And if they do, insist that they use it.  Listen in 5.1, stereo, stereo small speaker, mono small speaker, and 7.1 if you can.  And here’s a tip:  listen on computer speakers, too.  And, shortly, you’ll want to check it on your iPhone’s earbuds.  No  doubt, in short order, multiple mixes will be packaged in the transport stream and be keyed in automatically by the receiver.

 

IFor now, though, if you listen on a number of possible receiving devices, I’ll tell you this:  the audio you leave with won’t be the same as the super-hot mix you had in mind.  But viewers/listeners will get the content.  And wouldn’t that be pleasant.

http://www.orban.com/products/television/8685/

http://junger-audio.com/products/product-overview/digital-audio-processor-devices/tap-television-audio-processor/main-information/

http://omniaaudio.com/omnia-6ex-and-6exi-features-and-benefits

http://wheatstone-processing.com/

TV's Back to the Future II

Well, the sequel is never as good as the original.  But, I wrote about Back to the Future before.  There's lots of news.

 

The FCC’s TV auction plan is in place.  If you’re not familiar with it and you’re A) a broadcaster, B) an advertiser, C) an agency person or, D) a viewer who likes HD television, you might want to get familiar with it.

 

Here’s the executive summary:   

·    Over-the-air television takes a lot of the radio frequency spectrum

·    The FCC wants more spectrum allotted to personal communications services like wireless Internet/broadband.  They want to be able to auction off spectrum to increase revenue to the government

·    The FCC has proposed allowing telecasters to combine their services onto a single channel, freeing up spectrum.  For this, each telecaster would receive a payment
 

Hey!  That’s pretty neat.  Let’s get channels 7 & 9 & 13* to combine inside one channel, say, “7”.  They’d keep their own identities, branding and other associated equity – even their number – but they’d all be contained in the channel that was formerly allocated solely to the owners of “7”.

 

That means that the frequencies that “9” and “13” occupied are now vacated and can be reassigned for PCS – through auction.  And, per the commission, the broadcasters so “sacrificing” their spectrum, will be rewarded financially.

 

Still cool?  Do you see everyone as a winner?  As the old army joke goes, “Not so fast, Mullany.”

 

When you put two or three stations inside a single channel, something has to give.  That give is on signal quality.  Without going into detail, it means that HD evaporates.  Under the current – and currently discussed – systems, there’s no not enough room inside 6mHz to cram multiple HD channels.  In fact, you won’t see two 720i signals inside the 6mHz channel without some significant adjustment to coding.

 

Fine, Len.  What does that have to do with me?

 

I guess first, the issue is that over-the-air 1080i and 720p – and maybe 720i may disappear from stations which choose to band together in a single channel.  With 8VSB, we already stuff 10 pounds of, uh, stuff in a 5 pound bag.  So there’s not much room for the higher quality signals.

 

Now that may be ameliorated by the fact that broadcasters could still supply the higher-definition signal to cable system headends, telcos, and to DTH satellite uplinks.  So subscribers to these services could still see HD.  But for the 20 or so percent who view over-the-air, well, thanks for playing.  Your HD set will do its best to upconvert 480.

There is (are) a slew of issues:

 

Is there a conflict of interest on the part of broadcasters which own or are owned by cable systems?  Does Comcast care if over-the-air viewers get 480i?  Heck, that should drive more viewers to cable for the quality.

 

Does anyone really care about over-the-air?  Maybe broadcast television becomes like AM – lower quality, poorer resolution and looking for a niche that draws viewers.

 

Does broadcast turn to the PCS guys to distribute their product on portable devices?  If so, who needs hi-def on a small screen?  But then, as devices grow in size, there’s that need for higher resolution – which 480 won’t be able to deliver.

 

And what about the future.  If you’re new to this issue, you’re probably new to 4K, too, which is Ultra HD.  The concept – which was viewable at 2012 NAB – provides for a standard that is 3840x2160 in resolution, or about 5 times (linear or over 20 times total) the resolution of 480 and twice that of 1080.  Like I said, there’s already 10 pounds of stuff in the bag, so unless the compression scheme includes instructions like, “Imagine a lake with a boat on it…” there’s no way we’ll ever see 4K over the air.  You can read more here.

 

There are plenty more – you can think through them.   They all spin a pretty sad story for a medium.  But do we really need over-the-air distribution?  Is it OK to forsake the 20 percent who view via OTA so that more people can get broadband?

