Hi Mike:
Thanks for your response & insight.
And no MSO offers digital services without an upgrade to HFC already completed.
I don't believe this to be a true statement. It is my understanding that an upgrade to HFC is not necessary to offer digital TV services. My plant currently operates on a 550MHz system. As little as two years ago, the cable company, then Century Communications was not planning to install fiber in the plant, yet upgrade the plant to an all coax 840MHz system with the capabilities of delivering DVB signals to sub's STBs.
Now, to avoid confusion, I am referring to DVB, not SDTV signaling. I refer you to what you describe later on in your post where you provide a breakdown among analog & digital video, digital music & pay-per-view channels typically offered by a MSO's digital system. I believe that when I viewed pictures offered on a digital system, I viewed the ANALOG channels. I think you I agree with me on this point. If so, then the point I wish to make is that if I want digital quality signals to my TV and am willing to pay the MSO extra bucks for it, then I want ALL my channels to be of digital quality, not just the extra channels. If the extra channels are the only digital channels my TV would receive, then I would tell my MSO to shove it, & go for the dish.
I find your hypothesis difficult to accept since there are two ex-TCI franchises that I am aware of in LA that offer digital services to their subs, and most likely do NOT have fiber in the plant. The plant in these franchises are OLD franchises and ABOVE GROUND strung telephone poles.
One, franchise is MediaOne's not T's, located just south of Century City, This franchise is to be distinguished from MediaOne's Culver City franchise whose system was the first to receive fiber in LA in order to service certain needs of Sony Picture Studios, and the first in the City to offer cable modem service as well as circuit-switched telephony over coax.
The other franchise is Adelphia's "TCI-Van Nuys" franchise which was acquired in a swap b/w Century Communications & TCI several years ago. The Van Nuys system is operated completely separate from Adelphia's other franchises, as it is presently digital while the rest of Adelphia's systems in LA are analog. Although the TCI-Van Nuys system presently offers subs digital services, it is still scheduled to undergo an fiber upgrade in the next year or two. My conclusion, Mike, is that DVB is possible w/o fiber in the plant.
Were you comparing picture quality on apples to apples TV monitors? Maybe the SkyBox TV is a higher resolution digital TV monitor
Mike, maybe the TVs at the SkyBox were higher resolution, but I doubt it. There must have at least two dozen TVs in the bar of all sizes. Some were large screen; some were standard 32" in size. The picture quality on every single TV was perfect, and the DirecTV logo appeared on everyone. Last week, I was at Duke's in Malibu. In the bar they had on FoxSports West. Picture quality was perfect. In Malibu, the MSO is Falcon, recently acquired by Charter. Falcon offered some of the worst cable service in all of Southern California. Worse than Century. The picture I saw wasn't cable. It was satellite. This evening I just returned from the Mercedes-Benz tennis tournament at UCLA. I passed a few large screen TVs covering the tennis match. Picture quality was the same or similar to what I describe above, excellent, though likely what was received was a local feed, & not necessarily a "public" FoxSportWest broadcast.
On one hand we appear to agree . . . that the pictures I viewed on two different digital cable systems were not in-fact digital channels, but likely analog channels. On the other hand, you are reluctant to agree with me by questioning whether I can discern the difference in higher quality monitors. I cannot argue with any merit that the monitors were standard monitors or high-resolution monitors as I honestly don't know. Neverthess, I doubt it.
The bottom line here is what's the point in challenging me on this issue if my point is that the offering of digital services by an MSO is only with respect to the additional channels offered by the upgraded package, and not necessarily the existing channel line-up offered to those subs who opt not to receive the digital upgrade. |
