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DTV Transition

OTA HD & Antennas HDTV Broadcasting DTV Transition

Spectrum Repacking and Channel Scans

Spectrum repacking is reshaping over-the-air television as the FCC squeezes remaining broadcasters into tighter frequency bands. Stations are going dark, sharing channels, and leaning on stat muxing and adaptive bitrate encoding to survive the transition. NBC, Telemundo, and local independents are already consolidating signals in Philadelphia, New York, and the Lehigh Valley. OTA viewers who skip regular channel scans risk staring at dead air without knowing why - and the reshuffling is far from over.

Pete Putman •
Columns
OTA HD & Antennas HDTV Broadcasting DTV Transition

One Man’s Junk IS Another Man’s Treasure!

Next March, the FCC will hold a landmark spectrum auction forcing TV broadcasters to decide whether their UHF channels are worth keeping or selling to the highest bidder. What began as worthless real estate in the 1960s has become prime wireless real estate worth hundreds of millions. CBS flagship WCBS opens its reverse bid at $900 million, while smaller markets offer relative bargains. The real question is what disappears from your antenna after the dust settles.

Pete Putman •
Columns
DTV Transition Streaming HD

HDTV Expert - Aereo And The Law Of Unintended Consequences

Aereo's Internet retransmission service, which re-encodes terrestrial digital TV broadcasts using AVC coding over IP, faces mounting legal and technical scrutiny as a 10th Circuit judge ruled its operation indistinguishable from a cable company under the 1976 Copyright Act. The service's antenna-per-subscriber architecture, while designed to sidestep copyright liability, likely contributed to catastrophic buffering failures during the Oscars and Golden Globes broadcasts. For cord-cutters, alternatives like the Channel Master DVR+ with dual tuners and USB-expandable storage, or Hauppauge WinTV USB receivers, may offer more reliable local HD reception without the legal uncertainty.

Pete Putman •
Columns
DTV Transition Politics & Policy

HDTV Expert - "Antenna" Digital TV: When All Else Fails...

Terrestrial digital TV proved its resilience during a severe ice storm in southeastern Pennsylvania, where a three-antenna home setup covering roughly 55 channels in the Philadelphia metro market delivered uninterrupted broadcasts while Comcast cable, Verizon mobile data, and VoIP all failed simultaneously. A TiVo HD DVR with a built-in terrestrial DTV tuner remained fully functional, underscoring the practical advantage of maintaining an over-the-air setup alongside subscription services. The experience also frames the ongoing FCC UHF spectrum auction debate, questioning whether reallocating broadcast frequencies to mobile carriers is wise given how reliably the one-to-many broadcast model performs when cellular networks collapse under disaster-driven traffic loads.

Pete Putman •
Columns
DTV Transition

HDTV Expert - Once More, Back to the - Window??

A comparative field test of nine indoor TV antennas, both passive and amplified, evaluates real-world ATSC digital signal reception at a New Jersey test site using an AVCOM PSA-2500C spectrum analyzer and Hauppauge Aero-M USB receiver. The $4 UHF bow tie outscored all passive competitors with nine YES grades, while the Mohu Leaf Ultimate led the amplified category with ten clean receptions, and the ClearStream Micron XG preamp required capping gain at the '15' setting to avoid noise floor degradation. Readers considering cord-cutting can use TVFool.com to assess local signal strength before investing in any antenna, since reliable indoor reception is achievable for under $50.

Pete Putman •
Columns
DTV Transition Market Trends & Analysis

HDTV Adoption - Not as High in Number of HDTV Sets

CEA data shows 244 million DTVs shipped since 1998, representing 68% penetration of the estimated 357 million TV sets in U.S. households (119 million households at 3 TVs each), yet Leichtman Research Group survey data extrapolates to as many as 198 million analog TVs still in use, or 55% of all sets. The gap between household-level adoption figures (CEA's 68-88%) and actual TV-set-level penetration reveals a more sobering picture of the DTV transition. At the current shipping rate of roughly 33 million DTVs per year, full analog replacement could take 4 to 6 additional years, excluding sets that replace already-digital units.

Rodolfo La Maestra •
Articles
IPTV Cable HD DTV Transition

Is Cord-cutting Hurting the Pay TV Market?

Strategy Analytics forecasts digital TV subscriptions growing from 114M in 2011 to 129M in 2016 at a 2.36% CAGR, but their methodology bundles IPTV with traditional pay-TV, obscuring meaningful subscriber trends. When IPTV subscribers are subtracted, combined digital cable and satellite subscribers barely grow from 106M to 109M over the same period. Deloitte's survey data reinforces the concern, finding 9 percent of Americans have already cut the cord and 11 percent are actively considering it, signaling real pressure on traditional pay-TV providers.

Ken Werner •
Columns
Streaming HD DTV Transition

HDTV Expert - Guess What? You Can Get Away With It!

Aereo's service streams over-the-air broadcast TV as MPEG4 video to subscribers for $12/month by assigning each user a dedicated dime-sized antenna, converting 8VSB RF signals to baseband and encoding for Apple and Roku devices. A federal court denied the major networks' preliminary injunction after the plaintiffs' expert witness failed to testify in person or provide a credible test methodology, while Aereo's witnesses successfully challenged claims that individual antenna elements cannot function independently. The ruling has practical implications for cord-cutters, though the underlying copyright and retransmission disputes remain unresolved as broadcasters vow to continue litigation.

