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As far as I am concerned Digital Satellite TV is one of the best options we can enjoy at the moment, we don't have to worry about any switches, or changes or even weather. I've been on Satellite TV for oven an year now and don't have any complains so far. TV stations are making interesting changes, we have adapt sooner or later.

In the process of doing research for my comments on Bradley Fikes' article, I discovered something that's pretty disturbing. There appears to be software available that markets itself as being able to let you watch Satellite or Cable programs on your PC. I found a lot of sites hawking this, some obviously variations from the same originator. They make you think you can watch what we (well I guess I mean "I" but I think that includes most westerners) call either Satellite TV or Cable TV.

Satellite TV, as I define it, means scheduled, sequential, continuously running programs being delivered to your home or business by way of a satellite in orbit around the earth. Many of the programs are the same as those running on terrestrial TV stations but most are programs from content providers that you can only get via satellite or cable - things like ESPN, The History Channel, TBS, and premium (pay) channels like HBO. You pay a monthly fee for the receiving equipment. This money goes to pay for the delivery companies uplinks, satellites, and other facilities, and for the programs themselves, AND THIS IS THE KEY. These applications I saw charge one single fee. Nothing monthly. How are these companies going to provide you with AMC free, after the first month, when THEY are billed monthly?

Cable TV is programming as just described, but delivered via coaxial cable, fiber cable, or recently (e.g. Sprint FONE and ATT Uverse) copper phone wires, or a combination of these. Whatever, it's not sent out over the air, and you pay a monthly fee, partly to offset their operating costs and the program providers' costs. Even the local TV stations, as I understand it, may charge the cable or satellite providers a fee to carry their material.

There's also real time TV-to-cellphones from fee-based services using Qualcomm's MediaFLO (AT&T and Verizon's VCast). These require special cellphones to be able to pick up these programs which do NOT come over the cellular network or Internet.

Ain't no such thing as a free lunch, folks. What these software companies appear to be doing is simply compiling sources of online streaming or downloadable content. For example, news clips at CNN. There are TV programs available over the Internet, and I'm sure this software knows about them too. But the big point here is that SATELLITE AND CABLE HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS. It's a scam to get your money by making you think you're bypassing the satellite and cable providers and their montly fees.

Now, there may be a legit business that actually gets the same program feeds as Cox Cable and DirectTV and sends them over the Internet. This might be a good business model. As long as they have servers and Internet feeds fast enough to handle all the subscribers and as long as the subscribers have fast enough Internet connections, the subscribers might be able to watch real-time TV programming feeds via the Internet. But there will surely be quality issues. Don't expect to be able to get HD quality programming this way.

There are many FREE live video feeds available over the Internet. They don't require any software other than a program like RealPlayer or QuickTime or WMP. See http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/07/13/live-p2p-television-streaming-now/ for some examples. I looked at www.wwitv.com which lists feeds from all over the world. I looked at San Diego and LA and even the feeds shown as LIVE were not: Fox 11 in LA was a feed from one camera showing of their morning show (the camera remained live during the breaks, which was interesting) and NBC 4 showed a program not carried on the air. The San Diego City Council meeting may or may not have been live - there was no clock present. From the Bay Area, KPIX CBS 5 feed from LA turned out to be a 24/7 weather display from KPHO Phoenix. Anyway, the point is that there doesn't appear to be, at this date, free online feeds of what most local TV stations are showing in real time. You can download clips of TV shows at www.joost.com.

If someone knows of a legit company providing, via the Internet, the same kind of content that satellite, cable, and TV stations provide, I'd be interested in hearing about it. Be careful of something that seems too good to be true because...

Phil Wells
Dr. Telecom

A couple of clarifications, mainly technical, to Bradley Fikes' very helpful article.

"Satellite transmissions are already digital, so they are unaffected by the change." Bradley's statement alludes to a relationship between satellite TV's digital delivery and whether their subscribers will be affected by the DTV change. This is irrelevant. The Feb 17 (and hopefully FINAL June) transitions have to do with whether there are still any analog full-power BROADCAST transmissions available for consumers to receive. We're discussing the change from NTSC (the analog transmission standard we've been watching since before Howdy Doody) to ATSC (www.atsc.org - the new digital broadcast format) not how cable or satellite deliver their channels to your TV. Satellite TV typically uses MPEG-2 or some other protocol to get the signal to your home. If you have an analog TV you are already getting the satellite provider's signal converted to analog by their box. This is why you don't need to do anything after your local stations cease NTSC transmission. I have no personal experience with satellite TV (e.g. Dish Network or DirectTV) but the exception, as I understand it, is that, if you aren't paying your satellite provider for local programming, then you WILL need a converter box (or, better, a DTV-ready TV set) because you are still watching the local stations (the only TV sources of any consequence in this discussion) off the air. BTW, my understanding is that, even though the programming is delivered digitally, satellite providers use lossy data compression (read about MPEG or JPEG) to reduce bandwidth needs. If you have a newer, larger, high quality TV, you should probably watch some shows on it via a satellite receiver before signing up.

"Cable signals are increasingly digital, but some stations are delivered in analog. The Federal Communications Commission says cable companies are required to provide local stations in analog as long as they provide any analog service, even after the June 12 deadline." This also appears to be irrelevant. Again, we're not discussing program QUALITY, we're discussing, simply, whether you can get it or not. My understanding is that many of the local TV stations deliver their programming via dedicated circuits to the cable companies' head-ends, thus bypassing the TV transmitter (which is why you can usually watch local stations on your cable even if their transmitters are off the air). Like the satellite companies, the cable companies act as your DTV-to-analog converter so you don't have to buy the box.

That said, if you want your local stations in HD quality, you'll need to pay your cable company for, at least, their basic digital package. As I understand it, TimeWarner (at least) does not do any compression of the digital signal from your local station.

BTW, if you have not watched local TV in HD, you really should. I watched the Inaugural parade on KGTV-DTV and the HD feed from ABC looked beautiful - as good as a BluRay disc and both bigger and better than any of my analog cable channels.

"For televisions that can already receive digital signals, the digital antenna is the least expensive option... Digital antennas are available in stores, or you can make them yourself for next to nothing." This may be a matter of terminology, but let's get it straight - it's an antenna. Not a digital antenna. It picks up radio waves upon which there may be analog or digital TV "modulation". Back in the 60's and 70's people sold "color" TV antennas. This was done to confuse people and make them buy something they may well have already owned ("color" is just some additional info on the same TV signals that black-and-white TVs used). An antenna is cut to length for the range of transmitter frequencies of interest. TV stations, NTSC or ATSC, are still using VHF ("low-band" channels 2 - 6 and "high band" 7 - 13) and UHF (starting with Channel 14) frequencies. The only big change is that, by June, Channels 52-69 will largely be vacated freeing them for other purposes. In the interim, stations are still playing Musical Channels so your favorite stations may not be on the frequencies they will eventually remain on. So, if you already have a VHF/UHF external antenna, whether rabbit-ears, an antenna in the attic, or an antenna on the roof, you are probably all set. The only reason to buy an antenna for TV stations is if you will want to get off-air reception and either don't already have one or the one you have doesn't have enough signal "gain" (strength) to pick up the desired stations.

Phil Wells
Dr. Telecom