[mythtv-users] ATSC 3.0 and DRM

[Gary Buhrmaster]

On Sat, Nov 26, 2016 at 2:35 PM, Jack McGee <jack at greendesk.net> wrote:

> Maybe they won't apply DRM to network shows,
> but not sure why they wouldn't if they could.

It is appropriate to be aware of the possibility,
and be prepared to offer your opinion to your
congress critter and/or the FCC and/or FTC
when and such changes might be proposed,
but you are currently far ahead of the many
decisions that will have to be made along the
way, and the timelines that are realistic, given
the estimated 60 million of people who
currently use OTA and would have to obtain
either new TVs or some sort of converter box.
To remain a viable competitor in the content
delivery market, being able to offer premium
content (including "event" programming?) was
felt to be a necessary capability in the future for
OTA broadcasters in order to not end up being
marginalized, but how/when/why such
capability will be used is still a great undecided
area (although a lot of broadcasters are trying
to work that decision process as we type).

The bigger elephant is whether networks can
remain profitably without going to different
compensation model (subscription?), and
what would that look like.  Everyone wants to
skip commercials, and the advertisers are not
stupid.  Why pay for your "free TV" if all you
intend to do is skip the commercials?  Few
dispute that the content has value, and few
dispute that producing the content has costs.
What is a fair way to compensate for its
viewing in a "no one watches the commercials"
world?  The entire model needs to be altered,
but it is going to take some time to figure out
what the new model is.