 

Just follow the money.

·    The PCS and cellular lobbies are far stronger than broadcast

·    The NAB is living somewhere in the 1930’s.  I hear they’re considering an award to Vladimir Zworykin

·    Cable and broadcast integration and cross ownership means the broadcasters have less to lose.  In fact, if they take the bait, there may be lots of money for them

·    The demos of those 20 percent, well, pretty low importance
 

In its announcement, the FCC says that it, “…expects a healthy and vibrant broadcasting industry to thrive after the auction…”  which is a lot like telling a patient that, “you’ll be much better without that lousy heart and those kidneys.”

 

They held a workshop – Broadcaster LEARN.  You can check out the video on the NPRM for the auction here.

 

In the meantime, keep in mind that the average viewer has no idea this is happening. No thought that part of the value of HD is being rendered obsolete almost immediately after the FCC – and congress – mandated its implementation in the first place.  And they won’t figure it out until the resolution drops like a rock and they’re told by their local station that they need to subscribe to cable, telco, satellite, some paid service in order to get those lines of resolution.

 

*Note that currently, those channel numbers are carry-overs from analog days.  Your channel “7” may have been on the actual channel 7 (174-180mHz) but moved to another 6mHz block yet through channel virtualization, everyone

Dealing with the Growing Appetite for Bandwidth

Courtesy: K-Tel

Once upon a time I worked with some guys who created a faux K-Tel offer, “…call now, and you’ll get a copy of every song ever recorded.  That’s right.  Every song, every recording.  So you don’t forget, call before midnight tonight…”

In a related (I’ll tie them together eventually) incident, last week, an IT tech made an interesting, if not superficial recommendation that we start paying by the byte for bandwidth.  "That'll make you think twice before watching 'The Beaver' for the fourth time in a day."  OK, I'll tell you that I'm a firm believer in having skin in the game.  Give stuff away for free or on an all-you-can-eat basis and watch the waste.  Prime example:  go to an event with an open bar!

But, back to K-Tel.  Think about it.  If you were able to get a copy of every song, every video and similar content and keep it with you, that’d definitely cut down on your bandwidth usage, wouldn’t it?

You may not know it, but forms of that are happening all the time.  Various arrangements of store/forward are employed by content suppliers regularly.  For example, if you are on telco copper, some systems, when a particular VOD movie is ordered for the first time, the content is downloaded to the server at your local CO.  It stays on that server – for a specific period of time or, in some cases, in perpetuity – and is as close as that CO for the next person…or you, if you’re watching that episode of Rocky and Bullwinkle again.

It’s coming to home in a number of ways.  You know about SlingBox and RoKu and similar devices.  They have some of the store/forward capabilities.  Of course, if you use SlingBox for its main purpose, you’re going to need bandwidth between the box and your location.  But, the idea is, shorten the distance that data must travel to get to you.  One way or another, that’ll reduce overall bandwidth.

Then, a variety of PC and Mac devices like Time Capsule and some combination of media server/distribution system will allow you to store a lot of content locally, reducing bandwidth needed to the outside world.  It will mean higher capabilities in the home, like –n enabled WiFi but if that K-Tel offer put everything on your local machine, what a difference.

And what’s left?  Well, the hundreds of terabytes of content created every day have to get to you.  How else will you see the latest Mentos/Coke attempt?  But again, store/forward can put the materials a lot closer to you than they currently are. Yes.  Another cut in required bandwidth.  Don’t forget current movie releases.  As theaters go digital, they could easily install servers that allow store/forward.  It flies in the face of protecting digital rights since, somehow, theaters seem to be content leaks, but the technology’s right.

Here’s a question.  If you had to pay per byte from your broadband supplier, would you agree to “share” with others?  The scenario goes like this:  This morning I watched a 3 minute clip of Black Eyed Peas.  Heck, make it on sharpening lawn mower blades if that makes you feel better.  Because I’m enrolled as a “sharer”, it stays on my PDA/phone/tablet for a period of time.  I’m sitting on the porch and my next door neighbor wants to watch the same clip.  (Poor guy.  His mower is a mess.  And his lawn...)  He hits “download” and the return data says, “Hey! It’s right there next to you,” and it steers his tablet to your phone to get it.  Does that work for you?  Are you willing to do that?  Makes sense.  It’s right there.  Your neighbor wants it.  If you can pay a reduced rate for your download and he gets to do the same, too, does that make sense?

