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BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of

jeffgeerling.com

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Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of

#91

Post by throw0101d »

geerlingguy wrote: post #3

Note that this blog post (and the associated video) were a quick off-the-cuff thing while I was on the NAB show floor—I have been talking to a few of those involved in the testing at NIST, Sinclair, and Avateq (among others), and will hopefully have a lot more in a follow-up. Right now it's in the experimental stage, with only 6 towers total deployed (only 5 were operational during NAB, and only one in Nevada... so t…

> The demo on the show floor was also using eLoran to distribute time from a site in Nevada to the transmitter facility on Black Mountain outside Vegas, showing a way to be fully GPS-independent (though the current eLoran timing was sourced from GPS).

There's been a consistent call by many people that there needs to be a diversity of options for navigation and timing:

* https://rntfnd.org/2025/02/04/pnt-gps-critical-issue-for-new...

China has GNSS (BeiDou, plus plans for LEO), plus terrestrial navigation (eLoran), plus a fibre-based network for accurate timing:

* https://rntfnd.org/2024/10/03/china-completes-national-elora...

* https://rntfnd.org/2024/03/01/patton-read-their-book-chinas-...

* https://rntfnd.org/2024/11/29/china-announces-plan-to-furthe...

Russia has a Loran-equivalent:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHAYKA

Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of

#92

Post by pridkett »

threemux wrote: post #85
geerlingguy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah... and that's one of the most innocuous new "features" in ATSC 3.0. Almost everything I've seen (besides BPS, and maybe HDR if you're one of the few who has a really good home theater setup) is a benefit for broadcasters and advertisers, and a bit worse for consumers (especially requiring new hardware/decoders... and sometimes persistent Internet connections!).

You're not wrong, but don't forget about the upgraded modulation and coding schemes. That might actually help consumers on the edge of coverage receive broadcasts and will definitely be an improvement over creaky 8vsb

I live in an area that is on the edge of coverage and has lots of hills. On ATSC 1.0, CBS is hard to pick up. Frequently unwatchable - which means unreliable for sports. I picked up an HDHomerun Flex 4K a few years ago. Basically the same week that ATSC 3.0 went live.

For a few weeks it was glorious. I had no problem picking up CBS (it was broadcast from the same antenna as ATSC 1.0 - so it was the modulation that was helping out). And then, after a little over a month. Whack! No more CBS. They turned on DRM. They are still the only network that in my area with DRM. Ughh.

Under the previous administration I filled a few issues about this from a public safety perspective - I live in with the FCC an area with unreliable power. During severe weather, we often lose Internet and power (which knocks out cable TV too). Requiring working internet to watch TV to monitor the progress of a tornado in your area seems stupid and dangerous. Unfortunately, nothing happened then regarding the issue and given the way that Brendan Carr is taking the FCC, I don’t think there will be any progress on this.

Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of

#93

Post by pridkett »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #60
Alive-in-2025 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So atsc 3 won't work unless you have some continuous "i'm user xyz watching this channel at time x.y.z" going back to the broadcaster? Why would anyone use atsc 3? It's not free over the air, you can't spoof it?

It's not like anyone's gonna ask them. Networks will just label this as ${network name}'s HYPER NEXT GEN 10G TV EXPERIENCE (HNG TV), market the shit out of it, and offer free ESPN on it, tack on some Paramount HBO Supermax Plus for $0.99/year and throw in a half-decent Smart TV as a sign-on bonus, and adoption will skyrocket. TV networks in the US are a living proof that, with enough marketing spend and a pinch of co…

Or, the manufacturers will lose patience with slow adoption, the mess that is widevine DRM (what? Your TV isn’t based on Android? No, you can’t have DRM!), and customers really not caring because basically none of the broadcasts make the visual picture substantially better right now, so there is no incentive to move.

That’s what happened to LG [0]. They dropped ATSC 3.0 tuners. I’m sure this cost them precisely 0 sales as the industry incompetence destroys the broadcast industry.

[0]: https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/30/23897460/lg-drops-atsc-3-...

Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of

#94

Post by lotsofpulp »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #60
Alive-in-2025 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So atsc 3 won't work unless you have some continuous "i'm user xyz watching this channel at time x.y.z" going back to the broadcaster? Why would anyone use atsc 3? It's not free over the air, you can't spoof it?

It's not like anyone's gonna ask them. Networks will just label this as ${network name}'s HYPER NEXT GEN 10G TV EXPERIENCE (HNG TV), market the shit out of it, and offer free ESPN on it, tack on some Paramount HBO Supermax Plus for $0.99/year and throw in a half-decent Smart TV as a sign-on bonus, and adoption will skyrocket. TV networks in the US are a living proof that, with enough marketing spend and a pinch of co…

> TV networks in the US are a living proof that, with enough marketing spend and a pinch of confusion in the offer structure, you can sell people on anything. Half the time you can just offer sportsball access and people will switch.

The cratering market values say otherwise. Few people under 40 even care about “TV”, and live sports distribution contracts (and the associated gambling) are the only thing holding it up.

Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of

#95

Post by giantg2 »

Lammy wrote: post #15

I hope it will still be possible to receive a BPS timing signal privately and anonymously with ATSC 3 like one can with GPS. ATSC 3 has the Dedicated Return Channel because marketers “““need””” to spy on every-fucking-thing we do: https://www.atsc.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/A323-2024-04... “Conventional linear TV services alone (albeit ultra-high-definition) may not be sufficient to sustain the terrestrial broadc…

I might have missed it just skimming, but what's the physical method they are planning to use for return channel?

Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of

#96

Post by ksec »

geerlingguy wrote: post #3

Note that this blog post (and the associated video) were a quick off-the-cuff thing while I was on the NAB show floor—I have been talking to a few of those involved in the testing at NIST, Sinclair, and Avateq (among others), and will hopefully have a lot more in a follow-up. Right now it's in the experimental stage, with only 6 towers total deployed (only 5 were operational during NAB, and only one in Nevada... so t…

Why is US ATSC 3.0 so bad? It is nearly a decade since it was South Korea have it deployed and operational. The standard itself is no longer "next gen". Brazil's TV 3.0, also uses ATSC 3.0 is so much better in every aspect.

Even if someone mandate it as requirement for TV sold next year all the tech inside are at least 10 years old ( HEVC ? ) . Not to mention the roll out time. Do Americans only watch Cables and Netflix? And not Free to Air TV? Which is what I belief what most of the worst still do to a larger extend other than Internet streaming.

They might as well look into the standards before putting a mandate into it.

Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of

#97

Post by lsaferite »

geerlingguy wrote: post #3

Note that this blog post (and the associated video) were a quick off-the-cuff thing while I was on the NAB show floor—I have been talking to a few of those involved in the testing at NIST, Sinclair, and Avateq (among others), and will hopefully have a lot more in a follow-up. Right now it's in the experimental stage, with only 6 towers total deployed (only 5 were operational during NAB, and only one in Nevada... so t…

Did you actually mention what BPS actually stands for in the article? I read the whole thing and don't recall reading that. Yes, I'm capable of searching and finding the information myself, but in an article about something something esoteric like this, explaining the acronym would be useful.

Edit: Broadcast Positioning System for anyone that didn't figure it out.

Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of

#98

Post by brookst »

rocqua wrote: post #77
michaelt wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you set your clock up by telling it its own location, so it can offset for the signal's flight time?

No, you tell it the location of multiple towers it receives signals from, then it can compute the unique solution x, y, z, t

But the comment several levels up said they were demoing time with a single tower.

Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of

#99

Post by extra88 »

ksec wrote: post #96
geerlingguy wrote: post #3

Note that this blog post (and the associated video) were a quick off-the-cuff thing while I was on the NAB show floor—I have been talking to a few of those involved in the testing at NIST, Sinclair, and Avateq (among others), and will hopefully have a lot more in a follow-up. Right now it's in the experimental stage, with only 6 towers total deployed (only 5 were operational during NAB, and only one in Nevada... so t…

Why is US ATSC 3.0 so bad? It is nearly a decade since it was South Korea have it deployed and operational. The standard itself is no longer "next gen". Brazil's TV 3.0, also uses ATSC 3.0 is so much better in every aspect. Even if someone mandate it as requirement for TV sold next year all the tech inside are at least 10 years old ( HEVC ? ) . Not to mention the roll out time. Do Americans only watch Cables and Netf…

Only "18% of U.S. TV households had at least one TV set enabled to receive free, broadcast programming."

https://www.nielsen.com/insights/2024/beyond-big-data-the-au...

Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of

#100

Post by michaelt »

ksec wrote: post #96
geerlingguy wrote: post #3

Note that this blog post (and the associated video) were a quick off-the-cuff thing while I was on the NAB show floor—I have been talking to a few of those involved in the testing at NIST, Sinclair, and Avateq (among others), and will hopefully have a lot more in a follow-up. Right now it's in the experimental stage, with only 6 towers total deployed (only 5 were operational during NAB, and only one in Nevada... so t…

Why is US ATSC 3.0 so bad? It is nearly a decade since it was South Korea have it deployed and operational. The standard itself is no longer "next gen". Brazil's TV 3.0, also uses ATSC 3.0 is so much better in every aspect. Even if someone mandate it as requirement for TV sold next year all the tech inside are at least 10 years old ( HEVC ? ) . Not to mention the roll out time. Do Americans only watch Cables and Netf…

Broadcast TV modernisation is trapped between a load of enemies.

To the north, competition from a huge installed base of last-gen technology, which is mostly good enough.

To the south, streaming services, youtube and cable. These let people watch whenever they want (nobody has VCRs any more) and they've offered 4k for over a decade.

To the east, the industry's dumb decision to build the 'next gen' technology atop a patent minefield, and load it with DRM. So if you manufacture this tech, you can face huge surprise bills because in implementing the spec you've unknowingly infringed on some nonsense patent.

And to the west, the commercial reality that showing someone an advert in 4K isn't any more profitable than showing the advert in 1080p. If you're a broadcast TV station when you up your quality everything gets more expensive but you don't make any extra money. So why bother?

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