# Seattle Locast rollout shaky at best



## 1948GG (Aug 4, 2007)

Last weeks adding of Locast to the Seattle DMA finally gave me a chance to see the service up front, and will divide my review into two parts, first the Seattle rollout and their 'national' software that runs their system.

The local rollout was frought with many technical problems, which should have been corrected on the spot by their installation crew, including a couple of apparent defective reciever/encoder boxes which unfortunately included the CBS affiliate (and it's subchannels) over an NFL weekend. This resulted in a veritable flood of complaints which overloaded their 'ticket' complaint system which as if this date has not been cleared. 

I'll assume that they installed their equipment in the Westin telco hotel in downtown Seattle, a facility I was in and out of for some 30+ years, and has more national and international fiber connections than one can count, along with near perfect line of sight to the local broadcast towers from it's 34 story height. It appears they waited until monday morning to either swap out the defective equipment (having gone 'live' the previous wednesday/thursday) or rebooted them (what, no remote ability to do either?). 

Some updated software work was also done to their grid guide, that should have been done in advance to the rollout. More work needs to be done to make it more 'user friendly' and obvious, unless one knows the local channels and capability by memory or wiki, it is more than a bit confusing. Hopefully, this will be rectified in the coming week, I'm not going to add my comments to their overloaded complaint system, but what did they expect from a highly tech savvy population?


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## NYDutch (Dec 28, 2013)

How much have you donated to Locast to help them improve the service and response times?


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## 1948GG (Aug 4, 2007)

I donated quite early after the initial rollout in New York and Boston, and wrote a quite lengthy dissertation on how they could improve the service, in particular the addition of all the subchannels, as reciever/encoder combinations with multichannel support were available at a price point minimally above that of single channel units. Not long afterwards they upgraded the cities to include all if not most of the subchannels; good deal!

I've been dealing with digital video since the pre-mpeg2 days, and was recalled from retirement by my company to help set up teams over two years ago for the fcc 'repack' that's still underway. Tons of fun. Another idea I had was a dvr add-on to locast, I believe that offering it would generate much more revenue than their operating costs. We shall see.


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## NYDutch (Dec 28, 2013)

Locast can easily be integrated with Fitzy and their $5/mo DVR service...


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## 1948GG (Aug 4, 2007)

Expensive and kludgy. Even at 1/10 the cost it would be overpriced. Data storage in any 'cloud' is so cheap these days it's jaw dropping. I save some 7+TB a month and it costs <$20 *mostly transmission costs* and if I stop adding anything my monthly cost is zero yet the retrieval cost is pennies at best even if it sits there for months or years. 

I don't expect locast to offer such a deal, but $5/month should get one 500 hours of HD storage good for 30 days at a minimum. Look at youtubetv, and figure out how they bundle 'unlimited' storage for 8 months. I have trouble figuring that one out, with a $50/month 70+ channel package. The trick is scalability, the larger things get the cheaper it is.


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## NYDutch (Dec 28, 2013)

I'm sure Locast is more concerned with expanding their market count and resolving their legal issues at this point. Once those issues are dealt with, then they can look at adding features. Including a feature like DVR service as a premium for a higher donation level might make sense at some point.


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## 1948GG (Aug 4, 2007)

Which is exactly why they need to crunch the numbers right now, and strike while the iron is hot. They are up against a government licenced monopoly (with a guaranteed profit margin) just like the cell companies v. The telcos were at the beginning. The difference today is the tech required to provided this enhanced service has a very low entry cost, and in fact can be outsourced to a separate company that takes the Capitol investment risk yet provides the added income stream they will need to fight those entrenched companies, and provide expansion funds for the future.

If they arn't thinking about this right now as we sit here they may be headed down the road to ruin as these multi-trillion dollar behemoths swung their sights on them.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

I'm confused ... it sounds like people are describing a commercial business. Locast is a non profit. The more "commercial" they become the harder it will be to overcome their legal issues.


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## NYDutch (Dec 28, 2013)

James Long said:


> I'm confused ... it sounds like people are describing a commercial business. Locast is a non profit. The more "commercial" they become the harder it will be to overcome their legal issues.


I agree with you, James, it isn't good for Locast to look too commercial. I think offering premiums at higher donation levels is an accepted practice though, one that's commonly used by local PBS stations and other non-profits in their fundraising efforts. Holding off until the legal issues are resolved would likely be a good idea though...


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## 1948GG (Aug 4, 2007)

'Holding off' until legal issues are resolved is a death knell. The broadcasters can, as I pointed out are government approved/licensed monopolies, simply box them into a legal corner until, quite literally, hell freezes over while they shop around for some judges they can 'convince' to rule in their favor.

