"...those 6 movies, taking up 38 channels are 'broadcast' video," remember this is only 3 or 4 physical channels (6 MHz channels), so at such an early point in the roll out there is probably no reason to change this.
ftth- Got it. 3 or 4 physical 'analog' channels are being used up to stream 6 digital movies at half hour intervals.
BTW I counted all the NBA, PGA, ESPN...weird titled channels that are mainly blank and they number 35 wasted digital TV channels. I'm guessing TWX must be trying to negotiate with the NBA, PGA, NHL, etc. to be able to broadcast all their games played nightly. Personally I would rather see more VOD titles released than more sports channels added.
Side Note: Either way, the MSOs must be getting pretty excited about all the ways they can generate added revenues off the greatest mass medium device ever made--TV. Too bad Mr. Market doesn't feel the same way. At least Paul Allen and Bill Gates see the potential. Maybe one day we'll all look back and call them both geniuses for seeing what the cable plant can do and putting their BILLIONS where their visions are.
Plus there are two HDTV channels that appear to be broadcasting but when I tune into them they show a blank screen. I would guess I would need to spend the $5,000 to get the HDTV experimental channels to work. I like experimenting but I probably won't go that far.
So adding the streaming digital movie channels to the blank (NBA, NHL, PGA, etc) digital channels and we are currently looking at 73 wasted digital channels available to rollout more VOD. Add to that the 10 digital channels experiment to show 2 HDTV channels(5 SDTV = 1 HDTV = 1 Analog) and this makes it a whooping 83 wasted digital channels today. Which brings up my next theoretical question.
Say the MSO owner of a typical 750Mhz HFC plant devoted all digital channels to a VOD rollout. And add to that my previous hypothetical of unlimited funds for VOD servers. Would the plant then be capable of delivering VOD to all 100% of their subs, simultaneously?
I'm almost there in understanding the bandwidth limitation, but not quite.<g> A couple more Q&A and I think I'll get it!
_________________
"When VoD consists of DVD selections then they might have interest. But that has issues of its own, including more bandwidth per movie and content scrambling."
I'm not sure if you are talking about a quality issue or not? But if it's a quality issue then I would say the VOD video matches DVD quality. Both push the analog sets to the max. So the difference is indiscernable. As a matter of fact, for some reason I'm not quite sure of, I think the VOD is better quality than the DVDs I've seen playing in Circuit City, Best Buy, etc. I've studied the quality quite closely as I'm close to buying a new TV set and I'm leaning towards digital.
I'm not sure if you know this, but DVD quality stops at analog TV sets. I tried this experiment myself--I can play a DVD title in a typical analog set, and then pop the same DVD into a digital TV set. There is no noticable difference in quality. I imagine when more digital TVs come on the market, then maybe the DVDs will increase their output to match the better TV quality capabilities? But then one may run into a storage capacity issue with the DVD.
I understand that VOD will compete with DVD rentals, but IMO having to go pick up a movie is a lot more difficult than hitting a few buttons. Hence my feeling is VOD will be a much greater revenue generator than the movie rental business has even been. And I'm assuming eventually the selection of VOD will be hundreds of times greater than a physical store could ever hold.
_____________
Regarding the VCR like functions, I had serious doubts this would work. So I was amazed it did actually work! I'm wondering if it's because the server is not being maxed out at such an early stage? I guess in a month or two we'll know. I just got something in the mail yesterday announcing VOD is available. So now maybe more subs will start using it and stress the servers.
There is slight delay in pause, fast forward, rewind. There is choppiness in the fast forward and rewind. It's not like you can watch...I'll go experiment right now to make sure I have this right....Okay experiment over.
What they do for fast forward and rewind is jump in increments of about 15 seconds. They jump 15 seconds, flash the still image and quickly jump to the next image 15 seconds later. It does this very quickly so it appears still images are being flashed in front of you while in the fast forward and rewind modes. -MikeM(From Florida) |
