Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : LAST MILE TECHNOLOGIES - Let's Discuss Them Here -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: geoffrey Wren who wrote (9841)	12/19/2000 8:09:42 PM
From: ftth	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 12823

Hi Geoffrey, you may be right that people would go for a pre-ordered movie at a discount to on-demand movies. Is your feeling that such a service would be more attractive to most people, compared to VoD or nVoD? I suppose another thing they could do is have a feature movie each day, at an even further discount, that is downloaded the night before as a broadcast to the node (if you elect it), to "save" even more bandwidth. I suspect we are a ways away from a log-jam w/r/t VoD, since it is just starting to roll out, but it may be that in less than a year some systems will start to feel the pain. "Sorry, no more VoD slots are available...try again some other time" the message would read. On the digital video recorder, are you saying that subscribers can record digital pay-per-view movies? And keep a separate permanant copy that can be viewed as many times as they wish? That would seem odd to me, considering hollywood won't even allow their precious content from a DVD to be recorded via the composite video out to a VCR in analog form (and the digital output cannot be recorded either). I'm not sure I agree it lessens the perceived need for DVD, since you don't have anywhere close to the number of titles available via VoD services today, and I don't see how it can allow a user to have a library of movies the way DVD (or even VCR tapes) can. It would seem those would be important considerations since practically everyone with a VCR also has a library of favorite movies. Would you agree with that? If you wanted an archive library of say 20 movies with a TIVO box, what is the method of archival/external storage?

To: geoffrey Wren who wrote (9841)	12/19/2000 9:16:27 PM
From: MikeM54321	Respond to of 12823

geoffrey- Well the STB as a storage device for movies streamed to it for later viewing would save the day in terms of bandwidth upgrades. BUT $500-$600 per sub is waaay too much for a MSO. I think the figure of $500-$600 may be on the low side too. Right now a standalone cable modem costs $300. A digital STB at least $400. Add a hardrive and I think the price is getting out of control for the MSO to absorb. It would pay for a lot of upgrading to the cable plant. So IMHO I think the MSO would rather upgrade the capacity versus supplying STB hardrives. The bonus is, once they upgrade the plant, they can use it for Interactive-TV. Not that anyone knows how that is going to shake out, but at least the capacity will be there when it finally does. And in my case if I have to pre-plan, I might as well go to Blockbuster. We usually make our movie decision about 1 minute in advance of watching one. And that has always involved a trip to Blockbuster in the past. That is what is so nice about VoD. If you want to watch a movie, in 30 seconds you can be doing so. I also read something along the lines of what ftth reffered to. If the movie is streamed to the STB it took someone all of 30 minutes to figure out how to pirate it in a test. But VoD has the same problems(I think) as I'm fairly certain I can pirate that too by turning on my VCR while watching a movie I paid for. But if the movie costs less than the tape I'm recording it on, that's a serious disincentive for anyone to steal it. -MikeM(From Florida)