The pbs 'premium' levels that my inbox keeps getting subscription requests for is a perfect analogy, a streaming service that provides top access to programming. Btw, now that pbs is inking deals with the streaming companies (youtubetv up first) I'm wondering if they will lock up these companies from DVR'ing their content; bet they will, although Comcasts streaming service that carries all the dma broadcast channels (including two pbs channels with their 5+ subchannels in my dma) doesn't but their dvr is so constricted (20 hours total) that trying to save anything for more than a couple weeks is almost impossible.

But I told locast that if they thought offering a dvr service might be a bit too close to the edge, then ink a deal with a company like Fitzy to do it on the side. Give them some decent programming support and upfront cash infusion to fix some of their rough edges, and it's a done deal. Have them give locast 'subscribers' special low cost deals and it's done. Separate company, so you gave them a heads up on interfacing with your system, just like some of the other streaming vendors.


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## 1948GG (Aug 4, 2007)

Fyi, the reciever/encoder supplying kiro7/cbs is still having ongoing problems, freezing and/or blanking both the main channel and both subchannels. I also caught the unit pixilating all 3 channels yesterday, interesting as the kiro broadcast antenna is <2 miles from downtown on Queen Anne hill. The unit got reset this morning around 7am after being locked up most of the night. Hopefully they have a replacement somewhere in the overnight shipment que.

Back to freezing with audio/video out of sync about 20 minutes later. I'm sure if the tech is on site they're wondering where the fedex/ups folks are (been there done that!)
Unfortunately, still going on at 12:50 this afternoon, with the subchannels also either hiccuping or completely locked up.
So now it's 7 days that kiro7/cbs has been unwatchable, heavy pixilization/freezing/blanked out. I'll keep checking every few hours, also watching the other channels.


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## 1948GG (Aug 4, 2007)

As of this morning, kiro7/cbs and it's subchannels appear to be operating okay, no pixilation or other nastiness. Checked all other channels and no problems. Have noticed that with the android app when starting ip a stream there is a small mini-skip about one second in, that glitch is not repeatable in the roku app, so it appears to be isolated to android.


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## 1948GG (Aug 4, 2007)

Okay, noticed this evening channel changes are being made. When they rolled out, none of the (2 or 3?) Shopping channels were not there as were the couple of Spanish language ones and a couple of religious as well. Okay, no big deal, but again this evening the one religious channel they did have on was replaced by one of the Spanish ones. Wondering if the they had to swap things around to get kiro7/cbs working, and if they intend to put all those shopping/spanish/religious channels up...? Will have to take a look at sf and la and see what they've done there.

Fyi, the removed channel was Daystar, replaced by Univision, along with it's subchannel 'stadium' (also carried by fox/13; daystar had no subchannels).

Okay, a quick look at la and I count as least 4 spanish channels (one would figure), 2-3 shopping channels and 2+ religious channels in addition to the usual network and independent stations. So it will be interesting as to how many seattle locals will actually end up on the service.

Fyi, I finally recieved a response (after over a week) to my initial report in their complaint system, which said in short they don't have any problems; well yes, after a week of time to fix things, no confirmation that they had problems that they 'fixed'. So I guess they won't be saying anything about changing up the lineup either, typical programmers never saying they are working on things, making changes, etc.


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## 1948GG (Aug 4, 2007)

Fyi/update: Locast added a 'Report a Problem' sticker thing to the program listings, but not to the channel listings. The difference? The channel listings brings up the full daily program lists on the android app; on roku the program listing is whatever one is 'homed' to on the grid guide.

The addition is on both the roku and android app.

It might have been better if the grid guide allowed one to bring up additional info on the station; I wish they would more properly identify them by listing underneath the proper atsc ID like 4-1 or 4-3 etc. Not simply repeating the base ID like 'nbc' or 'comet'. Just a thought.

They made more changes today after I noticed the 'report a problem' add. It now takes two 'ok' clicks on roku to get the 'watch live' actually streaming. Also, once streaming, if one presses any of the navigation button on the roku remote, the 'report a problem' tag comes up. 

For a service that's been running for months in ny, boston, and la one would have thought things would have been more completely thought out by this point in time. Guess not.


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## 1948GG (Aug 4, 2007)

These two rounds of user interface changes with roku's have already degraded the usability of the service. If they do another round of 'improvements' it will be approaching unusability, just like the outsourced programmers did with psvue, which resulted in a mass exodus of subscribers. 

I had to go back in youtube and rewatch several earlier postings on locast to refresh my memory of what the roku UI was in the beginning with Seattle, and I must figure the other cities are still running, but don't know. 

In short, it's now taking 4 clicks to bring up a program, and 2 just to bring up the program description, where it used to take one and then just another to view the next description, not 3+ going back and then forward again.


