Channel sharing on both a physical and virtual...

Channel sharing on both a physical and virtual level can be done, said a technical report on a Los Angeles TV channel sharing project. The report, released Friday by CTIA and Los Angeles TV stations KLCS and KJLA, shared technical achievements and limitations of channel sharing. The report is a result of a pilot project to determine whether channel sharing can help free up spectrum in the TV incentive auction (CD Jan 29 p4). The stations have provided real world evidence that channel sharing presents a significant opportunity “for broadcasters to continue their existing business on shared spectrum and take home a check for spectrum they voluntarily relinquish in the incentive auction,” FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said in a statement (http://bit.ly/1gz5GdL). He said he hopes broadcasters will closely study the report. The report also found that all the TVs and tuners tested were able to receive and correctly parse all the required information, and that it’s technically feasible “for two 720p high definition streams to be combined into a single Advanced Television System Committee [ATSC] channel,” it said (http://bit.ly/1h0VciA). The report cautioned that careful thought must be put into the radio frequency transition, “whether for repacking or sharing, by the FCC and broadcasters to find a solution that will minimize viewer complaints,” it said. Because broadcasters have no control over the final display format at home, “it makes sense to use the most efficient encoding structure for final distribution over the air,” it said. The stations compared PBS Newshour episodes in the 720p and 1080i HD formats. In 720p, “we found a surprisingly better DMOS [Differential Mean Opinion Score] at approximately 50 percent of the bitrate of 1080i,” it said. With ATSC 3.0, the use of High Efficiency Video Coding codec is envisioned, it said. What isn’t known today is the bitrates that 4K and 8K will require in the future, it said. It also isn’t known whether 4K and 8K will be a viable business opportunity for a broadcaster “or will be delivered through alternate paths,” it said. Many technical issues identified in the report are very familiar to broadcasters “as part of the industry’s extensive experience with multicasting,” NAB said in a press release (http://bit.ly/1o8Gujr). NAB noted in a blog post that while Wheeler “is making a big channel sharing push,” he also is working to eliminate sharing arrangements through joint sales agreements (http://bit.ly/1h3JwLX). Wheeler is essentially saying he wants to see broadcasters share facilities “because that is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but that broadcasters must unwind agreements they voluntarily entered, with commission approval, regarding sharing other resources, because that’s bad,” it said. The FCC is scheduled to vote Monday on an order that is expected to make JSAs attributable for ownership cap purposes (CD March 28 p1).