Don’t read any bias into the question. Ignore security issues which can be dealt with. And look at the grand scheme.  Even digital broadcast could be accessed from your neighbor's device.  In fact, just about anything that more than one person would want to watch/listen to/investigate fits the idea.  I really want to know:  would you do it? 

If not, and demands keep up, bandwidth can’t.  I’ve written about it before but as legislators continue to pass regulations against the laws of physics, we’re headed for a mess where bits leaving a server will look like the bridge scene from Godzilla.

Maybe the Whole Broadcasting Business is for the Birds

At the moment, I’m a “towering” inferno.  But this isn’t about the movie, Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway aside. 

Instead, this is about the American Bird Conservancy (ABC) v. FCC, and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).  Seems that the FCC now feels that maybe ABC was right that the commission isn’t allowing for public comment on new tower structures or proposed modifications to existing ones.  So now we have the study, Final Programmatic Environmental Assessment for the Antenna Structure Registration Program.  Bureaucracy at its best.

If I can bottom-line you, the commission has acceded to the ABC that too many birds are being killed by communications towers.  The FCC has said wow, we didn’t realize the numbers were like this and we haven’t listened closely enough.  We’ll do more.

The key to all of this is the name of the organization…American Bird Conservancy.  Their concern is the anthropogenic [their word] demise of birds.  And, if they say towers are killing birds, it must be true.

I have been dealing with broadcast towers in one way or another since picking blackberries at the WSAI “Larry, Curly & Moe” tower site in 1957.  As a focus group of one, I can recall two bird incidents, neither of them there.  One was a pretty-well decomposed large bird about 50 yards (if memory serves me at all) from the base of a tower in Arlington Heights, IL.  That was about 20 years ago and I have no explanation.  Could have flown into the tower, who knows.  The tower’s gone.  Maybe a bunch of Canada Geese took it down in anger.

The other was at the base of a 12 foot satellite dish, about 3 years ago.  However, the collection of feathers near the base was directly attributable to Cricket, the station cat.   She did everything but burp to prove her ownership of the situation – and the remains.

So, really, one case.  Total number of towers I’ve had direct, multiple encounters with:  estimated at 40, from 100 feet AGL to 50 feet above Sears (Willis) Tower. I recall a number of birds’ remains on the roof of the 89th floor there but those were attributable to them flying into the windows of the 90th floor. 

Around the more common 450-500 foot structures, I’ve seen only the one mentioned above.  Now, stack this up against the other methods by which birds are harmed or killed.  Yes, I understand, every life has value.  But we do put limits on it – or there’d be no automobiles.  We’d outlaw them because of the significant life hazard they present.

Now, if you take all of this into account and compare it to the other causes, you have to scratch your head.  Why are we not clearly marking windows so that birds don’t fly into them?  Or fining people for letting their cats run free.

In fact the URS Group, Inc. study demonstrates that towers pose less than a 0.3 percent danger to birds as opposed to – standby – 41.9 percent from cats like Cricket.  Another 41.9 percent (amazing that the number’s the same for both) are attributable to buildings.

http://tinyurl.com/AvianMortality-RW  (Radio World synopsis)

http://tinyurl.com/MigratoryBirds-FinalPEA  (FCC press release)

http://tinyurl.com/The-Final-PEA  (The full-blown FCC release

Here’s my proposal:

• Outlaw Windex® and other glass cleaners
• All windows must use translucent rather than transparent glass
• Buildings over 7 stories high must have the word B-U-I-L-D-I-N-G spelled out vertically (one letter per window going down from the top) on each side of the building.  However, this may be altered to read “north side” when birds are flying south and “south side” when birds are flying north. I’m thinking they can read!  Then...

• All cats must have bells and, in addition, tail extensions consisting of small helium balloons tied to the tail through two feet of bright wide orange ribbon.  This will ensure that the ribbon is in the air, waving, as the cat stalks birds.
• All cats will be required to announce themselves with a “meow” of at least 110db at 1 meter.  Cats that cannot meet this loudness standard must be kept indoors
• All cats must be kept indoors during prime migratory seasons - and finally,

• All extremely high voltage power lines (responsible for 5.5 percent of bird casualties) must be coated with a repellent substance (hey, maybe it should smell like cats!) to prevent birds from lighting.

