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SilentMan
join:2002-07-15
New York, NY

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SilentMan

Member

SCOTUS was WRONG

I don't see why it is illegal for Aereo to do what cable was doing when it started and was called CATV (Community Antenna Television): dumb pipe retransmitting TV signals to places where it was hard to get them with an antenna. CATV used coaxial cables to the home and Aereo uses the internet.

Like someone said here, we were lucky not having this type of SCOTUS during the Sony Betamax case.

maartena
Elmo
Premium Member
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA

maartena

Premium Member

said by SilentMan:

I don't see why it is illegal for Aereo to do what cable was doing when it started and was called CATV (Community Antenna Television): dumb pipe retransmitting TV signals to places where it was hard to get them with an antenna. CATV used coaxial cables to the home and Aereo uses the internet.

Because back then most TV broadcasters operated under the "must carry" FCC ruling, what basically guaranteed carriage by a CATV or cable company, but they were not allowed to charge for it. (they basically operated on advertising income alone, but were guaranteed seen in a large number of households) That went all out the window when broadcasters started charging cable companies for their signal, and thus give up their "must carry" status. Smart business, because no cable company wanted to give up those broadcasters, which eventually started resulting in some nasty re-transmission fights and blackouts on cable and satellite providers.

AEREO was trying to circumvent having to pay for re-transmission. The "must carry" FCC rule is still in place, and if AEREO had limited itself to "must carry" stations, they would still be in business. Problem is, there are VERY few "must carry" broadcasters left, and they would have a very meager package of channels. NONE in most major markets anyways.
78036364 (banned)
join:2014-05-06
USA

78036364 (banned) to SilentMan

Member

to SilentMan
said by SilentMan:

I don't see why it is illegal for Aereo to do what cable was doing when it started and was called CATV (Community Antenna Television): dumb pipe retransmitting TV signals to places where it was hard to get them with an antenna.

Yeah except the places Aerero is in the people do NOT have issues getting in a signal. If Aereo had paid retrans fees this wouldn't have even gone to court. Simple.

thedragonmas
Premium Member
join:2007-12-28
Albany, GA
Netgear R6300 v2
ARRIS SB6180

thedragonmas

Premium Member

said by 78036364:

said by SilentMan:

I don't see why it is illegal for Aereo to do what cable was doing when it started and was called CATV (Community Antenna Television): dumb pipe retransmitting TV signals to places where it was hard to get them with an antenna.

Yeah except the places Aerero is in the people do NOT have issues getting in a signal. If Aereo had paid retrans fees this wouldn't have even gone to court. Simple.

oh? i live in the middle of albany ga, guess what? cant get a signal with an indoor antenna since that "big switch" so im over paying mediacom $30/mo for basic, oh plus the box rentals, got to love that nifty mandatory encryption now.

so, unless i pay out the arse for cable, im SOL on tv, tv i USED to be able to pick up with rabbit ears.

they want to try and say "just put up your own antenna" then i say, crank up the freaking transmission power!

maartena
Elmo
Premium Member
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA

maartena

Premium Member

said by thedragonmas:

oh? i live in the middle of albany ga, guess what? cant get a signal with an indoor antenna since that "big switch"

so, unless i pay out the arse for cable, im SOL on tv, tv i USED to be able to pick up with rabbit ears.

I live in the middle of the Los Angeles area, and can pick up only 15 or so stations with an indoor antenna. But as soon as I plopped a $40 outdoor antenna on my roof, voila, 131 channels! Quite a few HD + SD doubles, but I think at least 100 unique ones, including about 35-40 in English, the rest in Spanish, and 5 or so different Asian languages.

An indoor antenna is not a must. You can mount an outdoor antenna to the side of your roof, drill a hole under the overhang to allow the cable to get into your attic space, and then run the cables to all all TV's in the house.

Including cable, a good mount, a few splitters, you'll be out $100 at most, and half a saturday of work to hook it all up. ($150 if you want to pay a neighbor kid to crawl up there for you to lay the cable, give him 50 bucks). And you get MUCH better HD quality then AEREO could have given you across the internet.

I just used my old DirecTV satellite mount, and the existing DirecTV cabling. Was done for less then $50.

thedragonmas
Premium Member
join:2007-12-28
Albany, GA
Netgear R6300 v2
ARRIS SB6180

thedragonmas

Premium Member

im legally blind, landloard will only allow licensed insured contractors to do anything that requires modification, so that $100 becomes $300. so an indoor antenna is a must. now if i owned my home meh i could stick that sucker any where i wanted to.

and according to antennaweb id need a mast mount, not just them but neighbors as well. ive proven that using an outdoor amplified antenna hooked in to existing coax going to one tv, even at the roof lline it cant get anything. granted its an elcheapo, but it got me crystal clear reception "before" the transition, and no, you dont need a special super duper HD antenna to pick up HD, its still either UHF or VHF.

and i know we wouldnt get that many channels, im thinking your getting that many because of your market, which is great. but where im at the best i could get "before" the switch was fox, nbc, pbs indoors, putting an antenna outside netted me cbs and abc from florida at night.

so, yes, im stuck paying cable. and i still say they should be required to up transmission power, renters cant just slap up anything they want when ever they want. that said, i know my problems are because of my local market, they dont want to pump up the power and have an incentive to keep people on cable (retrans fees)

i thought of something though, if the whole issue was in fact "retransmission" wouldnt any one with a slingbox be hosed right about now? or any thing else that "retransmits" tv feeds to any device?

maybe it was that whole "shared" antenna thing, i dont know, but i like the idea of a local high quality antenna every one can hook in to that cant put one up at there home..

course, if basic cable wasnt $30 for broadcast channels (and of course the other 20 religous and home shopping bs) it wouldnt irk me so much.

only thing i personally care about is local news and weather, dad on the other hand is 72 and disabled, he "needs" his tv, and frankly for mine and moms sanity we need it for him.

other wise i could just get that by loading up their website (course, id need to pay an extra $15 to mediacom for "internet only")

maartena
Elmo
Premium Member
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA

maartena

Premium Member

said by thedragonmas:

story

Well your story sounds to me that it is worth the $300. Keep in mind that once you are done, you won't have to pay anything to anyone, unless something breaks. With the $12 that AEREO would have charged, you would have your $300 back in 2 years flat. And quite frankly, you can probably do it a lot cheaper then that, I inflated the numbers a bit. Even with a licensed contractor.

And yeah I am getting that many channels because of the 18 million people market, half of which have English as their second language. I don't care about all the religious stuff, nor the non-english stuff (except foot.... excuse me soccer! on the spanish channels, as I don't need the commentary to see what is happening), but i receive them nonetheless. If I wanted to learn Korean, Vietnamese, Mandarin, Tagalog, Arabic and of course Spanish, this is a great market to watch television.

All I really care about is the main broadcast networks, the other 80+ networks are just icing on the cake.

Regarding slingbox: They are for personal use. Personal use of placeshifting is allowed under the law. It it the commercial re-selling of tv signals that requires them to purchase a re-distribution agreement. AEREO can still exist, they can pay for the signals just like cable, satellite, u-verse and fios does. Your $12 bill would however be closer to $25.