What about RTK/PPS? Here's a module that implements them along with GPS and GGNS.
https://www.sparkfun.com/sparkfun-gps-rtk2-board-zed-f9p-qwi...
The datasheet: https://cdn.sparkfun.com/assets/f/8/d/6/d/ZED-F9P-02B_DataSh...
BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of
121–130 of 179 posts
Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of
#122Note 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-…
Well... and there's the electricity grid which can be used for timing needs accurate enough to a single second, and in Europe there's DCF77 [1] which can not just be used as a 2*10^-12 seconds-accurate timing standard but also a frequency standard.
Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is 1 provider for ATSC3 DRM (which is already rolling out in major markets): Google Widevine. There is 1 operating system for ATSC3 DRM: Android. There are several SoCs that can be used for "Level 1 Widevine". When a SoC is compromised and the key is leaked from the TEE, all models of that device with the key are now untrusted for Level 1. I think people should just be aware of the state of play.
Wow, and all that to encrypt hours of ads with a few minutes of the 20th rerun of some show in between...
When you can't innovate, financialize.
Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
False, the majority of under 40 are still watching "TV" but just through intertube streaming. netflix, apple TV, amazon, and so on, all except apple have ads too.
Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow, and all that to encrypt hours of ads with a few minutes of the 20th rerun of some show in between...
When you can't innovate, financialize.
But what even is the business case here? I get the idea of encrypting pay TV, but isn't the entire point of free broadcast TV that it's... free?
It would be a different story if the DRM were available ubiquitously, e.g. in the way that arguably Widevine is for online streaming (but certainly not broadcast TV). Are rightholders that afraid of unauthorized out-of-market rebroadcasts that they'd rather obliterate their reachable market with stunts like that?
Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t a jammer be very easy to disable kinetically? A missile would simply have to follow the jammer’s signal.
The obvious problem with this approach: destroying a jammer in foreign country with a missile is an act of war.
Janming is an act of war too.
Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of
#127I 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 just realized the BPS is there to augment the return channel. Not only can the advertiser figure out what you are watching, but also where you are located.
Wi-Fi geolocation has been around for a while now and is very accurate too, so if TV/receiver manufacturers choose to reveal your location to advertisers (whether out of their own greed or because it's required to receive ATSC 3.0 DRM keys), they can already do so without any problem.
Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can't really beat a jammer, sure you can compete for power output, but there is no real stopping it. Aircraft and military positioning concepts are evolving towards more map and dead reckoning, lessening the benefit of GPS jamming.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t a jammer be very easy to disable kinetically? A missile would simply have to follow the jammer’s signal.
Missels are expensive. Jammers can be farther away than a cheap drone can reach.
Jammers often move. Your missle often cannot manovure well enough to hit. jammers often turn off - if you missle is detected they turn the jammer off and move it. They are often running more than one jammer so getting one to turn off isn't going to matter.
Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of
#129I 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?
Apparently there are two options: An existing Internet connection, or actually receivers transmitting back to the broadcast tower – which sounds crazy, but the specification [1] says it can work over up to 100 kilometers with line-of-sight...?
Then again, thanks to modern modulation techniques, digital steering etc., battery-powered smartphones can talk to satellites 36 thousand kilometers away these days as well, so maybe this is just a thing now? The spec also does mention receive repeaters for complicated non-line-of-sight propagation scenarios.
[1] https://www.atsc.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/A323-2024-04...
Re: BPS is a GPS alternative that nobody's heard of
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 p…
> 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?
In a functioning, competitive market, the answer to this is "Customers choose a competing broadcast TV station with higher quality." Unfortunately what we have is far from that.