Assuming Digital TV stations get off the ground by 2008 (yeah I know it is a big if), how much space between channels will there have to be.
I ask as I noticed some of the digital assignments are next to the current anologue stations.
For example WBBM Channel 2 Chicago is also WBBM-DTV Channel 3 Chicago.
Because if there isn’t a need to have spaces anymore won’t that allow MORE tv stations to become available?
If you mean the distance between frequencies for major channel numbers, that will be the same. However, DTV introduces us to minor channel numbers from the same station, which is part of the same broadcast. So in actuality there will be more channels to choose from, but not necessarily more stations. For example, you will still get ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX, but you will have ABC-1 showing a movie, ABC-2 showing a sitcom, ABC-3 showing an infomercial, NBC-1 showing a football game, NBC-2 showing the news, etc.
I don’t know the direct answer to your question but to add to the mix:
There are something like 15 or 16 different official standards as regards HDTV broadcasting.
If the best of all the standards is used (best in terms of image and sound quality) it takes something like the equivalent of 8 ‘regular’ tv channels to carry the signal (or put another way HDTV can take up to 8x the bandwidth of a conventional tv signal).
As an aside (Off Topic) It was partly for this reason that the federal government gave away a big hunk of bandwidth over to the broadcasters a few years ago. Some people were pissed that the government gave away what some estimated to be worth $20 billion of bandwidth but in one way it was good. TV execs figured they couldn’t really sell an ad for more money in an HDTV format than they could in regular format. However, given all that extra space they could instead just startup (say) 8 new channels and sell 8 ads. Since the feds gave away the bandwidth the fed got pissed when they heard of this and made the networks promise to provide the higher quality signal rather than just several low quality ones.
Actually, there is only one for the U.S., the ATSC standard.
I assume you are talking about 1080i resolution, which takes 19MB/s bandwidth for high definition. Current base frequencies are 6MHz apart, so 8x is not accurate. It is more like 3x to 4x.