• Automobiles must be equipped with sensors which detect bird flight and employ an automatic avoidance system to protect the birds.  (Of course, when the system swerves to miss a pigeon and carries the car into a pedestrian, that’ll be another matter.)

Do all that, and I’ll gladly address the “estimated” 0.3 percent of bird tragedies supposedly brought about by towers.  By the way, if you followed the links, you saw that according to estimates, 0.3 percent is equal to 6.6 million avian miscreants.  That’s a lot of birds.  But if that’s only 0.3 percent, it means about 2.2 billion birds meet their maker by accident each year.  And of those, 921.8 million – OK, a billion – at the hands of the hands – or paws & jaws – of cats.

In case you think I’m being flip, cynical and a bit sarcastic, I have a hole card.  The American Bird Conversancy has received over a billion dollars in federal funding.  Hey, they brag about it.  Check it out.  That’s my money telling the commission that they didn’t get it right and I need to decrease that 0.3 percent.

If you’re planning a new tower after August of 2012, be ready to meet the rules. 

But there’s a better answer for broadcasters:  breed cats.  If we all had hundreds of cats, that’d drive the number of cat-related avian casualties sky high and, consequently, would result in a drop in the percentage of tower-related bird deaths.  Alternatively, build your next studio totally out of plate glass and keep it really clean.

I thought writing this would be cathartic.  But I’m still doing a burn.  Clients will be shelling out bucks for compliance studies to go along with the FAA, EPA, wetlands, and OSHA hoops that we jump through.

And for what?  Seems like a lot of money frittered away, especially if eight times as many birds are killed intentionally by hunters.  But I suppose it keeps the DC folk occupied, even though it appears wasteful. 

Now if you want to get your arms around all of the government waste associated with this, read the release (The-Final-PEA link above).  Then, at the end of the release, read all of the references cited, realizing that most of those were paid for with tax dollars, too.  There’s only one way to get through it all.  A little Wild Turkey.

Pass the Worcestershire - and my Low Def TV. You, Me, TV, and the FCC

Let me see…you promise me a huge thick steak.  But I have to buy a new grill to cook it.  I buy the grill.  Then you tell me that you only want me to have half a steak and also want me to let my neighbor put his half steak on my grill next to mine.

Kind of what happened last week when the FCC issued an unofficial announcement of its Report & Order regarding television broadcasters sharing channels.

Simply explained, broadcasters are being offered the opportunity to share their assigned channels for rewards to be named – someday.  In their words,

 

“…making a significant portion of spectrum currently used by the broadcast television service available for new uses. The Report and Order, in anticipation of a future incentive auction to address the nation’s growing demand for wireless broadband, allows multiple broadcast stations to elect to stream individual programming while sharing a single channel.

The new rules promote innovation and investment in mobile communications, and help ensure the United States keeps pace with the global wireless revolution. The rules also help preserve broadcast television as a healthy, viable medium. Specifically, the Report and Order establishes a framework for how two or more television licensees may voluntarily share a single six MHz channel in conjunction with the auction process…”

Just so we all understand – as much as possible given the available information – The commission is asking stations to give up part of their spectrum by sharing their 6 megahertz channel with others.  This is undefined except for a later statement, “…stations will need to retain at least one standard definition programming stream to meet the FCC’s requirement of providing an over-the-air video broadcast at no direct charge to viewers, they will have the flexibility of tailoring their channel sharing agreements to meet their individual programming and economic needs…”.  In other words, it’s not important how they share or how many share, as long as each can maintain one free over-the-air SD programming channel.

What’s wrong with this picture?Anyone remember the Communications Act of 1996?  Right.  It solidified the digital broadcast industry in the US.  It did so by forcing stations to move from analog to digital broadcasting over a period of time.  Yes, if you thought, “Yeah, and it was a looooong period of time,” you are correct.  No less than 4 delays were implemented before the final date of June 12, 2009.  But shut off the analog, we did.  And most of the VHF stations elected or were forced to move to UHF frequencies¹.

