----- Original Message -----
From: "Craig Birkmaier" <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
While clear QAM support may exist in many new receivers, what is it good
for?
Apparently you can see some broadcast re-transmissions, but presumably you
could get them with an antenna. It is my understanding that virtually all
digital cable content is encrypted...
Is this what most people are finding?
Craig,
I cannot believe your incredible short-sightedness. <VBG :)>
ClearQAM tuners are extremely, dare I say vitally, important to the
continued viability of cable systems. Why? We have a chicken and egg
situation here, and universal ClearQAM tuners has to be the chicken (or egg)
that goes first.
Way back in the olden days, during the pioneer days of cable television,
operators put their basic cable offerings on VHF channels 2-14, and stuck
their extra cost and premium services on new channels that were between the
VHF and UHF bands on the television dial, where customers couldn't tune into
them without a special converter box. (HBO was an exception, but that will
be explained below.)
With the cable system thusly segregated, the cable companies could sell a
basic cable package to perhaps 30% of their subscribers and would not have
to invest in any set top converter box. Because HBO was so popular, many
systems put HBO on channel 2 and put passive traps on every home that did
not subscribe. The basic+HBO option might have been good for an additional
20% of their subscribers, so only those who paid extra for the premium tier
needed to be provided with a cable converter box. (I remember my parents
had a two piece corded one, with the main box near the TV and the control
tethered on a 20' long cord and had a slider to tune through the channels.)
Enter Sony and the Variactor tuner. Magically, people who just bought a
television could now tune in all of the extra cost premium tier channels
without having to pay for the premium tier! (I remember my Air Force room
mate bought one and had 14 thumbwheel-controlled tuning positions, so you
did have to be picky which premium tier channels you wanted, but hey, it was
FREE!)
Soon all televisions were equipped with tuners that covered not only the
broadcast VHF UHF band, but also covered more and more of the mid band and
high band cable channels. Cable companies started to use block filters,
scrambling, and other techniques to inhibit their subscribers from getting
more than they bargained for.
Eventually it dawned upon the cable operators to offer an expanded basic
tier of programming that let the subscriber use their built-in cable ready
tuners, and the cable companies simply put low pass filters on those homes
that only subscribed to 'basic basic.' (I still have an old Toshiba that
only goes up to cable channel 48 or so, so I use an old dead VCR as a STB
for it so I can go up to 64, the highest expanded basic channel on my
system.) When combined with selective channel scrambling, this again left
the cable operator with the ability to offer many more channels without
having to provide 90% of their subs with STBs. Only those subscribers who
wanted more movie channels and/or PPV events needed to have an "addressable"
box.
Jump ahead to 2008, and the big thing in cable television is Digital. Like
magic, one analog channel can now carry several digital channels, and
instantly a 70 channel system is turned into a 150 channel system! The
drawback is, however, that pesky expanded basic tier still has to be in
bandwidth-sucking analog NTSC, which limits the number of digital channels
that can be created by the cable company. This wasn't too bad, as there
weren't all that many cable channels for the offering, so the situation
wasn't too bad.
Then along comes bit-sucking HD. Now not only do you need to offer the
Discovery Channel in analog, unscrambled NTSC, you now also need to offer it
in SD digital (so your STB with hard drive doesn't need a pesky MPEG
encoder) and in HD digital. Where are we going to get that bandwidth from?
Enter the consumer with her trusty ClearQAM equipped flat screen. "By
golly, if enough of them are sold," exclaims the cigar-chomping cable exec,
"then we can convert a big chunk of our expanded basic to ClearQAM, and
quadruple our available number of channels!"
However, for this scheme to work out, the universe of ClearQAM equipped
televisions needs to be large enough that the cable operator doesn't go
broke providing two or three STBs for each and every single subscriber.
And that, Craig, is how I see what ClearQAM tuners are good for.
Regards,
John
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