Back to Facility Manager
Contents
Back to Home 
|
By Ed Simon
There
are two questions most public facilities have about the changes in
television broadcasting. First: Is the change in local stations on February
17, 2009, going to affect my in-house television system? Second: What must
be done to provide HDTV to the existing in-house cable system?
The good news is that almost all facilities don’t have
to do anything to continue to get local channels distributed throughout the
facilities to the existing television sets. A small number may have to
upgrade some equipment, at a cost of less than $2,000 per local channel.
The issue of sending programming to HDTV television
isn’t quite so simple. For some facilities, adding a few new parts is all
that is required. For others, it may be a bit more complicated. Only those
using the oldest equipment will require a major upgrade.
Understanding the
Acronyms
There seems to be some confusion about what HDTV is. Let’s distinguish
between DTV and HDTV. DTV is the new, digital method of transmitting
over-the-air television. It allows more channels to be placed on the air.
Each station can transmit more than one program, effectively sending four
channels where there used to be only one.
HDTV is high-definition television, which is also done
in a digital format. It provides higher resolution and better image quality
than plain TV (also called SDTV, analog or NTSC). HDTV is often confused
with DTV but is not the same thing. HDTV is a special level of television
quality that can be broadcast in some forms over a DTV channel.
There are many different standards and definitions of
the particular kind of HDTV. It can be supplied by video
sources such as HD-DVDs, cable and satellite. Some methods of HDTV also
incorporate digital rights management to control viewing of the content.
These programs aren’t intended to be re-transmitted over an in-house system.
High-Definition Sources
Many broadcast DTV programs are listed as HDTV where available. Just because
it is sent in a digital format does not make it HDTV. You can send DTV and
HDTV throughout your existing facility often without any major changes. You
can convert your existing programming to DTV
at the same definition (image quality) as you’re now providing at modest
cost.
To send out HDTV, you must have a high-definition source.
There are five types of television sources that most
facilities use.
•
The local television stations may be brought into the in-house system
through a
rooftop
antenna and some additional processing equipment.
•
The local cable company also is a source for many venues. In most
facilities,
this is
how local channels are brought in.
•
The satellite receivers used for Direct TV and similar services, along with
some
special
receivers used for private television links, can be a source of programs.
•
There are television signals created in the facility itself. These
can be
from the scoreboard control room, a separate video room, returned from
television production trucks, in-house cameras, DVDs, VCRs or other similar
sources.
•
The fifth type of television source is through the Internet. These signals
may be
video,
audio or even special data such as services.
Changes and Solutions
The only type of television service that is mandated to change is the local
broadcast channels. If these are brought into your facility by the local
cable company (or satellite service) they will almost certainly convert the
new broadcast format to the current analog (NTSC, SDTVa or AM) system that
can be used by your existing television sets.
If you’re not sure whether the local television
stations are provided by the cable company, here’s a simple question: If the
cable to the building has ever gone out, did you also lose the local
stations? This information is also available on your monthly billing from
your programming provider.
The cable service provider will also bring in separate
HDTV signals. Most cable providers have decided to bring in these new
channels on channel assignments above the ones they’re already using. The
cable channel capacity is also called bandwidth. Extremely old cable systems
could support 45 or fewer channels. Most systems support 77 channels (550
Mhz) or more.
When HDTV began, it seemed easiest to put this on the
higher channels (above 77), which is why some in-house systems will have
problems. They were built for a limited number of channels, and the HDTV
channels were not included. If your system can support 750 MHz or channel
116, then you should be able to pass the HDTV stations provided by your
local cable company.
If the in-house system does not support the higher
channels, there are two methods to remedy this. The first is to change the
distribution amplifiers to handle higher bandwidth or more channels. This
method requires a detailed site survey and study to determine feasibility
and cost. The second method is to change the higher channel HDTV signals to
channels that can be sent through your existing cable system. This costs
from $2,000 to $3,000 per channel.
If you’re picking up local stations off the air and not
from cable, you’ll have to make changes for these channels. It should cost
less than $2,000 per local channel to service the existing analog signal.
You can also add the HDTV version of the local stations for $2,000 to $3,000
additional.
Many facilities have some programming brought in by
satellite. No changes will be required to keep sending this to existing
televisions. If you wish to upgrade to HDTV, the cost depends on the type of
satellite signals you’re receiving. The most common is Direct TV, which is
sent by an appropriate digital signal but is encoded when transmitted, to
prevent unauthorized viewing. As the digital stream (MPEG2) isn’t available
to go directly to a digital television modulator, the effort and cost right
now is quite high to distribute these channels. This can be done by taking
the video output from the Direct TV receiver and converting it back into the
correct digital signal and modulating it onto your cable system. This
currently costs about $32,000 per channel, although the cost should drop to
a reasonable price as more equipment becomes available.
Any satellite receiver that has a digital (MPEG2)
output can be placed in-house in HDTV for about $2,500 per channel.
There’s little reason to send your existing in-house
program sources in DTV format unless you have available HDTV production
capability. Then it should be a simple matter to convert your digital video
to in-house HDTV channels.
Extremely old facility system designs wired the
building as if they were oversized apartment buildings. These systems are
more economical to replace than upgrade. Most systems installed before 1990
are of this design. The cost of this can run to $500 per television outlet.
These changes can be made at any time from now until
February 2009. The changes should be invisible to all of the users of the
system. The only change they may see will be that the local station’s logos
now say DTV or something similar.
fm
Ed Simon is
president of Edward Simon & Company, based in Pittsburgh. He may be
contacted at ed@simonsound.com.
|
|
