[opendtv] Re: Disney to Sell Moviebeam

While technically interesting, this thread has not lived up to its 
billing. Why is Disney giving up on Moviebeam? The answer has nothing 
[and everything] to do with the underlying distribution 
infrastructure.

The truth is that Moviebeam was an interesting solution that could be 
deployed using the existing analog television distribution 
infrastructure. Disney gained considerable experience in developing 
the technology and the business model for a cached VOD movie service. 
They are now moving that technology into a much larger global 
business opportunity.

On September 2nd I posted the following story:

http://www.advanced-television.com/2005/news_archive_2005/Aug29_Sept2.htm

Disney, Kudelski VOD STB venture

Walt Disney Television International and the Kudelski Group
(Nagravision) have announced a joint venture to develop and market
'turnkey' Push Video-On-Demand (VOD) and Digital Video Recorder (DVR)
services. The Push VOD solution is designed to run on standard
satellite, cable, terrestrial and IP Digital Video Recorder hardware
platforms, and will be made available to digital television operators
worldwide (but not the US, Canada and Japan).

The complete set top box system will offer a selection of movie and
other TV content delivered to its hard drive for users to view with
full on demand functionality, plus the capacity for subscribers to
record personal content from existing channels. Operators will also
be able to add their own local content to the service.

WDTV-I and the Kudelski Group will work together in the development
of technology and the acquisition, management and playout of content
for this offering. The system will use proprietary Push VOD
technologies and easy-to-use navigation systems developed by The Walt
Disney Company and the Kudelski Group.

So, while Moviebeam may be a flash in the pan, the underlying 
business model appears to have some legs...

Regards
Craig




At 6:05 PM -0400 9/27/05, Allen Le Roy Limberg wrote:
>U. S. patent No. 5,461,426 describes earlier work with PSK on a carrier in
>quadrature with video carrier that Dr. C. B. Patel, Dr. Tianmin Liu and I
>did at AML.  Dr.  Liu, who was with Broadcom a while, has returned to PROC.
>Dr. Patel, a consultant, is now U.S. representative to ATSC for Samsung
>Electronics Company.  Dr. Jian Yang was with Raytheon the last I heard.  The
>Dr. Jian Yang at Bell Labs is a different man.
>
>Visibility of digital modulation can be reduced by repeating frames and bit
>complementing. Digital modulation can be extracted from the NTSC signal by
>frame comb filtering.
>
>Al
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Allen Le Roy Limberg" <allimberg@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2005 9:20 AM
>Subject: [opendtv] Re: Disney to Sell Moviebeam
>
>
>>  Jian Yang and I proposed putting BPSK on a quadrature video carrier a
>decade
>>  or so ago, when we worked at Samsung's AML Lab.  Some patents issued.
>>
>>  Al
>>  ----- Original Message -----
>>  From: "Richard Hollandsworth" <holl_ands@xxxxxxxxx>
>>  To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>  Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2005 4:18 AM
>>  Subject: [opendtv] Re: Disney to Sell Moviebeam
>>
>>
>>  > The www.dotcast.com website described adding a reduced level QAM carrier
>>  onto the visual carrier.
>>  > They claim that since it is "in-quadrature" to the video signal, it
>would
>>  result in essentially zero signal at the output of an NTSC detector.
>>  > Seems to work similiar to how the in-phase portion of a QPSK data signal
>>  will not be seen by a quadrature detector and vice versa.
>>  >
>>  > Hence it is not in the vertical blanking interval, nor is it "between"
>the
>>  Visual and Aural carriers.
>>  > It's yet another signal that is added onto the Visual carrier.
>>  >
>>  > Very clever scheme.....or Kludge....in either case it's days are
>numbered.
>>  >
>>  >                                 <holl_ands>
>>  >
>>  > ==============================================================
>>  > Doug McDonald <mcdonald@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>  > > John Shutt wrote:
>>  > >The press release said unused portions of the television spectrum, not
>>  > >unused portions of the television picture. MovieBeam is/was not based
>on
>>  > >vertical interval blanking. It was based on placing digital information
>>  in
>>  > >the spaces between the Visual and Aural carriers.
>>  > >
>>  > >www.dotcast.com
>>  > >
>>  > >
>>  >
>>  >
>>  > That web site implies that TV sets use some sort of synchronous (PLL?)
>>  > detection of the
>>  > video. Huh? I've never seen a TV schematic that did not use a plain
>>  > diode detector. Of course,
>>  > I stopped looking before ICs arrived. What the web page describes is a
>>  > kludge QAM
>>  > system.
>>  >
>>  > Doug McDonald
>>  >
>>  >
>>  >
>>  >
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