All ATSC 3 TV Tuners will EXPIRE & More DRM News

We live in a narrow valley so when they went digital we lost all broadcast TV. I even tried a new TV and a couple expensive antennas but no luck.

Almost everything digital today uses code. Many codes require authentication credentials and many can expire. Look at ssl and all the enccryption stuff. Certificates expire.

What I’m saying is do this digital tools all come with expiration dates. Will an AS?? tuner stop working on a certain date if not ungraded?

The analog world was beautiful. Never changed from the 60s until 2009.

“We live in a narrow valley so when they went digital we lost all broadcast TV. I even tried a new TV and a couple expensive antennas but no luck.”

I went with an amplifier antenna placed outside under the eave. Made a world of difference. So say the old world rabbit ears work better indoors.

Did you ever have an outdoor antenna?

“Will an AS?? tuner stop working on a certain date if not ungraded?”

ATSC 1.0 tuners will not stop working.

“The analog world was beautiful.”

Back in the 60’s.

Now 16:9, 2k and 5.1 Dolby is the min!

“Will an AS?? tuner stop working on a certain date if not ungraded?”

FCC is not mandating a switch over from 1.0 to 3.0 but if a station does go to 3.0 they have t0 also broadcast in 1.0 till at least 2027. Many TV’s already have 3.0 tuners and adapters are available although adapters may not give you the total 3.0 experience.

I got two different sizes of Sony Bravia TV sets. Love them.
How do I tell what version tuners they got ? One is smarter than the other.

I have to say the quality of the content is inverse to the quality of resolution !!!

“Dolby is the min!”

I fail to see any value in anything Dolby today.
Digital audio gives you exactly what you started with.

Analog audio benefited immensely on cassette tapes. Noise reduction. But the CD replaced that need.

I only have 2 ears, anymore channels is overkill in my humble opinion.

“I got two different sizes of Sony Bravia TV sets. Love them.
How do I tell what version tuners they got ? One is smarter than the other.”

Check your manual or Google model specs.

Yes, I tried 3 different pricey ones on a 30’ pole. With analog, a coverage map I found said that I was only getting double deflection(?) signal. Meaning the signal had to be scattered by ground clutter twice to hit my house. As soon as it went digital I get absolutely nothing. Not even a hint that there may be something there to pick up by wiggling the antenna.

This is really interesting and important. Looking at the channel on YouTube, I think this guy is smart.

We need to retain our ability to communicate in these USA. It is an unalienable right, think 9th Amendment memorializing that we retain rights not listed in the Constitution, communicating freely is one.

In any case, I really appreciate the transcript also. In fact I think it is important for most to read it — he talks fast — so I re-formatted it even more to read more conventionally, I hope that this helps, he says “and” a lot so I broke this the best I could:

INTRO

Hey everybody, it’s Lon Seidman. Over the last year or so we’ve been covering the transition of over the air television signals from the ATSC 1.0 standard to the 3.0 standard.

One of the issues that we’ve been talking about here on the channel relates to the DRM the encryption that the broadcasters are putting on their signals to prevent people from retransmitting those signals.

This has created a lot of inconvenience for people like myself who want to watch and record TV, like I’ve been doing for the last 30 or 40 years in the privacy of my home.

In this episode we’re going to update you on what’s been going on in this space. Unfortunately not much.

But we are learning some new things about the DRM, including the fact that your device will expire at some point. How long it will take until it expires, we’ll get to in just a second. Let’s get to it now now. Let’s start off, though, with…

DRM PETITION UPDATE

…an update on where we are at with our petition to stop the DRM. This is something that the Antenna Man and I have been working on. We crossed over the 10,000 signature mark recently on our way to15,000.

What’s great about this petition that we’re hosting at http://change.org, is that every time somebody signs it, an email goes out to key stakeholders to let them know that we care about this issue. So if you haven’t signed it please do; and if you have signed, it please tell your friends to sign it; because this is an important issue to keep in front of the FCC as this process continues.

Speaking of the FCC, the number of filings on the docket for the ATSC3 transition have crossed 4,000. Most of these now are consumers writing in to express their displeasure over broadcast signals getting encrypted over public airways, so definitely fill out a complaint, if you haven’t already. You can see that in the link you see on screen. As things develop here if I’m not seeing sufficient progress, there’s a couple of other things that we can do, so stay tuned.

Get your keyboard fingers ready, because we’ll probably have more filings to make in the near future, but we’re going to hold off on that at least for now. So let’s begin with this expiration…

TUNER EXPIRATION DATES

…issue I learned this week: that there will be a fixed expiration date for the ATSC 3.0 DRM certificates that live on these devices. In other words, when a tuner goes out to pick up an encrypted signal, there’s a validation to ensure that the certificate is valid, and that device is allowed to decrypt the signal. Those certificates will expire after a certain length of time. I did pull the certificate out of my ADTH box by monitoring network traffic, and I learned that its certificate expires in 30 years.

The zapper box after reaching out to them also has a 30 year certificate, so that’s certainly a good long time. I think it’s probably going to be longer than the ATSC1 standard will have lasted for, once we transition. But nonetheless every box will have a fixed date in which it essentially stops working, at least for encrypted content.

Now as I was recording this video, I did get some information in from the ATSC. You’ll see another statement from them in a few minutes. They did say that the minimum certificate length is 10 years. They have a 10 year, a 15, a 20, and a 30 year; and the pricing varies based on the volume of the product, the intended sales of it, along with the duration, so some may choose the shorter length certificates if it makes financial sense to do so.

Now one thing to keep in mind here, is that in my home I’ve got an HD Home Run Prime that I’ve been using to watch my cable TV stuff with. That was one of my first videos I did as a pro YouTuber, if you will, and that box is now over 10 years old and still in service. So although people may upgrade their TVs in shorter durations, some of these products may actually exist in the home longer than a decade. Another thing…

ALL ATSC 3 DEVICES “PHONE HOME” FOR DECRYPTION

…that I learned this week, and was also backed up by sniffing network traffic, is that at the moment, ATSC3 devices are always phoning home, if there’s an internet connection available, when they go to tune an encrypted channel. This includes TVs that DON’T need an internet connection to watch TV! I’ve heard from people who have been monitoring traffic who have seen this exchange of certificates over the Internet, versus over the air, so if the internet connection is there, there will be some kind of connection back to the broadcaster servers for validation now…

ZERO PROGRESS ON GATEWAY DEVICES

…This next bit of news, unfortunately, is that we don’t have a lot of news on the status of DRM for Gateway devices. What is a gateway device? Well a gateway device is something like the Tablo or the HD home run where you’ve got a box that you plug your antenna into, and then that puts the TV signal out onto your network so you can pick up your phone and watch TV, your laptop, your smart television, your TV box, whatever you’ve got with a screen you can watch TV on, and these devices have proven to be very popular with consumers because they largely replicate the experiences they have with their streaming services. What’s been great about ATSC 1.0 is that there were no restrictions on using a Gateway device. In fact the Tablo is owned by Scripts, a broadcaster, and they could not make an ATSC3 product right now, because there’s no way to make it work, due to the encryption! So what’s…

ATSC 3 STATEMENT

…going on here? Well the makers of the HD Home Run, in fact the CEO of the company, Nick Kelce, put up a lengthy explainer on their forums the other day about the status of everything.

So let’s begin by looking at Apple TV, iPad, iPhones, and Macs. Right now, because they are using Google widevine DRM for ATSC3 encryption, you’re not able to currently watch encrypted content on Apple devices. Of course Apple’s always touting how secure they are, but apparently not secure enough for broadcasters right now, so those are OUT.

Another thing that’s happening is that Roku TVs and Roku streaming boxes are ALSO not compatible, due to this Google Wildvine issue. There’re also some other issues that the folks at SiliconDust, the makers of the HD Home Run, are seeing related to installable apps on Roku’s tuning into this protected content, so we haven’t made any progress there, although there are apparently ways in which a Roku TV that has an ATSC3 tuner could tune to that content live, but of course, not through an app.

Similar story here, unfortunately, with Xbox and Windows 10 and 11. If you remember, the Xbox was actually one of the first devices that could tune encrypted cable content on the HD Home Run Prime, which was a cable card device, but right now it cannot do ATSC 3.

