cypherstream
Looking forward to the future of things.
Premium,MVM
join:2004-12-02
Reading, PA
clubs:
4 edits | Re: Central PA HD additions very soon said by vir koto :
Cypher, what is your best guess of available capacity on the Reading system? How many HD channels could they add?
Well TCM and History are now digital only.
I'm not pulling up anything on Ch 82, so let's imagine that's also blank for now...
Service Electric is a 750 MHz Magnavox system, and they have NBA TV on Ch 120, 4 channels above 750 MHz. I used to think SA line gear was regarded as top notch in quality and performance. I know I would of choose SA over Magnavox (and our system did), but who knows. There should be no problem overdriving the system.
Say they push out to Ch 120, add three free channels from the old History and TCM spot, and Ch 82, that's 7 channel spaces right there.
At 2:1 HD Compression that's 14 new HD's.
At 3:1 HD Compression (which is starting to become more commonplace) that's 21 New HD's, not to mention changing the 2:1 HD compression on our current channels to 3:1.
I've noticed that some channels is 1 HD paired with 8 SD on it. Not sure how optimal this loading scheme is, but if they employ a good VBR statistical multiplex they should be able to group all of the HD's together in a row, 3 per frequency. They should put local OTA HD channels on the specific open frequencies per hubsite, for instance Channel 70 is open in Reading, but may not be in Lebanon. Therefore Channel 70 should be WPVI HD6 in Reading, but Lebanon would have an open spot that Reading doesn't, in this situation they would put WHTM HD 27 ABC in that location. The reason why I bring that up is because most of East Central PA shares the same bandwidth for the national channels. I've noticed everything from Channel 83 to 116 is identical on the QAM side between Lancaster, Reading, Pottsville, and Lebanon.
Also if they could change the Motorola OOB frequency to Ch 1 in the 74 MHz range, that would open up Channel 97's slot. Channel 97 is a little noisy in some area's due to WRFY 102.5 FM, but they could move an analog there, and put a digital in the space where that analog used to be. Or perhaps put a 64QAM channel there with all of Music choice or something. Not sure if our system has all frequency agile OOB tuners in the older boxes though. Some older DCT-2000's were special ordered with the OOB frequency hard coded into it. Newer boxes have an 8 or 10 channel hunt group, therefore it's agile.
I just think they could organize the system a bit better. Why spread all of the Music choice out like they are doing? What if they put all of those together with a few SD? Maybe it would be easier to look at and manage. Just a thought. |