Pete Putman •
Columns
DTV Transition

HDTV Expert - Useful Gadgets: Wall-Mounted DTV Antennas Revisited

A follow-up field test of wall-mounted indoor DTV antennas, conducted with a spectrum analyzer and Samsung DTB-H260F tuner at Turner Engineering in Mountain Lakes, NJ, pits the Mohu Leaf, Winegard FlatWave, ClearStream Micron XG, and a $4 Radio Shack bow tie against each other across UHF and high-band VHF channels. The Mohu Leaf led unamplified results at 7-2, while the $100 Micron XG required its inline preamp (up to 20 dB boost) to match the basic Leaf's performance. Practically, the $36 Mohu Leaf Plus remains the recommended choice, outperforming antennas costing nearly three times as much.

Pete Putman •
Columns
DTV Transition

HDTV Expert - Useful Gadgets: Wall-Mounted Indoor DTV Antennas

A controlled comparison of wall-mounted indoor DTV antennas tested at a professional RF facility using an AVCOM PSA-2500C spectrum analyzer and TS Reader MPEG stream analyzer to measure bit error rates across seven broadcast signals ranging from 11.7 to 24.9 miles away. The $74.99 amplified Mohu Leaf Plus outperformed all non-powered competitors by reliably receiving 2-Edge path signals that other antennas missed, while the $39.99 Winegard FlatWave performed no better than a $3.99 Radio Shack bowtie. Readers choosing between indoor antennas will find clear guidance tied to transmitter distance and signal path complexity.

Pete Putman •
Columns
Cable HD DTV Transition Politics & Policy

HDTV Almanac - FCC to Revisit "Must Carry" Rules

The FCC is preparing to revisit 'must carry' rules as a three-year waiver, which permitted cable operators to downscale high-definition digital broadcast signals for analog distribution networks, approaches its June expiration. If the waiver is not renewed, cable companies may face pressure to accelerate costly infrastructure upgrades to all-digital systems, requiring converter boxes for subscribers without digital tuners. For consumers, the outcome could reshape which local broadcast channels remain accessible and whether smaller-audience stations survive on pay-TV platforms.

Alfred Poor •
Columns
Cable HD DTV Transition Politics & Policy

HDTV Expert - Goodbye, Free Cable TV

The National Cable & Telecommunications Association has petitioned the FCC to permit fully digital cable systems to apply conditional access encryption to every channel tier, including local broadcast channels currently receivable in the clear on QAM-tuner-equipped televisions. The FCC tentatively concluded this change would not substantially affect cable-to-consumer-electronics compatibility, while acknowledging that basic-only subscribers and households running second or third sets without set-top boxes would require new equipment such as a digital terminal adapter (DTA). For viewers considering cord-cutting, this shift removes one of the last remaining incentives to maintain a basic cable subscription over free over-the-air reception.

Pete Putman •
Columns
DTV Transition Standards Mobile HD

Ed's View: ATSC M/H Handheld Performance

The RCA DMT 335R handheld receiver, which tunes both ATSC and ATSC M/H using a three-chip solution powered by four 1.5V AA cells, delivered reliable M/H reception in suburban Columbus, Ohio, on channels 21, 14, and 48 - often without the monopole antenna deployed. The M/H transport stream coding and pilot robustness clearly enable viable portable DTV reception, though VHF performance remains constrained by low antenna gain in compact units. The more pressing challenge is commercial: with 4G smartphone buildout accelerating and no clear monetization model, M/H risks obsolescence unless integrated into mainstream mobile platforms.

Ed Milbourn •
Columns
DTV Transition Politics & Policy

HDTV Expert - Reading Between The Lines

A CEA report claiming only 8% of U.S. households rely exclusively on over-the-air TV reception is challenged by the National Association of Broadcasters, which cites Knowledge Networks data placing OTA-exclusive homes above 14% and rising. The author argues CEA's findings are compromised by a clear conflict of interest: CEA members are lobbying Congress to authorize FCC incentive spectrum auctions that would repurpose UHF broadcast TV bands for wireless broadband, potentially generating $33 billion for the U.S. Treasury. For cord-cutters combining free OTA HDTV with broadband to replace pay TV, this spectrum reallocation push has direct practical consequences.

Pete Putman •
Columns
DTV Transition Standards

Ed's View - M/H: Does it Work?

The Hauppauge aero-m USB stick receiver, weighing under 1.7 oz. and drawing 1 to 1.5 watts, was field-tested for ATSC Mobile/Handheld (M/H) reception in Cincinnati using WLWT on Channel 35 and WXIX on Channel 29 as the only available M/H broadcasts. The device offloads all decoding to the host netbook CPU, requiring substantial processing power, while consuming roughly 15% less power in M/H mode versus standard ATSC operation. Reception held solid through a parking garage and at 70 mph on the interstate, dropping only beyond the transmitter's Grade A coverage area, making it a practical but range-limited netbook accessory.

Ed Milbourn •
Columns