November 30, 2007: Over two and one half months after adopting the R&O on 9/11/07, the FCC has finally allowed the public to see the proposed new rules regarding the future of cable TV picture quality.
The Commission's release of the Third Report and Order and Third Further Notice of Proposed Rule Making in CS Socket No. 98-120 ("In the Matter of Carriage of Digital Television Broadcast Signals: Amendment to Part 76 of the
Commission’s Rules") raises a number of interesting questions regarding what will constitute acceptable picture quality on cable TV systems in the coming digital U.S.
Note to AT&T: You might not like what I have to say below, so you might want to tune to channel 99 now. By the time it comes up, and you've selected a PEG channel (Oops, sorry... selected a PEG APPLICATION), the rules will be in force.
The FCC tells us that when cable systems switch over to carrying digital broadcast signals, they won't be allowed to materially degrade the picture quality of the over the air station as delivered to the cable subscriber. The Commission also extends this standard to "non-broadcast" stations carried on a cable system. One would logically conclude that this "material degradation standard" will apply equally to all non-broadcast stations, and it doesn't exclude PEG and leased access stations. (This is the part that AT&T won't like, since their disparate treatment of PEG channels by turning them into web pages displayed on subscriber TV sets materially degrades those channels compared with traditional NTSC delivery.)
To (try and) figure out what the Commission means when it talks about Material Degradation, look to Section A of the R&O. Please, let me know what you think it means.
To read the Report and Order, click here, and it will pop up as a PDF file that you save to your local computer. (Note: The PDF is a 445 Kb download.)
Keep watching this page for more on the topic. February 2009 isn't that far in the future! |
