I bought the FRB unit last week and now am worried after running across complains of products not shipping etc (both there and elseware), I think the ebay rought would have been better.
Low and Hi VHF bands are now vacant and most TVs, even new ones still have built-in analog NTSC tuners (both my 2009 LCD HDTVs do). more folks are cutting the cabletv cord and going antenna/net combo.
Seems like an opportunity. Of course hardware and the computer to run the media will cost 10x what I paid for my 1-watt FVO NRGkits (Steve Moss - seemed like a nice guy on the alt/pirate Newsgroup all those years ago - may he RIP) and the free garage sale PC to play via winamp 2.79 the mp3s.
Instead I'd need a PC with a decent videocard (350 bucks) and SMplayer (ideally under Linux - but its too much hassle to get it to work in the real world - so 90 buck for windoz7)
So where FM flea station cost me 100 bucks, the TV equivalent would be 1300 ;-/.
Pirate TV broadcasting is not unheard of but much more rare than even the most obscure radio pirating.
I always thought of playing around with a simple video modulator, like those old ones that do UHF channels and then connecting its F connector to coax and into a high gain UHF amplifier to get it up to a reasonable level to drive a power amplifier. Problem would be that a lot of power is required to get a TV signal out any good distance because it is wideband even compared to FM broadcast. Even the video itself spans some 6MHz, then add in audio information and you have a huge chunk of RF that needs to be pushed out.
Today with everything being DTV there are few people searching out analog broadcasts and I am not absolutely sure the newest TVs even scan for analog now? There is software out there to generate DTV signals. I am not sure how it all works but it sure would be fun to play with.
If you ever get to playing around with this stuff let us all know how it goes. It sounds very interesting and fun!
I've learned a few things since I started my "research" about 4 months ago. Maybe what I've learned will help others thinking of starting their own station. SOFTWARE is THE HEADACHE - and the file formats/video codex mishmash and how one program will play that format but not the other, or that will play VOBS but not MP4's but maybe AVI's etc.....................................
ugh.
At First I thought MPC-HC was the only clear choice since its been my "go-to" video player since the "before "HC" " moniker, and has a simple playlist setup (its alot like Winamp - but for Video).
BUT it don't like VOB's (which is all I have in my personal library of obscure British TV shows/ World Animation / Foreign films. I have to rename the VOB extention to AVI (after joining them!).
no way too much work.
------------- SMPlayer to the rescue. SMPlayer likes VOBs and will simply play them (I will need to join them though for seemless playback of "mainbody" vid - FABDVD can do this I'm told (I have two of their "modules" unlocked - the DVD cloner and BD cloner - DVD editor (i.e. joiner/converter/ect...........I have not bought). They make a good product that smply "Works" BTW if anyone is looking for a DVD region code stripper/de-incripter and bit for bit cloner. I use it to strip my British PAL DVD's to US region (my Oppo plays PAL DVD but not region 1 (crazy I know all PALs are regon 1). Hell I bought the DVDs i should have the right to remove the damn region code so as to playback what I paid money for. SMplayer is a "frontend" to Mplayer (one of the first and excellent Linux video playback engine). SMplayer and Mplayer now support Windows operating system also.
-------------------other problem is Aspect Radios!..................my vids are 4x3; 16x9 ; and 2:33x1 - but only relivent aspect remains 4x3 for NTSC output. So I had to not only find a "VOB friendly" video player, but one that would be able to playback 16x9 aspect vids "Beyond the sides of the screen" (i.e. setup the PC hardware vdeo out to say 640x480 but have SMplayer output the 16x9 video to that resolution WITHOUT HORIZONTAL SQUEEZING (not tall and skiny) - just show the vid in proportion at the proper 480 vertical rez and let the 1080 "spill off the screen" and show the middle portion - the 680 lines. ONLY SMplayer can do this. THIS means I don't have to re-crop 2000 videos under a video editor (time/work and re-encoding vid (so loss of quality) required).
other players cannot do this.
ALSO only SMplayer remembers the settings for EACH file played (including zoom - so I can zoom a 2:33x1 in to make a best fit for 4x3 screens - and everytime I play that video the zoom setting is remembered (all settings - including wierd stuff like flip/distort/various playback algorythms - all remembered for each and every file played.
ALSO SMplayer is the only program that tags its shutdown state - so when you re-open she will start playing the same file to the instant it stopped when it shut down last.
simple features like this you'd think would be supported by all the other vid players - but nope. for automated playback after shutdown and sign-off (you have to have the old indian head and the "reach out my hand to touch the face of God" jet vids!!!!!!!!!!!! (youtube got many of them of course - and what is there can be here for us all with a simple click and download) and early morning re-boot/startup/sign on.
Other work item of course is copying 2Terebits of vids (I've been "collecting" (thanks Netflix ;-)...........what I think is "good" (let the rest go and return them without "collecting") since FABDVD 2.0 (2004?). onto a 4T drive.
2T should give, assuming an 18 hour day everyday, 3-months of programming before repeating.
I like stuff many folks have not seen (so to offer programing that others here in America have not in 40 yrs - even with 500 Cable TV channels of crap.
.............
I once had Cable TV (late 90's) i remember when AMC showed 30's B&W movies without commericals, when A&E and Bravo showed Classical Music concerts, when IFC showed Iranian films. None of those same channels show any of that stuff anymore (thats why I cut the cord 15 yrs ago), nor stuff I have like such:
Funny you mention LPTV. I've been working on getting digital television working for some time now. I have the modulation and encoding, some my code, some from bits and pieces of the SDR community; I finally have a TS mux setup and will be on the air once I get an RF front-end (HackRF or BladeRF).
Here is the general setup so far. I could not find much documentation and codebase for ATSC, so it is DVB-T for my setup on an 8Mhz channel. PID1 is a 1080p/30 video stream with max 320 KB/s stereo. The other two are audio only at 128KB/s MPEG2.
Digital TV, assuming ideal error correction among other things, Is limited to 16-19 MB/s total.
The video feed runs through Snowmix, (A Linux program) and I won't go into that here, as its best to make your own set-up. I will be sure to start a thread here with results and a sample TS.
EDIT: Some other things I should mention. Be it NTSC or digital, be sure to check what is broadcasting in your area. I use two sources to combine reulsts and find empty channels. I'm in the bottom 100 DMAs so I have plenty of room both UHF and VHF. whitespaces.msresearch.us/WSWebGUI/whitespaces.aspx and tvfool.com/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=29 are pretty much the TV version of radio-locator and rfree.
I will be TX'ing on UHF channel 25, mainly because VHF, even high VHF, is not recommended for DTV due to noise among other things. Most pirate TV I have seen is on VHF so I will be trying my luck on 2, 5, and 7 as well.