Through the period from 1996 to the analog shutoff, broadcasters retooled totally.  Nearly every piece of equipment had to be replaced.  Worse, so did the interconnections.  Routing gigabit signals around a station was quite different from sending 4.5 megahertz down a piece of 75 ohm coax with a BNC on each end.  New cameras, new processors, switchers, STL’s, transmitters, upconverters for transmitting standard definition and NTSC signals.  In fact, imagine a newscaster sitting at the news desk and someone sitting at home.  Now think about every piece of gear in between.  OK.  Replace it!

Did you leave out the receiver?  Replace that with either a new HD receiver or a converter box to receive the digital signal over the air and output an NTSC signal for an existing “TV set.”

At this point, let’s take a step back.  The original concept for digital was not implemented to give us better television.  If that were the case, we probably wouldn’t have adopted 8-VSB.  It was done so that VHF frequencies would be vacated and available for auction, the money going to the US treasury.  Follow the money.  It was about the buck.

While we’re still in the Wayback machine, please recall that Congress, in its low bandwidth intelligence, suddenly realized that the new rules would make obsolete every existing set in the country.  Soooo, they embarked on a coupon program – every household was eligible for 2 coupons which would give them a shiny new converter for between zero and ten dollars.  Actual cost?  About $45 to $50.  The difference was to come out of the original spectrum auction.  And recall, too, that paying for those converters all but wiped out the revenue from the auction.  Go figure.

Back to today – well, last week.

Sharing, eh?

Here are some implications to think about: 

·    Broadcasters spent a lot of money on equipment to provide high definition signals

o    1080i requires the entire 6 mHz channel a broadcaster is assigned 

o    Sharing channels will mean no more 1080i...possibly no 720p

o    The lower bandwidth required means broadcasters wasted a lot of money meeting standards implemented by a government that now proposes – less than 3 years later – to change them

·    Consumers have purchased tens of millions of high definition receivers which shortly may have little high definition to receive

·    The middle men – cable, telco and satellite have ponied up plenty to accurately decode and re-encode broadcasters’ signals.   No HD to decode?  OK, more room for other channels.  More competition for broadcasters

So the over-the-air gang is being asked to voluntarily combine some of their signals onto a single channel.  Give up major opportunities to compete via the additional channels they can provide within the digital envelope.  And the commission’s reasoning?  Greater penetration of personal communications service.  Yes.  More frequencies for WIMAX, 3G, 4G, 4-1/2G, G minor 7 and what’s to come.  As far as our FCC is concerned, everyone should have access to broadband anywhere and everywhere, 24/7.

I took you through what that looks like back here:

http://scopefocus.blogspot.com/2011/07/working-out-of-your-element.html .  In many places, there isn’t that much bandwidth from DC to even gamma rays!  Yes, I exaggerate; given the toxic effects of gamma rays, I doubt we’ll be using that “band” soon.

The bottom line is the average consumer is going to lose a lot of what he/she bought that flatscreen for.  The average broadcaster (who voluntarily pairs with another) gives up either some high definition formats or some additional channels – and revenue – and gets to drive his new Porche of a system at VW speeds…and we all get to wait.  For the other shoe to drop.  The one that will fall if broadcasters don’t volunteer or if there aren’t enough volunteers.  Then the Ed Markeys of the world will set their sights on all broadcasters.  But, first, of course, they’ll make sure that Congress still gets the lowest advertising rates available on the stations they haven’t already put out of business.

¹As it turned out, little real-world study of propagation was done prior to implementation of the 8-VSB standard that US broadcasters use.  Fact is, overall reception and building penetration is better on the UHF frequencies than on high-VHF frequencies and even more so than low-VHF frequencies.  So the folks who bit the bullet and transitioned to UHF gained instead of lost.  And, instead of losing their original channel identities, they were able to maintain virtual channel numbers.  e.g., channel moving channel 2 to channel 48 was a physical change but to the audience, it still appeared as and was tuned as channel 2.  At least no need to change the logo.

NAB 2012

NAB is probably the largest collection of professional gearheads in the world.  The absolute latest, some still prototyped and demonstrated only after the sales engineer bows his/her head in prayer, broadcast goodies emerge there. 

As you would expect, given the continuing convergence of broadcast and “new” media, all those Oreos and sodas are there, too.

Things have changed.  Duh! But this year was especially significant.  It wasn’t a great anniversary like ’06 for quad tape.  No single revolutionary product like Red in 2007.  Instead, it was a year of, well, for me, realization and for the industry, one of maturation.