LG TVs along with Samsung TVs are OUT at least in so far as gateway product usage. There are no apps that can run on the LG TVs that will work with a gateway product.

The only thing that kind of does work right now is Android [Google], and if you look at the two boxes that are currently out there, the ADTH box, and the Zapper box, both of those run Android in the background because it’s Google, and Google has the wide Vine encryption there. That is why we’re seeing Android primarily on this current crop of boxes but it’s still not possible to use an Android device as a gateway client, because there are requirements that are draft or incomplete still at this time. We’re looking at, I think, at least a year since they started encrypting, so they really had no plan for rolling this out. If they had one all of this stuff wouldn’t be in flux right now, but that’s where things are at.

I’m not very optimistic that things are going to get better. All of this is kind of running contrary to the broadcast and coding rules that the A3S [?? ATSC3], which is the armor the broadcast masters responsible for encrypting the content said would be followed, in regards to all this stuff, they’ve got a lot of great bullets here about what viewers will be able to do, but unfortunately NONE of the devices that viewers have will actually work in a way in which they can do these things.

So that is where it is at, unfortunately. Zero progress on gateway development. Here and again, I’m not optimistic that we’re ever going to see it work now.

In fairness, I did reach out to the ATSC, and they did provide me this statement on the status of all of these things. They said the A3S, remember they’re the group that organizes the encryption part of this standard, and its member broadcasters, want to maximize the footprint of ATSC3 services. And so their goal is to enable playback of encoded content on a range of devices including Apple TV, Roku, Windows, Xbox, Samsung, LG, and similar devices. They do say that the current specs, in pre-released draft form, are expected to work on Samsung and LG devices as is or with only a minor modification.

In addition, they are working with an “accessory manufacturer” to develop a prototype implementation of A3S that works on Roku based devices, which we can expect to add to our specifications as soon as we can. Adding support for all of these platforms is a high priority on our near-term road map.

My concern here is just that they’re kind of controlling the market, aren’t they, in that they’re picking and choosing who gets to run these prototypes, and get everything working first. Whereas I think it would be better to have the market just kind of work itself out as it did on the ATSC 1.0…

BROADCASTER MOVING 4K TO STREAMING ONLY

…standard.

Now Zapper Box posted up something interesting on their upcoming feature road map in version 2.4. They’ve got this new feature called Broadband Channels. Now get this: the broadcasters will be pinging out URLs for streaming video. So what happens is your box will pick up the URL over the air, and then tune to the channel over the internet. What zapper box is saying here, is that this is probably how broadcasters will be distributing 4K content. They will not be broadcasting it, because it uses up so much bandwidth on the signal. So they’ll instead send you a URL and your box will tune to it over the internet.

I’m beginning to wonder if we even need them to be broadcasting over the air with those public airwaves any longer. Might there be a better use for those public Airwaves, and there might be, if they do want to roll back their use of them.

One area that I’ve…

COULD CABLE ACCESS CHANNELS USE UNWANTED SPECTRUM?

…been working on, here in my home state of Connecticut, is trying to figure out a path forward for cable access channels, and these of course are your Public Access Public TV channels that have been around since cable TV came around, and they created these channels because cable companies were initially granted a monopoly. Some still want to put wires up on the poles, and kind of be the only game in town in exchange for that. They had to do some things for the community. One of them was giving the community access to sending out their own TV signals on their wire, and they did that through creating Cable Television Studios here in my home state of Connecticut. There’s still some regulation on the books that requires cable TV providers to do this.

The problem, though, is that cable TV customers are dropping the cable side of their subscriptions, and keeping the internet, and what’s happened now is the money that cable companies were required to fund these stations with is going away because when people cut the cable service, that requirement is cut as well, because the internet side of the business is not regulated in the same way, even though it’s on the same wire.

So I have been involved locally here in Connecticut trying to help a bunch of regulators, and the elected officials, and everyone else involved [to] find a solution to this problem, You can read more about it on this docket that’s up on the regulator’s website. But I wonder if broadcasters don’t need the signals any longer. Perhaps we can find a better use for them that would still serve the public good by maybe giving a new lease on life to local access television. Give them the ability to broadcast over the air, in addition to streaming, and it could be a big win for everyone.

