Cord-Cutting

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Free TV Keeps Getting Better: Welcome ATSC 3.0

Here’s everything you need to know about the next-generation wireless TV standard.

Lou Frenzel 1 | Jan 03, 2018

In November, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued new rules that will let TV broadcasters adopt the next-generation wireless TV standard designated ATSC 3.0. This new standard defines the specifications for ultra-high-definition (UHD) or 4K over-the-air (OTA) digital TV.

In case you haven’t noticed, TV has progressed to the 4K ultra-high-definition stage with its 3,840 × 2,160 pixel resolution. (3,840 pixels is almost 4,000, thus the 4K designation.) Big-screen LCD and OLED sets are now reasonably priced, and some UHD content at the new resolution is becoming available. If you have not experienced UHD on a big screen, give it a try.  You will want to upgrade immediately. In the near future, broadcasters will be able to offer this improved technology based on the ATSC 3.0 standard.

TV Today

Roughly 75% of households pay for their TV reception for cable or satellite distribution. But you can still get free over-the-air TV from your local broadcasters. It is estimated that about 17 to 21% of households get TV this way. Just put up an antenna and receive your local broadcasters— like ABC, CBS, NBC, CW, PBS, Univision, and a few others—at no charge.  More than a few households have “cut the cable,” so to speak, and moved to OTA TV to cut costs in the past few years.

Free TV currently uses the original high-definition (HD) digital format designated by the ATSC 1.0. The Advanced Television Systems Committee is that group of TV and electronic companies that put together the U.S. TV standards that are blessed by the FCC and then adopted by the broadcasters. TV sets are made to those standards. If you recall, the switchover from analog TV to digital TV (ATSC 1.0) occurred beginning in late 2008 and concluded in June of 2009.

Called HD TV, this digital standard offers 1080i and 720p resolution.  It greatly improves picture and audio quality while using the same 6-MHz-wide TV channels. Now 4K sets can get content via BluRay DVD, cable, and satellite.

The original digital TV standard used today, ATSC 1.0 employs 8VSB (vestigial sideband) modulation, a form of AM using an 8-level coding with a partially suppressed lower sideband to keep the signal inside the 6 MHz channel. MPEG-2 video compression is used. The error correction code is Reed-Solomon. Resolution is either 720 scan lines with 1,280 pixels or 1,080 lines with 1,920 pixels. Frame rates run at 30, 60, 120, or 240 frames per second. Bit rate in a channel is 19.3 Mb/s.

If you haven’t experienced OTA recently, go get an antenna and connect it up. There are lots available, and usually a simple indoor antenna is all you need. Take a look: It’s probably better than you’re thinking.

ATSC 3.0

The new standard was supposed to be ASTC 2.0, which was an upgrade to 1.0 to improve resolution and add new features, while maintaining backward compatibility with the original standard. But in the end, the standards group decided to toss the old standard and forget the backward compatibility issue. That led to the adoption of orthogonal frequency division multiplex (OFDM) modulation.

OFDM is far more spectrally efficient than 8VSB and offers better performance in multipath and non-line-of-sight environments. This permits the new standard to provide acceptable performance in mobile devices and indoor sets. The U.S. finally joins all the other digital TV standards in the world—like DVB in Europe, ISDB in Japan, and DTMB in China—that use OFDM.

ATSC 3.0 defines six levels of modulation, from QPSK to 4096QAM. Data rate in the channel can be as low as 1 Mb/s or up to 57 Mb/s. Data transmission will be an IP-based format like the common internet transmission. The Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) is the forward error correcting code. This new standard also has provisions for 2 × 2 MIMO at the transmitter and in the receivers to further improve the link reliability.

Other features include a more efficient H.265 video compression method. An improved audio compression is MPEG-H or Dolby AC-4. A curious uplink feature is also defined, which will permit viewer interaction services to be implemented. It uses single carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) and HARQ format.

The adoption of 3.0 is voluntary by the stations and, if implemented, it would run in parallel with the existing 1.0 HDTV digital standard broadcasts in use today. It will take a year or so before TV stations install the ATSC 3.0 transmitters and TV sets become available. Definitely something to look forward to.

The big question is, can OTA broadcast TV survive the rapid trend in over the top (OTT) streaming? In the meantime, 4K UHD is terrific regardless of the source if you have not yet upgraded.

Source – http://www.electronicdesign.com/community-home/free-tv-keeps-getting-better-welcome-atsc-30


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Cord-Cutting Explodes: 22 Million U.S. Adults Will Have Canceled Cable, Satellite TV by End of 2017

Todd Spangler

Research firm eMarketer cuts TV ad-spending forecast on accelerating pay-TV declines

Winter is here for cable and satellite TV operators.

American consumers are cancelling traditional pay-TV service at a much faster rate than previously expected, according to research firm eMarketer.

In 2017, a total of 22.2 million U.S. adults will have cut the cord on cable, satellite or telco TV service to date — up 33% from 16.7 million in 2016 — the researcher now predicts. That’s significantly higher than eMarketer’s prior estimate of 15.4 million cord-cutters as of the end of this year. Meanwhile, the number of “cord-nevers” (consumers who have never subscribed to pay TV) will rise 5.8% this year, to 34.4 million.

