MATV Systems and the Digital Transition - Page 5

Lots of people. Do you have a source for one as an off-the-shelf product?.

Not worth $175 to me. At best, it would save me about 2.5 to 3dB combiner loss, so maybe, if I had a weak system with no practical place to add amplifiers, I'd consider it. I bet I could get Tin Lee or CE Filters to custom make one for me for less than that, and if I did, in my situation, I'd probably nudge the rolloff zone up another 70 or so Mhz so that my first UHF channel would be 27, allowing me to diplex in a dozen more analog channels.

For mongrel services like FM radio, I suspect that a fairly clean solution could be developed using your own wireless rebroadcaster. This week, I'm going to be servicing some kind of 16 channel TV audio rebroadcast system that consists of sixteen discreet transmitter boxes with audio inputs and agile outputs. The most common application for this is to have as many as sixteen TVs mounted for common viewing, and people at each table can select the audio to match the one that they are watching at the moment. It broadcasts in the 900 Mhz band. I think that low powered rebroadcasting could meet a lot of needs more practically than could enhancing MATV content.

In 2000, I added FM radio reception to a 160 apartment, highrise MATV system that made available dozens of weak FM stations that could not be received with an apartment antenna. I connected two customers to it and advised maybe two or three A/V contractors that those FM signals ere available. Over a year ago, I was reconfiguring some antenna inputs in the MATV headend and inadvertently disconnected the FM, but I did not realize I had done so until a few weeks ago. Apparently, not one of the 160 residents cares whether their MATV system has FM radio capability or not.

The immediate need for everybody is to stuff UHF signals on-channel into distribution systems designed for VHF. The next is to have a bunch of modulator/demodulator pairs installed or immediately available to keep sending NTSC signals into systems where it is unreasonable to expect every resident to have a digital tuner.

At some point, DirecTV, DISH or God only knows who will make some product available that takes a transponder of encrypted QPSK MPEG and somehow converts it into a channel of unencrypted QAM. When that happens, the MATV 8VSB will probably have to be converted to QAM to keep it all simple enough as for the residents to be able to install and program their own TVs. Between now and then, I'm not going to be trying to develop a "grand plan" to upgrade MATV systems to enhanced digital capability because the technology and products to do so are not available and the demand is not there to even buy what I can presently provide.

" Do they have any plans? Or, is it another of those "we'll wait until it happens" scenarios?"

LOL

1. Well it still works, cost money to do it, so why replace or upgrade it
2. DIGITAL ???? what that? and what ANALOG ???? Don't care the picture comes in fine so upgrade is not needed.
3. Don't have the money or have a buget for it, Pay raise coming up .

Those are proablity the answer you will get. You know those CEO could not afford to feed thier children if they took a cut in pay to pay for the upgrade in MATV Yikes how will they feed their kids? it won't look good if they have to get Happy Meal at McDonalds and might not have money to buy it either

-Willie

Oh no! Then they will have to buy some real equipment. Can't have that!

Now, that's what I call a boat!

In the setup process of the TV set, the modulation scheme is automatically selected depending on "antenna" or "cable."

Was that, per chance, Lincoln Tower in Sugarhouse?

Probably none, but we don't have to modulate 8VSB. We can receive and distribute it in that form, either "on-channel", or we can inexpensively heterodyne convert it to another broadcast-band channel if it better serves us to do so. Demodulating broadcast 8VSB and remodulating it as QAM or even as 8VSB is expensive, but more importantly, at present, is that we have no way to encode analog satellite-based SMATV programming (CNN, TBS, ESPN, etc.) into MPEG form, such that we could then modulate it into QAM or 8VSB.


Distributing broadcast digital programming in 8VSB modulation involves slightly less efficient utilization of bandwidth, because one 6 Mhz broadcast 8VSB channel fully occupied 6 Mhz in the distribution system, whereas 64QAM modulation allows two broadcast channels to fit in one system channel and 256 QAM makes room for three, but that is not a problem for MATV in the foreseeable future. The problem that apartment building's MATV systems face is that, if you distribute signals in 8VSB format, the only way that a TV tuner can process them is if they are assigned broadcast TV channels, meaning that after you have fully stuffed channels 2-13, the next usable channel, UHF 14, spans 470 to 476 Mhz, but many MATV distribution wiring systems would have trouble absorbing the normal losses incurred at UHF frequencies. If you heterodyne convert a UHF 8VSB signal to a cable TV midband, superband or hyperband frequency, almost no TVs will be able to process it.



There is presently no "programming aggregator" selling resellable cable TV programming at a price that any but the largest (over 1,000 subs) systems can afford. We can still buy such programming in "bulk" at affordable prices, however, and that is what I am doing everywhere. In my post #2 in this thread, which videobruce's post # 15 is commenting on here, I said that my private cable customers would be better off with bulk. On August 31, 2007, I shut off the last of the subscriber private cable systems I service and replaced it with a bulk, free-to-resident, system that now includes twelve local broadcast analog channels, eighteen "local" broadcast 8VSB channels (my antenna headend receives signals from six cities), a house message channel and forty-one satellite based "cable TV" channels from DirecTV. They are presently paying about $9 per residential unit per month for the 41 channels of DirecTV programming, whereas they had been paying approximately $17 per subscriber per month to satellite programming aggregators (WSA LLC and 4COM) for sixteen fewer cable channels, and two of the additions were MASN and MASN2, which, if we wanted to add them to a subscription tier, would have entailed buying two Scientific Atlanta Powerview receivers and setting up a 10' dish targeting that satellite.

In a few weeks, they are going to change this service contract from SMATV MDU to Choice Limited, which will result in the per customer bill going up to $15.98 per unit per month ($14.99 for Choice Limited, plus $.99 for the RSNs), but at that time, each resident will be able to upgrade his own service to DirecTV's Total Choice Digital (or whatever they are calling their equivalent to "Basic Cable") using his own receiver for $19.99 per month. They also will be able to simply buy, say, HBO or Showtime at its a la carte price while relying on the SMATV analog for their basic channels. Until then, they will continue to pay over $11 per sub per month for single channel, "beeping channel", HBO and Showtime, which they resell for $12 per month.

I don't know what the cable company would have charged them for bulk cable, but the cable company carries fewer than half as many broadcast digital channels as this complex system now offers, which is my ace in the hole in this market, so I think this customer is better served by this new system I have developed for them than they would be with any alternative, but for markets in which the franchised cable company can furnish as many broadcast digital locals as MATV can, I think that cable TV becomes the best option. I think that in a couple of years, the expectations of TV viewers everywhere will be that everyone is entitled to CNN, TNT, USA and CNN as a birthright, and that broadcast MATV-only systems will be abandoned.

It originally was strictly off-air. The rooftop antenna goes into a closet on the 9th floor, where it was amplified, split 11 ways and homerun (copper-braid RG 59) to each of the apartments on the 9th floor. Each run then drops down through conduit to the apartment below, where it hit old BT 75-ohm walltaps enroute to the 1st floor. Some years ago, they went with cable, who installed lockboxes and ran coax to each apartment. There was a Channel Master dish on the roof and several of the residents additionally watched some foreign channels (mainly Russian and Chinese).

Last year, a guy in Texas got a contract with HUD and installed a 48 channel SMATV (DTV is the service provider) which included a couple of Russian and a couple of Chinese channels (FTA dish/receivers). L-band was overlaid onto the SMATV so the residents could subscribe to DTV if they wanted. The original RG 59 was utilized and the walltaps were replaced with Sonora Design 5-2150MHz taps.

The Russian channels are a big hit in the Washington, DC metro market. Initially, they had just one, which they scrambled with video inversion and sync suppression and put it on midband channel 18, but to clear a path for it, they used midband reject filters that beat up broadcast channel 7, and they coupled into the existing MATV high powered trunkline with two-way or even four-way splitter/combiners.

I ordered a couple of the output filter modules that Blonder Tongue uses in its midband channel 18, MCA-b series strip amplifiers and mounted them in metal boxes to enable cleaner insertion without incurring high insertion losses. I think I paid around $35 each for those modules. Unfortunately, the people who serviced the Russian channel didn't understand what tbey were, even though they were well labeled, so every time I went back to service the system, I had to reinstall these custom combiner modules that they had removed. Now they have several Russian channels and they distribute them somewhere in the Hyperband.

I wouldn't stand behind such a system on a bet and neither would anyone else in my lucrative market. I looked into it when Holland first tried to market such hardware in 1998. I saw their model SFE-350 stacker at the Private Cable and Wireless trade show in Dallas, and they let me take their floor demos home with me, but once I did the arithmetic on signal loss, there was no way I was going to stand behind a 2Ghz riser with that little surplus.

Making matters worse was the fact that neither Holland or Sonora made wallplate-style taps, and it would have been very difficult, if not impossible, to squeeze the taps that they were making into a single gang box. Today, McR makes wallplate-style, L-band taps, so if I absolutely had to install such a system, I'd use those, but I recently attended a vendor's meeting held by a 500 unit, 15 floor condo with RG-59 riser wiring, and I am certain that not one of the vendors wound up proposing L-band loop distribution. I know that two of them proposed bulk analog, which I'm sure will not be considered by this customer, as franchised cable is already available through their own home run wiring there.

I have some stacked systems here and I love them, as long as I just have to look at 101. One dish, one amp and a few splitters to feed 48 outlets. Nine buildings thus far like that. Another system in another town has been running for 4 1/2 years and I have yet to have to service it. Sonora has been making a wall-tap for a few years (actually, Holland makes them, then private labels them for Sonora).

Utilizing a PAL1 distribution amp (-1dBm output), you can go a few hundred feet on RG 6, including taps.

That would include CCTV cameras and in house DVD players for example? No way, or is it just too expensive?
If it was converted to QAM, then a set with a QAM tuner would, correct? There is no such thing as a 8VSB 'mid band' channel, a set with 8VSB could not tune that channel, correct?
This is from a satellite provider? If so, why is it cheaper than what a Cable MSO supplies/charges? Propgramming is programming if it is delivered via CATV or DBS isn't it? IOWs' doesn't a service such as the History Channel charge pretty much the same to Direct TV or Dish Network as it would to a Cable MSO (some variance regarding the number of subs)?

What we are talking about here are PCOs' (Private Cable Operators)?

TCI installed the lockboxes and post-wired the place. Last year, they ended their contract with Comcast, so the lockboxes and cabling is just taking up space.

The cables running down from the roof are from the FTA dish.

Dish Network has better foreign channel offerings than D* does, and since that FTA dish on the roof cannot be used with the SMATV installed last year, many who used the FTA signed up with Dish. Many of the foreign channels that DTV does carry are not on 101, so those on the east side of the building who want those channels have to have their own setup. The east side can only see D* while the west side can only see Dish.

Too expensive.


More accurately, when you set up a residential TV tuner for "off-air" or "antenna", it tunes the standard VHF/UHF channel plan, which does not include any channels between 88 and 174 Mhz or between 216 and 470 Mhz, AND it concurrently enables the 8VSB decoding circuitry, whereas if you select "cable", it tunes the FCC standard channel plan that does include midband, superband and hyperband BUT it concurrently enables QAM decoding circuitry.


4COM, WSA LLC (formerly WSNet) and SMS are "programming aggregators" who "buy" programming from programming providers and resell it to PCO's, hotels, schools, hospitals, etc. They pay a lot less to the programming providers when they certify that the programming is being distributed in bulk rather than on a per-subscriber basis, and the prices they charge the end user reflect that. Your local cable company will furnish basic cable to an entire residential building in bulk for around half what the subscriber price is fopr that package.


The term "PCO" is most commonly used in the context of systems in which the company maintaining the satellite headend charges subscriber fees to the residents who choose to subscribe to their service. But that model doesn't work well at today's programming prices. It worked when ESPN cost a dollar per sub per month but not when it costs over $5, which it does now, and it worked when the customers were satisfied with twenty satellite channels plus their off-air locals, but not now, when certain customers are willing to pay franchised cable's $50 per month to get their one "gotta have it" channel that is not in the private cable system.

I don't know what kind of economic wasteland kenglish and egnlsn are working in, but in my markets (Washington/Baltimore, and occasionally Boston, New York City and Chicago), the only places that depend heavily on broadcast-only MATV are government subsidized senior citizen homes that are prohibited from paying for any cable TV programming in any form. I think I have three or four of those as customers, but I don't know for sure because they don't call me very often, and sometimes when they do, it is because they "lost" a local UHF channel that their headend doesn't provide that had been leaking into the system from another apartment where the resident had mis-installed rabbit ears to enhance his own channel selection while messing up everyone else's. Otherwise, any place that has any discretionary money available can presently augment a broadcast MATV system with a package called, "The Fundamentals" from DirecTV for $1.40 per drop per month, that includes CNN, Headline News TNT, TBS, USA, Weather Fox News and a few other channels. For a 150 drop facility, that is just $200 a month, which is chump change. The problem is going to be when the analog broadcast transmissions get shut off, because then they will have mixed format inputs and will have to choose from among awkward or expensive means to make them all conveniently available to all of the residents.

Let me see if I understand this.
A company offers a 'complex' (senior apartment housing for example) a 'package' to replace their 'cable TV' package. This company (a PCO?) buys the programming from either the same cable company or a satellite provider at a reduced rate because it is in 'bulk'?
What's the difference if it is a 'per sub' basis or in 'bulk'? It's the same services.
Say your local cable franchase provides 50 'cable' channels for their 'standard' package. Along comes XYZ PCO with the pretty much the same 'services' in 'bulk' at a reduced rate. Why do they get the same thing for less?

The program providers charge reduced rates for customers receiving bulk programming because doing so guarantees them larger customer counts. Cable companies are willing to pass much, or even all, of this saving to the properties to secure bulk carriage because once they've done that, they have effectively precluded competition from offering to "overbuild".

DirecTV and DISH probably pay about the same for programming as the cable companies do but, 1) we will never know that for sure, since all the contracts are confidential, and, 2) every carriage contract is unique since, with vertical integration, they include a lot of, "you put my shopping channel on your basic and I'll put your fledgling limited appeal channel on our systems" arrangements. TNT and H&G TV both benefitted from such arrangements.

If a property buys basic cable in bulk from a franchised cable company, everyone typically gets 70-80 channels, including a dozen broadcast channels and half a dozen public service channels. They might pay around half the subscriber price to get them in bulk, but I don't have current info in that regard. At today's prices, maybe subscription Basic is $50 whereas bulk Basic might be $25.

DirecTV might sell those same channels to a building for $15, but then the building has to assume the cost of becoming its own cable company. Someone has to buy and maintain a $20,000 headend and, unless there is an L-band overlay, they will be providing an inferior service because they can't provide the premium programming that the cable company can provide.

What a racket....................

I don't exactly think I would call it an economic wasteland considering most of the government subsidized housing developments around here have either bulk basic cable (the residents can upgrade if they want to) or their own, private cable system (minimum 48 channel headend)).

So which MATV users stand to get stiffed in your market by the analog shut-off? The places that have bulk cable from a franchised cable company already get the MATV analog channels that way, and probably half or more of the SMATV systems are getting their "locals" via DBS, since it is cheaper for them to maintain that equipment, and the rest will either substitute DBS locals fror broadcast locals or add on some $150 ATSC demodulators and "Brand X" $90 modulators when the time comes.

I don't really think there are as many as some are afraid there are. I don't think there are all that many strictly MATV systems around here. And, yes, it is an easy fix for less than $300 per channel for off-air (1 time expense) or half that plus $50 per month for locals via DTV.

...for a while.