"And a problem with sdv/vod is that most titles have not been digitized and stored on servers yet, and that leads me to the next factor, one being that of servers. Video servers are still expensive .... one could conclude, might also lead to a fewer number of overall channels being offered by startups who support video over VDSL."
Frank- As I think you know, above is exactly my speculation as to why Kingston(the UK telco-MSO) could potentially only offer 50 TV channels. I just don't think I said it as well. In other words, SDV delivered via VDSL can support as many channel selections, and even more, as any other competing system. Be it MSO or DBS. The SDV VDSL channel count is limited only by the dollar cost of headend equipment and not much else.
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On a completely different tangent, let's say we drop the VOD model out of the VDSL delivery system. Let's say we talk only, "live TV." Sporting events for instance. Let's say the teleco headend is receiving some 200 live channels of content, from the national broadcasters and local affiliates. And the telco needs to get it out to their 3,000 subs as each sub chooses to watch these live events. Some of that content is sent via terrestrial point-point microwave, some via a fiber optic link, some directly from the national broadcasters via satellite link. Let's say some of it's digital, some analog.
Okay, now consider your comment, "Real time digitization of analog feeds which have been scheduled on a program basis is not such a burden here, since techniques exist to handle this, already, most notably MPEG encoding of content streams."
So taking the 200 channels of live content delivered to the telco headend, making it all digital where needed, and sending it all down the distribution plant(in this case fiber-twisted pair), to their 3,000 subs, is not such a big deal(except for equipment money for course!), right?
I just got the impression from reading your comments, that you thought a VDSL TV model could never handle 200 channels of live TV. I just wanted to clear this up. -MikeM(From Florida) |
