On Jul 3, 2008, at 11:29 AM, Fred Holmes wrote:
How does a broadcaster get to go back and use his old VHF assignment? I thought that all VHF TV was being killed so that those frequencies could be used for mobile/emergency services, with TV gone from that part of the spectrum altogether.
That is what we all thought, wasn't it? It is not the case. Digital TV allows for more efficient use of available spectrum. The amount of bandwidth that can be freed up by the switch to digital will be sold off or provided to public safety or utility agencies. Most, if not all VHF stations will revert back to VHF from UHF for digital in February 2009. Some VHF stations never did migrate to UHV during this transitional phase.
TV broadcasters are not required to provide high definition TV to viewers. Full high definition, as opposed to a lower level of quality, requires a lot of bandwidth. TV stations can lease out any unused bandwidth to commercial enterprises that are seeking frequencies for their own use. Thus there exists a financial incentive for broadcasters to not provide the highest definition images that are possible, and that many consumers will have bought new receivers expecting to see. However, any digital is going to be better than analog except for certain problems that will most likely plague viewers on a routine basis. I am speaking of dropouts, synchronization problems between audio and video, and pixellation of the image that will be all too common.
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