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Multicasting posts

Phoenix's KPHO multicasting NCAA Men's Tournament over-the-air

by Darren Murph posted Mar 19th 2008 at 4:39PM


Granted, many CBS affiliates -- Raleigh's WRAL and Indianapolis' WISH, just to name a couple -- have been multicasting the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament OTA for years now, but after seeing a breakdown of the schedule over at KPHO, we felt it prudent to remind sports fanatics that busting out the antenna may not be such a bad idea tomorrow. Phoenix -- which just had seven HD channels flipped on by Cox -- is one area in which the local CBS affiliate is multicasting every remaining March Madness game on its array of digital OTA channels, and five other carriers in the heart of Arizona are also providing ways to see every matchup. Granted, we doubt each of these will be seen everywhere in high-def, but feel free to check with your local CBS affiliate to see if you'll be left out of any of the Madness.

[Thanks, Steven]

Recent survey shows broadcasters are into multicasting

by Ben Drawbaugh posted Feb 23rd 2008 at 6:52PM

Macroblocking
Multicasting is a bad word around here, and even if you don't know what it means, we'd bet that you've seen it before. You know, your kicking back watching your favorite team and just when the action really gets goin', your beautiful HD picture turns into big ugly blocks as all the players move towards the ball. At that point all the expensive equipment at the stadium and your entire investment in your HDTV is all for naught, as your local affiliate decided it'd rather provide a useless 24 hour weather channel than deliver you the big game, sans blocks. We've all seen it happen and the beauty of the situation is usually the cable co' or satellite provider gets the blame instead of good 'ol News Channel 8. If you're one of the lucky few who doesn't know what this is like, according to a survey of broadcasters there's a good chance that you will, as 55 percent of those broadcasters surveyed said it had plans to multicast. The same survey indicated that only 66 percent planned to upgrade its facility so it could actually generate some HD content -- rather than just pass on the network feed. Unfortunately no one surveys us because no one cares, and the only thing we can do in protest is to not watch the useless channel -- like we need another 24 hour weather channel.

NAB scolds cable companies for downconverting HD locals

by Darren Murph posted Apr 23rd 2007 at 2:56AM

NABWe've certainly seen the head honchos give the cable companies a piece of their mind before, but this time the carriers are receiving a fairly stiff scolding care of the National Association of Broadcasters. David Rehr made sure to make every moment of his speech segment count, as he ripped cable providers for "downconverting" the signals of local channels in order to boost the bandwidth available to "their own high-definition signals." Mr. Rehr even went so far as to call the process "broadcast discrimination," and we can only presume that certain providers -- such as Time Warner, who has ties to HBO and Comcast, which is strongly linked to Versus / Golf Channel -- are the targets of recent battles. Unsurprisingly, anonymous cable services have reportedly denied the claims of delusion, but how do the actual end-users see it? Let us know folks: is your cable company giving preferential treatment to channels it has vested interest in?

[Via HiDefster]

NAB speaks out against downconverting

by Richard Lawler posted May 31st 2006 at 5:07PM

The National Association of Broadcasters has joined the Big Four in petitioning Congress to stop a bill that would include provisions allowing cable television providers the right to downconvert HDTV broadcasts to DTV. Between this new article and a note on TV Predictions, we were also able to better understand what all the fuss is about. If you're as confused as I was, the point of contention here are "must-carry" laws, that would require cable companies to carry multiple HDTV streams that the local affiliates broadcast. The cable companies say this would use up their valuable bandwidth, while the affiliates fear that cable companies could refuse to carry their high definition broadcast unless the affiliates paid them to.

That still seems to be a longshot, as we all know the most desirable HD programming is on the network stations, if cable companies limited that then why would their subscribers pay extra for HD? Additionally, if the reason I can't get HGTV-HD is because there are three ABC affiliates in my area, that would really suck. Of course in some areas cable is all there is and if they refused to carry an HD Super Bowl or other event without payment, customers would be stuck with HDTVs and no HD. Worse yet, they are still trying to force Broadcast Flag legislation through that could prevent you from recording high-def broadcasts. All this government talk makes me want to turn to C-SPAN, why aren't they in 720p yet?

Read - Broadcasting & Cable
Read - TV Predictions




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