“Younger audiences continue to switch to either exclusively watching [over-the-top] video or watching them in combination with free-TV options,” said Chris Bendtsen, senior forecasting analyst at eMarketer. “Last year, even the Olympics and [the U.S.] presidential election could not prevent younger audiences from abandoning pay TV.”

Overall, 196.3 million U.S. adults will have traditional pay TV (cable, satellite or telco) this year, down 2.4% compared with 2016, eMarketer predicts. By 2021, that will drop to 181.7 million, a decline of nearly 10% from 2016. The number of pay-TV viewers 55 and older will continue to rise over the next four years, while for every other age cohort the subscriber tallies will decline.

By 2021, the number of cord-cutters will nearly equal the number of people who have never had pay TV — a total of 81 million U.S. adults. That means around 30% of American adults won’t have traditional pay TV at that point, per eMarketer’s revised forecast.

There’s a caveat on these numbers: eMarketer’s estimates for pay-TV viewers do not include “virtual” internet TV services, such as Dish Network’s Sling TV, AT&T’s DirecTV Now, Hulu’s live TV service, or YouTube TV. But industry analysts say over-the-top TV subscription services so far have not offset declines in traditional pay television. Moreover, the cheaper OTT packages typically include fewer channels, so the growth of “skinny” TV bundles implies net household losses for many cable networks.

Seeing the writing on this wall, several TV programmers have launched or are prepping direct-to-consumer streaming services themselves. CBS in 2014 launched All Access, while Disney has set early 2018 for the debut of a no-cable-needed ESPN OTT package (although that will exclude NFL and NBA games). In addition, five media companies — A+E Networks, Viacom, Discovery, Scripps Networks Interactive and AMC Networks — reportedly have joined forces to create a non-sports streaming bundle of cable programming to be priced at under $20 per month.

For the TV biz, there’s another worrisome trend: People are watching less traditional television. For the first time, in 2017 average TV viewing in the U.S. is expected to drop below 4 hours per day, eMarketer predicts.

Average time spent watching TV (excluding digital) among American adults will drop 3.1%, to 3 hours 58 minutes this year. Digital-video consumption, meanwhile, continues to climb. U.S. adults will consume 1 hour 17 minutes of digital video per day on average in 2017 (excluding time spent viewing video on social networks), up 9.3% year over year, according to eMarketer.

With the U.S. pay-TV base eroding faster than anticipated and average TV viewing time dropping, eMarketer cut its TV ad-spending forecast for 2017 by a little over $1 billion.

This year, TV advertising will increase just 0.5%, to $71.65 billion (versus the firm’s previous $72.72 billion forecast). As a result, the TV sector’s share of total U.S. media ad spending will drop to 34.9% (vs. 36.6% in 2016) and is expected to fall below 30% by 2021.

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that 22.2 million U.S. adults were expected to cancel pay-TV service in 2017; in fact, eMarketer’s estimate represents the cumulative number of cord-cutters projected by the end of the year.

Source – https://variety-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/variety.com/2017/biz/news/cord-cutting-2017-estimates-cancel-cable-satellite-tv-1202556594/amp/


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Best DVRs for cord cutters you can buy

By Kevin Downey, Komando.com

Have you cut the cord yet? Are you familiar with that expression?

You’ve probably been hearing that term a lot lately, including on Komando.com. It refers to people cutting the cord on cable TV or satellite TV.

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Even if you have cable, here’s why you need an antenna

Bill Husted, Special to The Star | Published 3:17 p.m. PT May 24, 2017 | Ventura County Star / U.S.A. Today

An antenna is a television’s best friend.

Even if you have cable or satellite service, it’s smart to add an antenna to the mix. Let me sing a song of praise to antennas that will tell you why.

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Category : Blog , Cord-Cutting


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Millennials Discover Amazing New Technology: Television

11:08 AM 08/03/2017

I haven’t had cable TV for years, and I don’t miss it. Sorry, cable news, but if something interesting happens on your air, it’ll be on the Internet within minutes. Between Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, and all the other streaming services out there, I’ve always got something to watch. And for live TV, I’ve got a TiVo attached to a digital antenna. Because I’m old enough to know what broadcast television is, and that it still exists.

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People Are Shocked That TV Signals Over The Air Are Free And Legal

Were you aware that you can get some local major network channels for free, without having to pay for a cable or streaming service subscription? If you were, you’re ahead of 30% of adults, most of them young enough that they wouldn’t remember the fuzzy, rabbit-eared past.

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Rabbit ears are back! Antenna sales back on the rise as millennials are shocked to discover broadcast TV is FREE

  • Dan Sisco discovered the limits of online streaming when he invited his friends over to watch the Super Bowl in 2014 and missed out on the advertisements
  • He invested in a $20 antenna in time for the 2015 Super Bowl, saying: ‘ I was just kind of surprised that this is technology that exists. It’s been awesome’
  • A shocking 29 percent of Americans are unaware that local TV stations are free, according to the National Association of Broadcasters
  • A federal legislation in 2009 forcing broadcasters to switch from analog signals to high-definition digital transmissions has confused people of all ages 
  • While old TVs were unable to receive the new digital signals, it didn’t mean they were gone completely, like many assumed
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TV Antennas Make a Comeback

What’s not to like about free TV? And it’s going to get even better soon.