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## 1948GG (Aug 4, 2007)

Today's addition of one of the local pbs stations (ktcs) along with one of their subchannels (pbs kids) to youtube tv got me to review both locast and comcast stream carridge of all the pbs seattle channels, in particular the second pbs local station, kbtc.

Locast has removed (when is a good question as it was there a week ago I believe) both kbtc and their subchannels NHK world and mhz worldview, I wonder which of the other locast markets the 'secondary' pbs stations have been removed. Both youtube tv and locast are making a big mistake as a goodly number of top rated pbs programs like nature and nova as well as others are broadcast on the 'secondary' kbtc and not on kcts, which does do 'newshour' as well as a goodly amount of locally produced programs like 'Rick steves' and the like.

Failure do carry both pbs channels is a real disservice. Obviously someone in both youtube tv and locast made the really stupid decision that the newer kbtc was somehow not a full fledged pbs station, and that kcts was the 'main' station. Might have been years ago (started in 1961!), but not now.

Fyi, comcast stream continues to carry both stations as well as all their subchannels.


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## NYDutch (Dec 28, 2013)

Have you asked Locast why the change was made?


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## 1948GG (Aug 4, 2007)

I have asked but their response rate/time on previous questions have been in the order of 2-3 weeks so I don't expect any response this year; technical problems they had with a reciever/encoder on kiro/7 on rollout took over 10 days to be fixed, and other technical problems with other channels took almost as long.

As far as youtube tv, they list kcts and pbs kids NOT in the local channels section of their channels list but buried in other sections, so they for whatever reason don't consider them "local'. That may be some link into their overall 'thinking', if any.

I haven't heard anything about dvr restrictions with these channels, but as kcts does not carry many of the popular pbs programs I currently dvr on comcast stream (they are on ktbc!) I'm putting off further my psvue replacement ideas. Many folks have suggested hulu live, but by the time I ramp it up the cost is >$20 that of youtube tv and is missing many 'must have' channels that yttv has. Bleh.


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## 1948GG (Aug 4, 2007)

Lots of programming changes in the last week, one wonders as the service was active for months in NY, LA, and SF that they missed the boat a bit by not launching in Seattle much earlier as they would have gotten a lot more suggestions for improvement as one can hardly walk down the street even in the outer suburbs without tripping over folks that have wide experience in user interfaces and such. At any rate, lots of good changes particularly in the android app has made it a lot more user friendly.


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## NYDutch (Dec 28, 2013)

I suspect the roll outs are conditioned on market size and local contributions. The Rapid City and Sioux Falls DMA's, for instance, were added following an extensive campaign by the residents that raised a significant amount of both private and corporate contributions from that area.


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## 1948GG (Aug 4, 2007)

A significant number of independent/non-network stations and subchannels have been added to large market (read: ny and the like) over the holidays. Hopefully this trend will continue to the smaller markets, particularly those (seattle) that have had even high profile network stations removed a month or so after initial rollout (the explanation given by locast at the time was poor reception at their recieve facility, a bit dubious to me).


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## 1948GG (Aug 4, 2007)

NYDutch said:


> The Rapid City and Sioux Falls DMA's, for instance, were added following an extensive campaign by the residents that raised a significant amount of both private and corporate contributions from that area.


This has always been a 'huh?' to me, as the level of internet availability in those areas has got to be one of the lowest in the entire U.S. Wireless lte provider pushing adoption? Certainly can't be cable providers with 1 or 2 potential subs per route mile, and with some of the tallest broadcast towers on the continent. Got me.


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## NYDutch (Dec 28, 2013)

1948GG said:


> This has always been a 'huh?' to me, as the level of internet availability in those areas has got to be one of the lowest in the entire U.S. Wireless lte provider pushing adoption? Certainly can't be cable providers with 1 or 2 potential subs per route mile, and with some of the tallest broadcast towers on the continent. Got me.


I expect the highest number of donations came from within the two cities themselves, dropping off the more rural the potential user lived. I have no idea what the ratio of corporate to private donations was.


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## 1948GG (Aug 4, 2007)

Small increments to programming/user interface has made locast/seattle more usable in the last few days, in particular adding the 'real' ota designation below the 'public' designation on the guide i.e. 'CBS' with 'kirodt' below, or 'getTV' with 'KIRODT2' below, ect., makes it much easier to identify where the channel originates from as a subchannel or main. Thumbs up!

Now If they will re-add the channels they dropped a while back (kcts/pbs??) And the many foreign lang. Stations and such. And what about the alternate audio streams? Good questions all, I still think they should partner with someone to offer an addon dvr.


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## 1948GG (Aug 4, 2007)

Many upgrades/changes in the last couple of weeks, including re-adding the secondary pbs station kbtc as well as reworking the first atsc 3.0 broadcaster in the dma, king-TV. Other changes appear to be on the horizon.


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