On Sun, 11 May 2008 14:46:32 -0500 Hugh <hugh@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
| Are they bringing back channel one? My new Magnavox VCR with digital
| tuner will select DTV channel 1.1. I'm not getting anything on it but it
| will select it.
For the relevant do***ent, see:
http://www.atsc.org/standards/a_65cr1_with_amend_1.pdf
ATSC has a lot of oddities in it, probably due to fact that it was
designed by
committee, and didn't involve clear thinking computer data experts.
Virtual
channels have a major and minor part, each of which is stored in a 10-bit
field.
Yet they are limited to values 1 to 99 for major, and 0 to 999 for minor,
with
the additional restriction that video channels are only 0 to 99 for minor.
So there could be a channel 1 or specifically 1.1 when including the
minor.
Minor channel 0 is designated for reference to the analog transmission.
One thing the ATSC do***ent does is specify policy on use of channel
numbers.
IMHO, that should be left to the FCC under the general guidelines to
ensure
that duplication does not exist. The primary policy is to use the same
number
for virtual major as the original analog, even after the transition. But
I
don't see why that has to be the case.
One issue I see coming up is in that do***ent in Annex B, part 1.4 which
says
If, after the transition, a previously used NTSC RF channel in a
market
is assigned to a newly-licensed DTV broadcaster in that market, the
newly-licensed DTV broadcaster shall use, as his major_channel_number,
the number of the DTV RF channel originally allocated to the previous
NTSC licensee of the assigned channel.
Clearly there can be conflicts, and this tries to avoid them. For example
in
Pittsburgh, channels 2 and 4 are going to operate on RF channels 25 and
51.
Their virtual majors will be, of course, 2 and 4. If a new digital
station
gets licensed to RF channels 2 or 4, they would have to use a virtual
major
of 25 or 51, respectively. That much makes sense to avoid conflicts.
But what if a DTV station that once had a given analog channel changes the
digital RF channel? That can happen. In fact ATSC makes it easier to do
because they can still market as the original analog channel number.
Would
that force the new DTV station using the old RF analog channel as digital
to change their virtual major, and thus their marketed channel?
I think the FCC should be open to be more flexible in assigning virtual
channel
numbers, and not be limited by these ATSC rules. The way to think about
this
is to simply think of the RF channesl merely as frequencies by ignoring
what
channel number they had. Then allocate channel numbers to a market just
for
use as virtual major numbers. That would allow a new station to get a
channel
number to market as (and use as virtual major) different than their RF
channel.
All the FCC needs to do is make sure virtual channel numbers stay far away
from
each other such that no one can get two stations with the same virtual
number
on different RF channels.
But they would have other channel numbers available just in case: 1, 37,
and
70-99. IMHO, the future TV application process should include requests
for
RF channel, virtual channel unique to the market, and other parameters.
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