"If so, I'll be the first to generate [VOD]revenues for TimeWarner and report back to the thread on how it works."
Thread- Well it's here. A watershed event for this tech nerd(and it has nothing to do with the presidential election). Just think only two years ago I was amazed to get a data signal(cable modem) from my MSO. Then about one year ago, I saw the first digital TV signal I've ever seen. And today--Discrete streaming of video to my TV via my digital STB.
It's amazing to me that this speed of movement is not fast enough for Wall Street to quit trashing MSOs(at least with the slow to move argument). With ATT firing the first shot just two years ago, the MSOs take a 50 year old plant, converted it to two-way HFC. Offered cable modem connections. Then digital TV services. And now VOD. Just about 90% of this occurring right after ATT started the ball rolling in earnest with their $100 billion gamble.
So after about ten(really about 20) years of hype, I can finally order up a movie on my TV, at will, with VCR like controls. I believe from a cursory glance, there are about 100 movies being offered. It's a very simple menu that actually works well.
IMO, I can easily see this generating an extra $10/month in revenues from the average TV viewer. So let's say it's $5/month. $5/month x 12 months x 70 million subs = $4,200,000,000/year. If you raise that to $10/month, then it moves to $8,400,000,000/year incremental revenue for the MSOs. Or about a 33% increase in overall MSO yr/yr revenues. If/when there are about 1,000 selections, I can see myself ordering up at least $10/month in movies and the average moving up to whatever Blockbuster is doing in average customer revenues.
Of course there are a LOT of IFs in the scenario I scribbled down. As ftth believes, there may not be enough bandwidth to allow all subs to hit their server at once. At this point I don't know if I'm getting my stream from a cached server in a local hub or not? Most likely it's coming from a headend. Probably the master headend since this is just starting to rollout beyond a test stage.
I haven't tried recording yet, but it appears as if this would be very easy to do. It appears to me, if I wanted to pop in a VCR tape, I could record a movie I was watching and then give it away to someone else(although I won't do this). That will probably cut into the revenue stream. The downside is, of course, you lose a level of quality. But when recordable-DVD rolls out, this will be a moot point. -MikeM(From Florida) |
