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Technology Stocks : Concurrent Computer (CCUR) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: James M. Bash who wrote (9716)	6/21/1999 5:45:00 PM
From: Granby	Respond to of 21143

For years we had to endure the claims of the Fractal advocates. Now it is the Wavelet claims. There are currently no silver bullits for broadcast quality, streaming video on the internet using "basic" modems - or anything except corporate "intranets" with ATM equipped workstations. DSL or cable modem services offer a significant step up from basic modems but will still have a very difficult time achieving true broadcast quality. Even at 500kbits/sec broadcast quality is a tough goal. In addition to being a video R&D jock I have done due dilligence evaluations for VC's on a number of internet video wannabees and they never come close to demonstrating their quality of service claims. A few nice postcard sized windows with dropped frames is the best you see. Good for video adds or teleconferences, maybe talking heads - but certainly not movies or VOD. Having said that - what can and will be possible in the future? With the numbers of cable modems growing rapidly and DSL services becoming available there is and will be a growing "mid tier" of bandwidth where some of these applications work. Services like @Home are restricting users from streaming video but we expect that to change. They use a single 6Mhz channel using QAM to deliver a shared 30mb/s stream to 100's of simultaneous subscribers. If more then a few are streaming during prime time hours then no single user can achieve a sufficient bit rate to even come close to broadcast quality, however, as more QAM channels are dedicated to the service better quality streamed content will become possible. The kind of cable VOD services companies such as DIVA, SEAC or CCUR might offer using QAM over a 6Mhz channel would slice up each 30 mb/s pipe into 8 ~3mb/s video streams to each house. Therefore, only 5 channels of the "100 Channel" universe are required to provide VOD to a neighborhood of 400 homes assuming 10% of the subs are active. The percentage of active subscribers will clearly increase as more content is available to the VOD subscriber and as new services such as "time shifting" become a basic part of the service. In the future more channels will need to be dedicated to VOD and other interactive services. Perhaps in 10 years we could foresee virtually every channel being used for some kind of interactive service. Please don't "go short" on your favorite network affiliate any time soon but this is clearly in the future... One other point - even 3mb/s is barely "broadcast quality", although its definitely consumer "watchable".Worse - rapidly coming down the pike is HDTV. The market for "Home Theatre's" still runs around 2 million units per year - so there is considerable consumer demand for high(er) quality video. Satalite operators will offer HD very soon and you can expect that a digital theatre will come to a mall near you soon thereafter. Consumers will then expect "broadcast quality" to mean HDTV - which moves the performance and quality window way beyond any possible internet play using wavelets. In the end only dedicated broadband solutions have the potential to deliver these kinds of interactive services.