By James K. Willcox | June 27, 2017

TV antennas aren’t as outdated as you might think. If you live near a city, there’s a good chance you can get networks such as ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, PBS, and Telemundo over the air.

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Cord Cutting

Cord Cutting with a Digital Antenna

Posted on June 30th, 2017 by Nick Perow

What do The Voice, NCIS, Wheel of Fortune, and The Big Bang Theory all have in common?

All of them can be watched for free using a simple HDTV antenna. Sometimes we forget that many of the shows we like are on CBS, NBC, ABC and FOX, which don’t require a cable or satellite subscription at all. Now you’re probably saying, “Yeah, but I DVR all that stuff”. Well, we have a solution for that in a few paragraphs below.

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GfK Research Study Reveals Time Spent with Traditional TV is 16% Greater than Time Spent with all other Media Platforms Combined

Comprehensive Results of the Study will be Presented on September 29 at Forward 2016 – Broadcast Television’s Annual Leadership Conference

September 07, 2016 10:04 AM Eastern Daylight Time

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–GfK, a trusted leader in market research, in collaboration with TVB, the not-for-profit trade association for local broadcast television, today announced preliminary results from the “Media Comparisons 2016” research study with findings that American consumers spend more time with television than all other ad-supported media platforms combined. The study also revealed that consumers overwhelmingly trust local broadcast TV news over any other source.

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US TV: erosion, not implosion

TMT Predictions 2016

Deloitte Global predicts that the US traditional television market, the world’s largest at about $170 billion in 2016, will see erosion on at least five fronts: the number of pay-TV subscribers; pay-TV penetration as a percent of total population; average pay-TV monthly bill; consumers switching to antennas for watching TV; and live and time-shifted viewing by the overall population, and especially by trailing millennials (18-24 years old).

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Survey says: streaming in, cable out


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Review of the Channel Master DVR+

Free over-the-air TV forms a huge part of what we cover here on Cordcutting.com, and for good reason. Surveys show that cord cutters are increasingly awakening to the potential of OTA TV, which offers many cord cutters the chance to watch local news and major network broadcasts for free.

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HOT OFF THE PRESS! More data on over-the-air reception and trends.

Fresno numbers are much higher than the national average.  Almost four in ten homes with an 18- to 34-year-old resident rely on broadcast-only or Internet-only alternatives.

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It’s a huge movement. It’s becoming cool not to pay for bloated cable subscriptions.

It’s a huge movement. It’s becoming cool not to pay for bloated cable subscriptions. The internet has made cable obsolete and cable companies know this but they don’t want you to know. Why pay for what you don’t use? It’s invisible clutter. My cable bill was $280 per month and now I pay $77 (not including the subscription services, some of which I was paying for already). You may not save as much as I’m saving because you may not have been paying as much. If you can save an amount that makes a difference in your life and you can meet your home entertainment needs, then why not give it a try? Here’s how I did it:

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Do you really need cable?

How much do you pay for cable? The first year with a new cable or satellite provider is generally affordable with the generous promotions, upgrades, and free channels provided. However, after the promotional period ends, our bills always see to creep up a bit more here and there.

Every year the bloating gets larger — an extra fee for that second box we hardly use, all the movie channels that we don’t watch often, the amount of taxes and additional fees we have to pay, and so on.

All of this leads me to my next question. Have you ever thought about cutting the cord on cable or your satellite provider?

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Should you cut the cord?

By Jill Cataldo CTW Features
April 12, 2016

Dear Jill: I would be interested to hear your thoughts on cable or satellite television. I feel like our cable service is not worth what we are paying for it, but I don’t know what other options we have other than satellite, which costs about the same. I don’t feel like we are ready to completely cancel it, but I also don’t know what to do about the bill continually spiraling. — Robin S.

I’m sure this will surprise no one, but I’m a big fan of free, over-the-air television. Our family never had cable when I was growing up (that was a luxury to enjoy at friends’ houses!) and so my perspective on paying for television is likely somewhat different than those who have never known a world without cable or satellite TV at home. Even now, we have a rooftop antenna on our house, and the antenna has been the primary source of television reception for the majority of the years we’ve lived as a family.

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Of Cable, Congress and Cockroaches

Mohu study puts pay TV near bottom of food chain

Author: Mike Farrell

Digital antenna maker Mohu released a consumer satisfaction study Wednesday that seems to fly in the face of industry efforts to improve customer service, with respondents putting their cable company just a step ahead of Congress and disease-carrying vermin.

According to the survey, 50% of respondents said they held an unfavorable view toward their cable company, compared to 72% that said they had an unfavorable opinion of Congress and 92% that said they did not enjoy the company of cockroaches. No word on where rats, ringworm, or the Senate ranked in the study.

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