I think that may be OK under MATV rules, but my knowledge of things like that is 20+ years old. MATV may not be legal anymore.
From: George Skorup Sent: Sunday, February 07, 2016 3:08 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Cox pulls KASW from it's lineup Aren't there boxes that do this already? ChannelMaster maybe? OTA DVR + Netflix, etc. apps? I don't think you're going to find an IPTv STB with OTA built in. We're a DISH PCO. We have a SmartBox deployed in one building so far. It has an OTA tuner blade installed (8ch I think). Obviously the benefit is that you can pull in some locals over the antenna and not tie up sat tuners. We're doing clear QAM output, 48ch I believe. But anyway, I'd say the OTA tuner and re-transmit in this situation is legal because 1) it's no different than a stand-alone OTA system already in the building (we're just converting them to a clear QAM channel, no transcoding), and 2) DISH has re-transmit consent for the locals anyway. Another scenario I'm thinking of.. We're looking at doing GPON in a private community of 250+ homes. The association allows ground-mounted sat dishes only, nothing on roofs besides our current wireless gear, and no towers. So basically nobody can get OTA. What if we fed OTA into the GPON RF wave? Who would know? Who would care? We'd be giving the residents a means to get OTA. Most people want locals + Netflix anyway. On 2/7/2016 11:41 AM, Chuck McCown wrote: In my market, we have (at last count) 24 OTA channels. Not all of them charge, but you know the networks and FOX do, so that is at least $4/month/sub cost to the company adding those channels to their lineup. Pays for itself in one or two years of adding the OTA antenna to the STB. I am sure they must all be thinking about it. From: Mike Hammett Sent: Sunday, February 07, 2016 9:19 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Cox pulls KASW from it's lineup At a minimum, it would move tens of millions of customers in the coverage area of the broadcast towers to OTA instead of retransmitted through the satellite. I'm sure at scale, their cost would be cheaper, but a $39 ChannelMaster yagi would probably work for most of the population. Heck, they wouldn't even have to follow through with it. Just threaten it for reduced rates. I'd imagine just the threat of moving however many millions of homes (for the big broadcasters) from their retransmission fees would be quite enough to settle for a rate decrease. ----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions Midwest Internet Exchange The Brothers WISP ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: "Chuck McCown" mailto:[email protected] To: [email protected] Sent: Sunday, February 7, 2016 10:13:28 AM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Cox pulls KASW from it's lineup That is a good idea. Put an F connector on the LNB that is designed to pull in UHF TV frequencies and transport it to the box. One extra antenna on top. No more local retransmission fees (assuming you can get the locals at a decent signal level). From: Mike Hammett Sent: Sunday, February 07, 2016 7:04 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Cox pulls KASW from it's lineup What I think Chuck was going for was a way to receive them locally so you don't have to pay the retransmission fees. To expand upon that, I wonder about building the OTA into the dish. ----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions Midwest Internet Exchange The Brothers WISP ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: "Mathew Howard" mailto:[email protected] To: "af" mailto:[email protected] Sent: Saturday, February 6, 2016 6:17:11 PM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Cox pulls KASW from it's lineup Yeah, they do retransmit them over the satellite as well, so most of the locals actually show up in the list twice. On Sat, Feb 6, 2016 at 5:53 PM, Chuck McCown <[email protected]> wrote: Can you get locals without the external antenna? From: Mathew Howard Sent: Saturday, February 06, 2016 4:49 PM To: af Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Cox pulls KASW from it's lineup My Dish Network box does that... there's a built in OTA receiver in the STB, and other than program information being missing for some of the sub channels, you don't really notice whether the channel is coming from satellite or OTA. On Sat, Feb 6, 2016 at 4:57 PM, Chuck McCown <[email protected]> wrote: Used to be there were must carry rules for locals. Now it is reversed. I have seen these disputes many times over the past 10-15 years. I wonder about the economics of building an OTA circuit into the STB. Have the installer put up an antenna, wire it up and don’t pay the broadcasters. If it was clever enough the user would not even know. Include the locals in the OSD and DVR functionality... Hmmm, would work for IPTV systems too... Of course everyone cannot always receive all the local OTAs but most could. I wonder if you could pay the broadcasters only for the customers that needed cable/IPTV deliver of the signal... I guess you could create a non locals tier of service and try to put as many on it as possible. From: Rory Conaway Sent: Saturday, February 06, 2016 3:16 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [AFMUG] Cox pulls KASW from it's lineup KASW is a local channel in the Phoenix area. Apparently there is a dispute over the cost of rebroadcasting this local channel when renewing the contract. The reason that it’s interesting is they replaced the entire show with an explanation of how local channels get to charge for something the broadcast over the air for free. It looks like they are going on the offensive and something we need to be aware of it if we start looking at broadcasting IP TV. Rory Conaway • Triad Wireless • CEO 4226 S. 37th Street • Phoenix • AZ 85040 602-426-0542 [email protected] www.triadwireless.net “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort or convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge or controversy” – Martin Luther King