Here’s my take:

First, I saw hundreds of boxes to do thousands of things.  Convert anything to anything with a BNC in/BNC out black box.  Seriously.  I think I saw one that had ATSC in and black coffee out.  Then, if you look a little further, you find out that a lot of the same things that you buy black boxes for can be done in the digital domain with software.  One case, one processor (or multiple processors) with ins and outs and you don’t need any of the little black boxes at all.  It’s interesting to see which manufacturers are looking at software solutions compared to those looking to sell hardware problem solvers.  

Imaging devices:  Unless I get an assignment that calls for day-in, day-out shooting, I’m gonna rent. It’s changing so fast that you make a commitment, sign the papers, and before delivery, the XV3 is out, replacing the XV2.5 you just bought. 

I will say this – images are just plain gorgeous.  The range of the sensors is so wide (claiming up to 13 f/stops) that they’re presenting new challenges to the receivers/monitors…and working at 20-30 fc of light.  Lenses have caught up with HD and the definition and resolution are terrific.  And it's funny seeing a jib floating around with apparently nothing on it - only to see a DSLR  anchored to the baseplate.

Of course, a couple of things you can’t do anything about – depth of field is depth of field.  HD shortens it and that’s that.  But add a little extra light, get a couple more stops down, and you get your DOF back.  And, speaking of lighting, the LED luminaire is mature.  You can shoot with cool, low power lighting just about anywhere.  [After the fact note:  when you increase the sharpness of the "sharpest" area as with improved lens and sharper sensor, depth of field apparently goes DOWN.  But it depends on what you're viewing it on.  A hi-def image has lots more apparent depth of field when viewed on an NTSC receiver.  That's because the maximum sharpness is much less - so the sharpest image appears less so,, more like the slightly out of focus portions of the image just to either side, in distance from the lens, of the actual focused distance.]

One thing remains the same – the use of lights to control the resultant image.  LED’s don’t eliminate the need for multiple instruments (you can’t dump a bunch of LED’s onto a ceiling and shoot away expecting different results compared to doing the same thing with incandenscents,  fluorescents, or HMI’s).  But whatever you do, it’s a lot cooler and easier.  Hang a two pound panel and you’re shooting f11 at 15 feet – and for 3 hours on a battery.  Awrighty then.

3D.  Don’t sell that flatscreen just yet.  Sony, among others, demonstrated their glasses-less 3D.  This is for large screen.  I’d rather they called it 2.5D.  Nothing really came off the screen at me like when the Creature from the Black Lagoon scared the pants off me in a theater.  And while the gathered crowds oohed and ahhed at first, there was a bunch of sotto voce grumbling as the demo ended.  Same with Dolby’s version.  They suffered some additional problems, a bunch of high-end artifacts that spoiled the motion.  If you have HD with glasses, well, good for you.  Not a lot of programming but you’re an early adopter.  As for glasses-less…wait for the .1 version if you know what I mean.

Workflow:  Nobody wants to sell you just a camera.  Or a switcher or storage by itself, either.  They want you to use their entire system for “workflow”.  It’s the only way to ensure quality.  Well, that’s what they said!  It ain’t true.  If there’s any interface problem, either software or one of those boxes I talked about will solve it.  Speaking of switchers.  Ha!  They’re not.  They’re video program managers capable of controlling multiple feeds with multiple layers (and in multiple languages).  And they’re smart enough to automate a lot of what a TD once did.

Audio:  Both AES and IP audio abound.  In fact, once audio goes into the digital domain – which can be a USB microphone or hard disc audio – it doesn’t have to leave until it reaches the final audio amp or transmitter input.  I saw a guy named Hum out in front of the convention center begging.  He’s pretty well out of business.

An interesting thread was talk regarding the CALM Act and most of the techies laughing at the fact that, once again, trying to pass legislation to control laws of physics doesn’t work.  And speaking of the CALM Act, Rules:  The big concern was text-to-speech in the EAS rules.  Breaths were bated in anticipation of the commission’s announcement that would reinstate the TTS rule that they eliminated in the Fifth Report and Order.  It didn’t happen.  OK.  It did, but they waited until after the event.  None too soon since April 23 is the deadline.

Worth the trip?  Absolutely.  If you have to stay current, you have to make it out there.  I had some assignment and was looking for some particular gear.  Even if I hadn’t, well, it’s still so doggoned much fun just lookin’ at the goodies.