ATSC 3.0 Coming to Hartford in October

Is that the 50" model that you have? Interested in it for the atsc 3.0 and the moderate size.
How do you like the TV's PQ? and does it have PIP feature? thanks!
It’s the 65” QN90A, PQ is great, there is some type of PIP, sort of a side by side, but I haven’t played with it.
 
Yes it uses HEVC. Even with 5 HD channels on one carrier it should look just as good if not better than the current HD channels on ATSC 1.0.
Yeah. There are all sorts of ways for 3.0 broadcasters to customize their signal, but essentially, at a given transmission power level, there's a trade-off between signal reception (how easily it penetrates into buildings, how far away it can be picked up, how easily it can be picked up by moving antennas, i.e. in cars, etc.) vs. signal bandwidth (how much data it can carry). As I recall, if a 3.0 tower's signal is engineered to cover the same geographic area at the same level of robustness as a typical 1.0 tower using the same power level, the 3.0 signal will have a total bandwidth of about 25 Mbps. That compares to the typical 1.0 station's fixed bandwidth of about 19 Mbps.

From what I've read, 25 Mbps should be sufficient to carry about 4 channels in good quality 1080p HDR using the HEVC codec. But I'm sure that of those 5 channels carried on your new 3.0 station, two will be 1080p or 1080i (CBS and NBC), two will be 720p (ABC and Fox), and the other one (CW?) could go either way. It's unlikely any of them will be in HDR, although I think maybe Sinclair has been experimenting with applying a fake Technicolor HDR upgrade to SDR content, so maybe you'll see that. (Unfortunately, there are hardly any TVs in use, other than LG OLEDs from around 2017-2019, that support the Technicolor HDR format.)

So given all that, yeah, there should be plenty of room to carry those 5 channels on the same 3.0 station. Hopefully some or all of the originating stations will deliver a higher quality encode to the 3.0 tower. In some areas, it appears that the 3.0 station is just capturing the original stations' 1.0 signals off-air and then re-encoding them into HEVC, which obviously can't do anything except to possibly make the picture quality slightly worse, which is what 3.0 users are reporting in some places.
 
With ATSC 3.0, without an FCC mandate to include it in all new TV sets, I think its only real chance is it becomes cheap enough that manufacturers just adopt it as "more functionality for the same cost", and broacasters play along and maybe we get to a point where some channels are available only in 3.0
Yep. If ATSC 3.0 tuner chips (which are typically hybrid 3.0/1.0, I believe, because there will still be a need for 1.0 reception for many years to come) were as cheap, or nearly as cheap, as regular 1.0 tuners, then all TV manufacturers would probably include them in all their various models across the full price range. At that point, not doing so would put them at a competitive sales disadvantage (one less feature bullet to tout on the webpage) in exchange for little or no savings in build cost.

But in order for the cost of those 3.0 tuners to decline like that, they need to be produced at a large scale. But they're not going to be produced at large scale unless there's significant demand for them from TV manufacturers. So we're back to the ol' chicken-and-egg scenario.
 
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Where's the incentive for people to spend money to get something they perceive as little or no value added? I fear this will be like 3D all over again, or theater quality sound. They may remain niche products, as NashGuy said. Some think we may never have gone to HDTVs at all except that the screen was BIGGER and CHEAPER than old CRT TVs were. I have a good friend who retains 3 old 19" Sony CRT TVs and refuses to upgrade to anything better. I even handed him a small 24" HDTV as well as a FireTV STick, neither of which he has even tried out once. I think he's nuts. But he just doesn't use his TV for much at all. As long as his Sony's refuse to die, he keeps them around.
The logic behind the first converter box subsidy was that the Government had taken an action that deprived many citizens of televison. That is not really the case here as ATSC 1.0 has not gone away yet like analog television did.
 
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What I find interesting is that Best Buy does not even mention ATSC 3.0 tuners on the Sony sets that have them. I also talked to some of the Columbus, Ohio Best Buy sales people and they did not know anything about ATSC 3.0 even though Columbus has 3 ATSC 3.0 broadcasts. So they don’t consider ATSC 3.0 to be an important feature.


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What I find interesting is that Best Buy does not even mention ATSC 3.0 tuners on the Sony sets that have them. I also talked to some of the Columbus, Ohio Best Buy sales people and they did not know anything about ATSC 3.0 even though Columbus has 3 ATSC 3.0 broadcasts. So they don’t consider ATSC 3.0 to be an important feature.
It's the same with LG's OLED TVs on their website. ATSC 3.0, or "NextGen TV" as they call it, is barely mentioned at all. It's only included in the most expensive model, the G1, and only referenced way down on the spec sheet for it.
 
So is WVIT abandoning their tower site?
No. This "lighthouse" setup starts the 5-year clock for the participating channels. At some point >= 5 years in the future, WVIT's OTA signal itself goes to ATSC3 (or they sell off spectrum and co-host).
 
Something transpired since Sunday here in the Hartford, CT market. 3.5 (NOW) and 3.6 (RADAR) have changed to 3.5 (CourtTV) and 3.6(Comet). It seems like the new 3.5 & 3.6 may be on a different RF channel. Previously 3.1 through 3.6 were on RF 36 (WFSB). Those two are now pixelating and 3.1 to 3.4 do not.

I now have:
3.5 CourtTV (Hartford)
20.2 Court TV (Hartford)
26.3 Court TV (Hartford)
40.3 Court TV (Springfield, MA market)
 
I got to say I have been watching both WFSB ATSC 1.0 and WFSB ATSC 3.0 at the same time on to matching Samsung monitors and I am shocked at how GOOD the ATSC 3.0 signal looks. This is what HD should look like.

The streaming rate with WFSB ATSC 3.0 is 3.990 Mbps in HEVC encoding
The streaming radio with WFSB ATSC 1.0 is 7.370 Mbps in MPEG2.

I can't believe how much better the ATSC 3.0 picture looks. It was like Drew Carey was standing inside the monitor, it looked so lifelike.
 

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That's exciting Scott!
Down here in Danbury area. AS far as ATSC 1.0 goes, the only changes I've noticed is that 20.2 and 20.3 are now pixelating. 20.1 and 20.4 Quest are not.
I generally don't receive wfsb 3.1 - 3.6 reliably. 3.5 and 3.6 no longer scan in. Any guess as to what's up with 20.2 and 20.3. Was there thought that wfsb might move to another frequency or broadcast location?
 
Channels 20.1, 20.2 and 20.3 are now being broadcast in ATSC 1.0 from WFSB.

20.4 (Quest) is being broadcast in ATSC 1.0 by WTNH out of New Haven.

To see the ATSC 3 signals you need an ATSC 3 tuner.

The ATSC 1 signals will continue to be broadcast for another 5 years by then each channel will be on their own ATSC transmitter instead of sharing one as they are as of today.


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Channels 20.1, 20.2 and 20.3 are now being broadcast in ATSC 1.0 from WFSB.

20.4 (Quest) is being broadcast in ATSC 1.0 by WTNH out of New Haven.

To see the ATSC 3 signals you need an ATSC 3 tuner.

The ATSC 1 signals will continue to be broadcast for another 5 years by then each channel will be on their own ATSC transmitter instead of sharing one as they are as of today.


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Scott, what are you using for the ota antenna?
 
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