I'm not getting any action on this query in the DirecTV Forum, so I'll try it over here.
My largest category of customer is SMATV, where I service headends that commonly combine anywhere from a dozen to three dozen DBS NTSC modulated outputs with a few C-band modulated outputs, and with local VHF filtered and distributed on-channel and local UHF heterodyne converted to VHF.
As the stock of residential TVs gets turned over, more and more of the residents are going to be able to readily accommodate ATSC signals in one form or another, and I think that when the transition is complete, new TVs won't even have analog, NTSC tuners in them.
So how will we distribute the DBS programming? Would it cost DirecTV any less to make a primitive box that puts out an unencrypted 480i data stream that I could then modulate into, say, 8VSB, or even 64 QAM, using some affordable grade modulator that I might get for a couple hundred bucks per channel? Would the copyright holders be less protective of an unencrypted low resolution data stream than they presently are of the HDTV data?
I see no problem continuing to distribute the off-air locals "on-channel", in 8VSB format. At each TV, the customer would simply use a splitter so that the integrated spectrum is available at both the "cable" and "HDTV"input ports, and by setting the HDTV input port on "antenna", it would simply ignore any non-8VSB channels that it might detect.
My largest category of customer is SMATV, where I service headends that commonly combine anywhere from a dozen to three dozen DBS NTSC modulated outputs with a few C-band modulated outputs, and with local VHF filtered and distributed on-channel and local UHF heterodyne converted to VHF.
As the stock of residential TVs gets turned over, more and more of the residents are going to be able to readily accommodate ATSC signals in one form or another, and I think that when the transition is complete, new TVs won't even have analog, NTSC tuners in them.
So how will we distribute the DBS programming? Would it cost DirecTV any less to make a primitive box that puts out an unencrypted 480i data stream that I could then modulate into, say, 8VSB, or even 64 QAM, using some affordable grade modulator that I might get for a couple hundred bucks per channel? Would the copyright holders be less protective of an unencrypted low resolution data stream than they presently are of the HDTV data?
I see no problem continuing to distribute the off-air locals "on-channel", in 8VSB format. At each TV, the customer would simply use a splitter so that the integrated spectrum is available at both the "cable" and "HDTV"input ports, and by setting the HDTV input port on "antenna", it would simply ignore any non-8VSB channels that it might detect.
