The Key To The Future of Broadcast Television

[Gregg Lengling]

By Deborah D. McAdams

Jun 13, 2003, 16:36 PST




Behold, the key to the future of broadcast television: the antenna.

The antenna is the progenitor of free, over-the-air (OTA) TV. Nothing strikes glee into the heart of consumers like the word free. Yet there's an assumption in the broadcast industry that people will never return to OTA television. The key word is return. If the idea is to go back to getting three fuzzy channels using antennas that have to be manually adjusted-game over. Yet a quick and dirty survey of our non-TV contacts suggests there is substantial interest in free, OTA television, provided it comprises A) 12 to 18 differentiated channels (digitally achievable), and B) no need to manipulate an antenna (technologically possible).

At last, advanced antenna technologies are getting legs. Three specific reception developments were introduced at NAB this year: mobile VSB, dual-polarization, and self-adjusting "smart" antennas.

While an emerging video-format technology war between Panasonic's RAM-Cam and Sony's Optical-Cam dominated the post-show trades, the engineering community was all over a VSB mobile-reception demo. Much of the buzz was critical, but it was buzz nonetheless.

Bob Rast handled it all with a grain of salt. Rast is the president and COO of LINX. LINX provided the receiver for the demonstration, Sinclair the signal, and Microsoft the coding.

"We put this thing together about a month and a half before NAB," said Rast. "Some people saw a half-full glass, and some saw a half-empty glass. We heard people say, 'It's the first time I've seen anyone demonstrate mobile reception that's not COFDM.'"

Rast was careful not to come out and confirm the conclusion of the engineers-that two sticks would have been better than one. He did emphasize that LINX continues to focus on "diversity antennas,"-essentially the same concept-using more than one antenna to capture a signal.

Diversity

Meanwhile, out in the rolling hills of Maryland, Charlie Rhodes has his own version of a diversity antenna. It pulls in a 15-channel TV lineup for the low price of nothing per month.

"I'm retired. I'm not going to pay $50 a month for TV," he said, as if the idea were absurd. Given Rhodes was once chief scientist at the Advanced Television Test Center in Alexandria, VA, it probably is.

Rhodes' iteration of the diversity antenna combines dual-polarization on a single mast. Experimenting in the summer of 2001, he discovered strong, vertically polarized broadcast signals, even though he knew they were radiated horizontally. By adding a vertical element to a UHF antenna, Rhodes was able to capture the energy typically lost in that plane. (A more extensive technical description of Rhodes' work can be found in the columns he wrote last year for TV Technology.)

Rhodes persuaded Medford, OR-based Kathrein/Scala to manufacture a small number of dual-polarization antennas. The resulting product, the CL-1469DP, was on display at NAB this year. Ellis Feinstein, former president of Scala Electronic Corp., now a director and consultant for Kathrein/Scala, made the prototype that became the CL-1469DP. Priced at $600, Feinstein doesn't expect this particular antenna to become a consumer product.

Likely users will be engineers doing coverage measurements for DTV stations, he said. "If the use of dual-polarization antennas for DTV reception becomes popular in the future, I am sure that some manufacturer will develop a lower-cost consumer version of an antenna for such applications."

Before Rhodes turned his focus on dual-polarization, he advocated "smart" antennas, first presented for television broadcast applications by Dr. Oded Bendov. Smart antennas are nothing new. They eliminate the need for user adjustment through an interface with the receiver. The military has used smart antennas for years.

Interest in using smart antenna technology for DTV reception is finally gaining momentum. Kent Britain, senior RF engineer for RDI, Inc., helped conduct a smart-antenna demo at the NAB Drafthouse this year. The availability of beer was not enough to distract our aforementioned engineers from the fact that the antennas were adjusting to signals from transmitters placed only a few feet away. Britain said field tests of the RDI-5000, built in conjunction with ATI Technologies, have been successful. The 9-inch indoor unit retails for less than $100, he said.

Smart technology is also applicable to outdoor antennas, as Rhodes has demonstrated. Current receivers would require an additional piece of hardware of some sort; while future-generation sets could be equipped with a fairly inexpensive chip.

Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda

Note we said could be. A smart antenna interface standard exists, and is endorsed by the Consumer Electronics Association, but whether or not new sets are equipped with the chip is another matter. (For more information go to //www.digitaltelevision.com/0503tvset.shtml.)

Broadcaster enthusiasm for smart antennas is muffled by dual must-carry, the digital-tuner mandate, transmission uncertainties, and localized DBS, to name a few obstacles. No one in broadcasting will cop to it, but too much emphasis on advanced antenna technology could undermine their argument for dual must-carry (cable carriage of both digital and analog broadcast signals). Dual must-carry is necessary to meet the FCC's analog shut-down threshold of 85%, said John Orlando, senior vice president of external relations for the NAB. (That is, 85% of homes in a given market must receive a digital signal before analog signals can be shut down. Whether that actually includes cable carriage or just OTA delivery is a matter currently under review at the FCC.)

At the same time, broadcasters have to show some support for new antenna technology, or their insistence that set makers include OTA tuners in every cable-ready set would seem a bit contradictory.

Conversely, there's been great hope in broadcasting that internal tuning devices would be adequate to pick up digital signals. The focus on developing and promoting antenna technology has naturally taken a backseat.

"We're working with a product that is still fluid and in transition," said Greg Schmidt, vice president and general counsel of LIN TV. "And we're not exactly sure how many people will need outdoor antennas and how many will be able to receive it indoors.

"I do think the local-into-local satellite initiative has diminished some of the drive for outdoor antennas, because the satellite guys are doing so much of a better job reaching local markets. As they continue to roll that out, they'll have an impact."

There are still currently about 20 million homes relying entirely on OTA signals, according to figures from Palo Alto-based Knowledge Networks, provided by the NAB. Including secondary units in cable or satellite households, OTA-only TVs total 80 million. Why broadcasters haven't done more to distinguish OTA content with this existing constituency is a bit of a mystery.

(Let's all synchronize our watches to see how long it takes Rupert Murdoch to manage DirecTV-exclusive content...now.)

Disney is finally taking a crack at it with MovieBeam, whereby content can be purchased and downloaded via excess bandwidth. Viola! A business model-one we identified four years ago in Television Today (a supplement to the old Television Broadcast) as HVOD, or hybrid-video-on-demand.

Some broadcasters may have underestimated the value of having their own distribution system for so long, they would rather press cable operators for subscriber fees than realize there are dozens of marginalized niche networks that would split their revenues just to get into homes. And what broadcasters also may not realize is that many people would be perfectly happy with 12 to 18 quality channels. Voila! Another business model.

If MovieBeaming and nicheing sound too complicated, there's always good old-fashioned HDTV.

"Oddly enough, in most markets today, the only way to receive true HDTV is with an over-the-air antenna," said Buddy Davis, owner of Davis Antenna in Waldorf, MD. Davis sells about 3,000 to 5,000 OTA antennas a year in a 40-mile radius around the Washington, DC area. A good chunk of those are for people who want unrecompressed HDTV.

While not necessarily a business model per se, HD is certainly a way to distinguish one's content from whatever is passing for HD on certain cable systems these days. The same goes for localized content, particularly as cable systems consolidate.

"The true power of broadcasting is in localness," said Jack Perry, president and CEO of Decisionmark, maker of the software powering //www.antennaweb.org, a most excellent antenna-locator website hosted not by the NAB, but the CEA. Perry's company also offers over-the-air PVR and EPG services. "Innovation will come from local broadcasters themselves; 1,885 general managers will probably out-think the few that are running the networks."

Eighty million OTA sets, combined with the cooperative effort possible with the bandied-about Broadcast Labs, is definitely a start.

"There is clearly a role for outdoor antennas," said Schmidt, "and I think you're going to see with the Broadcast Labs, a place where we, as an industry can get around to proving the technology and getting the specifications for antennas that will work in a digital world."

Deborah D. McAdams is a contributing editor. She can be reached at dmcadams@uemedia.com.