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Technology Stocks : C-Cube -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: VidiVici who wrote (42301)	6/18/1999 9:41:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Respond to of 50808

Multicasting. The wrath of KRON.............................. tvbroadcast.com KRON Begins Multicasting San Francisco Station At Forefront Of DTV Era By Joseph Maar (June 18, 1999)San Francisco -- With little fanfare but major industry implications, on May 19, Bay Area NBC affiliate KRON-TV began multiplexing two different signals on their digital spectrum. The station is broadcasting one signal at full 1080i HDTV and the other at 480i DTV. On television sets they appear as digital channels 57.1 and 57.2. The decision to multicast offers a "real world" look into the creative ways that stations might handle future bandwidth issues in order to satisfy both HDTV and NTSC-legacy viewers. KRON is using General Instruments (GI) HDTV and SDTV encoders to multiplex the signals together at the station and send it on a single DS3 line to their transmitter. By adjusting the bit rate of each channel, KRON is disproving the often-repeated belief that 1080-line HD signals leave no room within the 6 MHz band for "other things." "Everybody said it's theoretically possible--now were doing it," remarked Craig Porter, KRON's chief engineer. "We just crank up the compression a little bit [on the 1080i], then you've got space. The General Instruments SD chassis can take multiple channels, [while] the SD chassis feeds into the HD chassis." The GI encoder, based on a C-Cube chipset and "MicroCode" software, allows a user to adjust the bit rate of each service within a single channel; basically enabling the allocation of specific bandwidth space for individual signals. The software-based system also allows Porter to seamlessly switch from HD to SD modes without experiencing any down time while reconfiguring the encoder. KRON engineers simply stop encoding the HD channels and allow multiple SD channels to pass through. "You assign a percentage of the total payload to each one of the services you want to transmit," Porter said. "It's then the encoder's job to make sure that it adds enough compression to ensure that the signal fits within the allocated bits. Compression is an ever-advancing science, so each [version] of software makes the encoders work that much more efficiently. Since the system we have is software-based, there's no reason we can't multicast whatever signals we want to." Using a Larcan transmitter, the HDTV signal carries an upconverted, re-broadcast of KRON's standard definition channel, while the second signal displays a KRON traffic camera. Although the station does operate a regional cable news channel, Bay TV, Porter stated that due to agreements with local cable operators it cannot be broadcast over-the-air. "I'm sort of waiting for them to come up with a programming concept," Porter remarked when asked what other content might be shown on the second DTV channel. "Our primary interest in doing this is that the SD [digital transmission] is a backup to the HD," added Porter. "In a worst case scenario, if I lost my HD channel, I could use the SD [signal]." Porter also said that because in MPEG compression is much more difficult than decompression, there's a lot of opportunities for broadcasters to be more efficient with their allocated channel as time goes by. "For example, we broadcast The Tonight Show, which is fairly static," he explained. "There's not a lot of motion going on inside the picture. There is probably a lot of available bandwidth there. If you get into sports or segments with a lot of fast motion and fine detail, then it becomes more difficult. "The other big issue is how clean is the input signal that you're feeding the encoder," Porter added. "That's another way that you can increase the efficiency of the coding." The station was very happy with how quickly they were able to begin multicasting. "In my wildest imagination I didn't think we'd see the kind of reliability we've seen with this system," said Porter. "That's what's been great about it... our success with GI is that it comes out of the box, you install it, and it works." Porter also stated that GI is planning a new version of its encoder that will include statistical capability so that it can automatically look at what's going on in the picture and adjust encoders to provide the best signal on all channels. This will also allow KRON to transmit data if and when then they want to.

To: VidiVici who wrote (42301)	6/20/1999 2:22:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Respond to of 50808

VOD still in the future........................... multichannel.com VOD Systems: Still the Wave of the Future By CRAIG KUHL June 21, 1999 Chicago -- Video-on-demand's longtime promise to deliver movies and events anytime, anywhere remains to a large degree unfulfilled, and for many cable operators, it is proving to be a painstakingly slow road to profitability. Despite the drastic cost reductions for set-top boxes (now less than $350), file servers, costs per stream (about $350) and other VOD-related hardware, the motion-picture studios' portion of movie fees to on-demand-service providers is holding at about 50 percent. And with only pockets of VOD service available, cable operators and VOD providers are trying to remain patient. Nagging obstacles such as gaining economies of scale, dealing with hefty studio fees and managing a new and relatively untested VOD business are slowing its progress. Yet panelists at one of last week's National Show sessions here, along with other VOD proponents, expect true VOD to flourish in the next four to five years. "It will change people's concepts of television. It will be like the Internet, and it will encourage people to think of it as a brand-new service, available all of the time," said Dan Sheeran, senior vice president of product management for VOD-equipment provider nCUBE, during last week's panel. Most experts agreed that VOD still has great potential. But some wondered about its viability as a legitimate revenue generator and when it will fully bloom. "We tend to think 'out there,' and not about the backing systems that have to be managed," said Rick Colletto, vice president of programming for pay-per-view programmer TVN Entertainment Corp. "Those kinds of issues -- multiple servers, multiple locations, satellite delivery -- will prohibit VOD growth for awhile," Colletto added. "The front end is working: The back end needs work." Some of that work entails upgrading systems to 750-megahertz capacity and replacing all cable from the nodes back to the headend with fiber, which can be costly. The payback though, Sheeran said, is likely to be impressive. "There are costs and complexities of deployment now, but set-top costs don't have to be borne by operators just to deliver VOD," he added, noting that nCUBE has invested $100 million in VOD technology currently deployed by six MSOs. To push VOD economies of scale to the point of viability, simplifying the VOD-deployment process requires some vision and savvy, according to Diva Systems Corp. president David Zucker. "[VOD is] a very complicated process, but the real hard part is system management," he added. Those issues, Zucker insisted, go beyond traditional management decisions and strategies. "There's network management, software management and the whole front end of network operations like marketing, coding and video-asset management," he said. Once VOD crosses those borders, however, on-demand services will expand, Sheeran predicted.