Would you pay for a service that lets you watch over-the-air broadcasts on your tablet or smartphone? That’s what a company called Aereo (formerly known as “Bamboom“) plans to launch just such a service for New York City residents starting next month.
The company is building a system of thousands of tiny television antennas; each [...]
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HDTV Almanac - Over-the-Top Over-the-Air
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alfredpoor
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GiovannaVisconti
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Re: HDTV Almanac - Over-the-Top Over-the-Air
Boy. Hate to be NY-cynical, but I'll believe this when I see it.
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alfredpoor
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Re: HDTV Almanac - Over-the-Top Over-the-Air
Giovanna, you're entirely right to be skeptical. We've seen lots of similar attempts (such as iVi) to create an "Internet cable company" and they've been hammered back down pretty quick. Aereo may have changed its name, but it hasn't disappeared yet. We'll see what sort of lightning it draws when it actually starts taking people's money, but their business model is fascinating, and it may well be that they've got some legal high ground in this project.
If nothing else, this is going to be interesting!
Alfred
HDTV Almanac
If nothing else, this is going to be interesting!
Alfred
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videograbber
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Re: HDTV Almanac - Over-the-Top Over-the-Air
'The company is building a system of thousands of tiny television antennas; each one is the size of a dime. These capture free broadcast television signals over the air... These arrays are positioned so that they get excellent reception'
This is fascinating. At first, I was looking for the April 1 dateline, based on what I know to be the gain of an antenna "the size of a dime". Depends on the channel/frequency of course, but this would easily be -30/40 dBi (way less than a simple dipole).
But if they staked out some space (side of a building, another tower) that was in very close proximity to the transmitters, it could theoretically work, because the SS would be so high that it would overcome the inherent losses. And the antennas could be very cheap. Then there's the issue of thousands of tuners, and thousands of network interfaces. If Silicondust could do it with consumer-grade modules at affordable prices (I have 8 networked tuners at my home, feeding my PC-based media system), with economies of scale the same thing could be done even more cheaply.
Of course, if you ever wanted to be able to watch or record more than one program at the same time, then that would be multiples of $12/month, which would negatively impact the financial side very quickly, even compared to over-priced cable.
Then, once the technical issues have been overcome, there's always the legal challenges to be dealt with, as you pointed out.
- Tim
This is fascinating. At first, I was looking for the April 1 dateline, based on what I know to be the gain of an antenna "the size of a dime". Depends on the channel/frequency of course, but this would easily be -30/40 dBi (way less than a simple dipole).
But if they staked out some space (side of a building, another tower) that was in very close proximity to the transmitters, it could theoretically work, because the SS would be so high that it would overcome the inherent losses. And the antennas could be very cheap. Then there's the issue of thousands of tuners, and thousands of network interfaces. If Silicondust could do it with consumer-grade modules at affordable prices (I have 8 networked tuners at my home, feeding my PC-based media system), with economies of scale the same thing could be done even more cheaply.
Of course, if you ever wanted to be able to watch or record more than one program at the same time, then that would be multiples of $12/month, which would negatively impact the financial side very quickly, even compared to over-priced cable.
Then, once the technical issues have been overcome, there's always the legal challenges to be dealt with, as you pointed out.
- Tim