If nobody watches, who will notice?
One reader questions why broadcasters should sink millions of dollars into ATSC broadcasting....
(H)DTV competitors
Six years into the so-called DTV transition for broadcasters, less than one percent of U.S. homes are capable of receiving DTV broadcasts....
Watch TV and become good-looking and rich
As I clicked through the channels, I discovered there are only three kinds of programming at this hour....
DTV build-out sanctions approved
The Commission has adopted a series of new sanctions to be applied to DTV permittees who fail to complete construction within their required time and fail to receive an extension from the Media Bureau....
Managing the difficult
Handling employees that cause problems – for one reason or another – requires a delicate approach....
Wave the broadcast flag
D3 conversion, the origin and development of DAW products and statements against the broadcast flag fill up this month's Reader Feedback column....
FCC auctioning channels 52-59 this month
The FCC has established an early buyout policy it hopes will encourage early evacuation of the spectrum auctioned this month so new owners can take possession. Also, rules regarding description of emergency information for the disabled are set down for content distributors....
Leapfrog
In recent months this column has been exploring the rapidly evolving landscape of digital television in an effort to place the prospects for the long-term viability of terrestrial broadcasting in the U.S. into proper perspective. That perspective came into sharp focus at the recent NAB conference and exhibition in Las Vegas....
The USA solves mobile DTV reception problems
Broadcast Engineering was recently privy to a series of secret tests on the latest improvements to 8-VSB chips for mobile reception. These new chips have been specifically designed to improve the capture and display of 8-VSB signals in mobile environments....
Evolution?
The second installment of this two-part series investigates three issues: changes to the ATSC standard, enhanced video-compression technologies, and the prospects for these new compression techniques to displace MPEG-2....
FCC changing DTV ground rules
In January, the FCC proposed a number of adjustments to its policy on the DTV transition, in several areas, including channel election, replication and maximization for DTV channels within the core spectrum, intermediate coverage and audience penetration. In other FCC-related news, a new commissioner, Jonathan Adelstein, was sworn in on Dec. 3, 2002....
Making money with news
Explore the issues news broadcasters face and the difficult decisions they must make to keep their operations profitable....
The DVB-T fork in the road
.gif)
Well, folks, we're at the fork in the digital television road, and we have to make some choices....
DTV wizardry
Always looking for the latest news on digital TV, I received a tip in my e-mail saying that a new DTV chip had been discovered, one that claimed to make DTV reception easy and reliable....
Spectrum management initiative may impact broadcasters
The Commission’s Spectrum Task Force has taken its first stab at rewriting the FCC’s spectrum policies....
A license to cheat
The UK’s “TV Licence” is a holdout from the theory that any use of the spectrum makes the user into a “station”… and therefore should be taxed....
What do women want?
Readers still debate about whether a woman would prefer a HD television over a one-karat diamond ring....
1994
Everyone knows that there are multiple digital transitions happening, and everyone knows that the broadcasting transition to DTV is seriously behind schedule. But it doesn't matter because everyone knows that that silly 2006 deadline is not real....
FCC tackles EEO for a third time
The new rules again require broadcasters to disseminate notice of full-time job vacancies and to participate in a specified number of recruitment activities....
End of free spectrum?
If you've ever been near a White House communications crew, for example, you will find that whatever spectrum you think you have been allocated has been commandeered for other uses....
Will Hollywood control your TV?
One reader questions the facts regarding protection technology....
Internet broadcasting
Webcasting is a general term that describes the transfer of audio or video over the Internet. This is usually in the form of a stream, which is the real-time transfer of a file from a server to a client machine at a rate that is matched to the available bandwidth....
Hollywood is dying — good!
The guys who are used to $100, three-hour lunches and $10 million homes are horrified that new technology may require them to change the way they do business. That's the case with those companies involved in producing television programs and especially movies....
Broadband for broadcasters
It is debatable whether ‘video’ is an appropriate term for blurred pictures that are not much larger than a postage stamp, and are refreshed only three or four times per second....
Video for mobile users
For the viewer, the most important thing is to receive a watchable picture....
