[opendtv] Re: News: Cable operators find it tough to swallow HDTV
- From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 15:08:55 -0400
Frank Eory wrote:
> Perhaps you missed the point. The author mentioned
> two possible solutions to the cable bandwidth crunch.
> One requires STBs where none were required before,
> and the other requires switched digital, which will
> not work with today's one-way CableCards. Neither one
> strikes me as being either "funny" or designed to
> extract sympathy.
Let's back up just a tad, Frank. This crunch they're in did not happen
overnight. They have been building up to it ever so deliberately, for
the past 15 years or so.
First off, switched digital is unnecessary for HDTV. There's plenty of
bandwith in the cable system's drop to individual homes that switched
digital for most programs is uncalled for. Maybe for VOD, sure, one or
two channels switched. Switched digital is just another technique to
impede interoperability of standard boxes, like recording devices, with
cable systems.
Stand-alone STBs are also not essential, if cable companies had not
historically opposed any sort of compatible digital receiver in TVs and
recording devices. Were it not for Michael Powell, we wouldn't even have
the CableCard.
Cable company-provided STBs are also not essential, if the cable
industry had not opposed third-party STBs so strenuously. Wouldn't it be
easier to sell HDTV if their customers could just waltz into the nearest
WalMart and buy a cheap STB of their choosing?
The need to simulcast SD and HD programs, which contributes to the
bandwidth crunch, should also have been unnecessary. Except that in the
1990s, cable companies were dead set against HDTV (and most everything
else the ATSC was doing). They made the same mistake as Euro-DVB.
Even the initial one-way Cable Card is far preferable to many cable
customers than enforced use of STBs, and yet it looks like cable
companies prefer to force STBs on their customers, and discourage use of
the CableCard (e.g by charging for it as much as they would for an STB).
Sorry, I just feel like saying "boo-hoo" when I see these crunches the
cable operators have created for themselves.
> You must've been asleep during the early 1990s. QAM
> was real, the demod chips worked, the headends worked,
> and the system was well on its way at the time Zenith
> was still demoing it's "blue rack" VSB receiver
> prototype. Cable companies do not and did not give a
> rat's arse about modulation religious debates -- they
> wanted to deploy digital sooner rather than later.
> QAM was sooner & proven to meet their needs, VSB was
> later and very much unproven.
You're right about the rat's arse.
I was far from asleep during these years. In the early '90s, the vast
majority of cable systems were still analog, so it's not like they had a
huge installed base to worry about. And as they upgrade from 64-QAM (to
256-QAM), in principle, they could have gone to 16-VSB. But as I said,
the modulation issue quickly became a non-issue. The desire to prevent
interoperability and third-party components is at the heart of this
whole "crunch" phenomenon.
Oh well. Now they have to "take the heat." Big surprise.
Bert
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