This, by the way, was how I got my start in media production when I was 13 years old. You can actually see one of my episodes from 1990 up on the link you see on screen here. I had a cable access show. This was the start of all of it for me. In fact when I started, my little TV show was about video games. Had I stuck with that topic for that long, I probably would be doing more than working out of my basement right now. But it’s still an invaluable resource, I think, not only for kids looking to get into media production and developing media literacy. It’s also important for communities to have this access.

One of the things that I’ve been noticing in the course of helping to contribute to this issue in my state, is that the algorithms from YouTube and Twitter and everybody else don’t seem to promote these local content sources, because they don’t generate a lot of traffic, even though there is an audience for them. So this is an area that I think needs some attention it might be a better way to make use of the public airwaves in the future, if clearly broadcasters are not as interested in using those signals for the public benefit any longer. So we’ve…

CONCLUSION

…got more to come on this, but I just wanted to put this out there.

I would love to hear about what’s happening with cable access in your state because every state is different. But I would imagine other cable access channels throughout the country, here in the US, are dealing with the same things. So that’s going to do it for this one, unfortunately. We don’t have much news here, because not much has happened. The FCC still hasn’t said anything about what they plan to do on encryption, and because this transition is not due now to take place until 2027, my guess is they are punting it to the next administration.

So I think this presidential election will be consequential as to what happens with broadcast TV rolling forward.

The broadcasters really believe that this encryption is important for preserving their business model.

You and I know that it’s actually going to do the opposite to their business model, because less of us will want to tune in to over the air TV if we can’t watch and record it the way we want.

But they are in that mode here, they’re not budging off of it, so the only way they’re going to change their mind on this is for the regulator to tell them to. So that’s why I think when we get into the next election, this will be an important issue for us to keep track of.

That’s going to do it for now until next time this is Lon Seidman, thanks for watching.

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See above, by the way, we have a Tablo 4 tuner (receive, transmit on our local network, and record on it), multiple Apple TVs, multiple versions of Roku, and multiple family phones, tablets, PCs and Macs.

The idea that we would have to buy even more devices, and/or hang-on “accessories” to retain ability to communicate is absurd and wrong.

Moreover, no doubt, unless we can get it back to basics, our government will, as it does now, provide its communofascist devices and internet access for free to its favored voters, which will not include actual orthodox Americans.

“The idea that we would have to buy even more devices, and/or hang-on “accessories” to retain ability to communicate is absurd and wrong.”

This is OTA, not internet. Do you even use OTA.

TV’s are already shipping with 3.0 tuners. This will also enable phones and tablets to receive OTA broadcasts?

“and I learned that its certificate expires in 30 years.”

LOL

It will be obsolete and in the county dump years before the certificate expires!

“Moreover, no doubt, unless we can get it back to basics,”

What are the “basics”?

I DO use OTA, that’s what a Tablo does, 4 tuners on it, 1TB SSD in it to record. Able to watch on any device in my house, after receiving on an antenna. It can be controlled from devices on my WiFi or when I want I open a port and even my family in foreign countries can watch local TV here.

This is what he means when he discusses a gateway device, see transcript.

I stream on the internet also, of course that phones home, but definitely also use and want local over-the-air (OTA) television, which should not unless I want it to. I actually suspect that Tablo does somewhat phone home due to be using their “guide,” although I can block that if I want.

This new proposal will break my Tablo according to the article, and “Lon” seems accurate on that issue. I would be stuck paying more for a new device that is probably less more invasive and crippled.

And the idea that “they” will not want it to talk back to them in some way is wrong. They DO want that, and if it is not adequately opposed, they will get it.

OTA should be preserved, not be encrypted, and certainly should never phone home without permission.

Read the transcript, it’s not as simple as you keep saying, and with the decisions not being frozen yet, you know as well as I do that they are easily capable of effing it up in ways that violate yet more of our freedoms.

W

Read it, they can set those certificates any way they want to, that’s just bait.

Really, you do not understand the idea of getting our government back to basics?

The mess we are in in these USA is because we have strayed from the basic government that was created.

You know this.

I am done with your back and forth, you are in a mood on this thread.

Don’t get all in a fluff just because you can’t answer a simple question.