[opendtv] Re: 060707 Free Friday Fragments (Mark's Monday Memo)
- From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 11:55:05 -0400
Richard Hollandsworth wrote:
> The biggest differences between current MPEG2 architecture
> and IPTV is that the former is not very error/delay tolerant
> and hence must be either streamed from a "local" server or a
> dedicated "pipe" must be guaranteed from a remote server to
> the user.
IMO, the biggest difference is that IPTV allows very thin pipes to
customer premises to make use of very fat backbones in the core service
provider network.
But let's look at real numbers, to see just what the user experience
could be.
With upgraded cable systems, which go up into the UHF band, and fully
converted to 256-QAM, *without breaking a sweat*, the cable company can
offer at least 250-300 or more simultaneous 60p sports HDTV programs.
This is a no-brainer, requiring no fast routers in the backbone, using
only MPEG-2 TS. And double this to 500+ if you use AVC/H.264.
Or several thousand SDTV/EDTV programs, still without breaking a sweat.
Or a mix of HD and SD, numbering in the many hundreds to a couple
thousand choices, without any fancy core network equipment. All of this
ending up in every household.
If the cable company offers one or two channels, switched per household,
for broadband Internet access, that would allow for any niche
programming that the thousands of simultaneous channels available to
that household don't provide.
Clearly, this much choice to the subscriber, without the cable company
getting any extra benefit compared with any existing scheme, is not
going to be all that appealing to that company, even if subscribers
might love it.
That's why I don't buy into the generic IP hype.
Bert
----------------------------------------------------------------------
You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways:
- Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at
FreeLists.org
- By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word
unsubscribe in the subject line.
Other related posts:
