USDTV subscribers: HD-channels or SD-only

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Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

For those of you *subscribing* to USDTV's service (all 10,000 of
you or so...), does USDTV plan on adding HD-channels?

A certain poster in this forum (who shall remain nameless)
keeps extolling the virtues/necessities/eventuality of
a 'pay-TV' business model for broadcast-TV. (I.e.,
broadcasters will provide 1 free program at standard-def,
and everything else will require a subscription model of
some sort.)

I just don't understand how USDTV can 'squeeze' in HD-channels
on the scarce airwaves.

 

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On Sat, 28 Aug 2004, Gkdeys wrote:
> For those of you *subscribing* to USDTV's service (all 10,000 of
> you or so...), does USDTV plan on adding HD-channels?

Not that I've heard. USDTV's business model seems to be to bottom-feed by
providing a few of the more popular cable/satellite channels on the cheap
to people who don't want to pay for cable/satellite. On a per-channel
basis, they're more expensive, but that's the usual case with
bottom-feeding services (think pre-pay cell phones).

It's actually a pretty clever idea. The question is if they can get
enough customers who only want (what will always be limited to) a relative
handful of cable/satellite channels. The cable and satellite companies
can always offer many times more channels.

There's probably many people like me who primarily watch the same 5 or so
channels. The question is whether there's sufficient concensus on what
constitutes "my favorite 5 channels" with a wide audience that USDTV can
support it.

The biggest selling point for cable/satellite are the premium channels:
movie channels (HBO, Showtime, etc.), premium sports, and of course porn.
All of this is moving to HDTV, and there simply is not enough OTA
bandwidth to support all of it.

> A certain poster in this forum (who shall remain nameless)
> keeps extolling the virtues/necessities/eventuality of
> a 'pay-TV' business model for broadcast-TV. (I.e.,
> broadcasters will provide 1 free program at standard-def,
> and everything else will require a subscription model of
> some sort.)

That poster has been proven on multiple occasions to be a crank and
crackpot with his own psychotic agenda. Remember, anything that he says,
the opposite is true.

I wish that he would start advocating stocks. It would be nice to have a
reliable source of information for what stocks are guaranteed safe to
short.

> I just don't understand how USDTV can 'squeeze' in HD-channels
> on the scarce airwaves.

They aren't, and that isn't their intent.

-- Mark --

http/staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.

 

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Mark Crispin <mrc@CAC.Washington.EDU> wrote (in part):

>There's probably many people like me who primarily watch the same 5 or so
>channels. The question is whether there's sufficient concensus on what
>constitutes "my favorite 5 channels" with a wide audience that USDTV can
>support it.

Exactly right. I looked at USDTV's offerings, and they wouldn't be my
choices. $19.95? With apologies to Robocop, I wouldn't buy that for
a dollar. If I could choose 10 shows from a complete list of
non-premium cable channels and had already chosen my favorite 5, I
might add Discovery and TLC to help fill it out. That's about it.

I like USDTV's idea of offering cable channels OTA, but they'd need a
much greater selection and they'd still have to price it well below
the competition. I don't see how they can do that.

I'd also want to be able to add and drop favorites at will. I'd want
USA when they're running new shows in the summer, but I don't need
wall-to-wall Law and Order repeats the rest of the year.

I wouldn't buy anything that didn't offer Comedy Central. How could I
keep up with current events if I couldn't watch The Daily Show?

Del Mibbler <mibbler@nycap.rr.com>

 

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"Del Mibbler" <mibbler@nycap.rr.com> wrote in message
news:9uj1j0pbktmpo6f46afcnguv086dbbog5g@4ax.com...
> Mark Crispin <mrc@CAC.Washington.EDU> wrote (in part):
>
>>There's probably many people like me who primarily watch the same 5 or so
>>channels. The question is whether there's sufficient concensus on what
>>constitutes "my favorite 5 channels" with a wide audience that USDTV can
>>support it.
>
> Exactly right. I looked at USDTV's offerings, and they wouldn't be my
> choices. $19.95? With apologies to Robocop, I wouldn't buy that for
> a dollar. If I could choose 10 shows from a complete list of
> non-premium cable channels and had already chosen my favorite 5, I
> might add Discovery and TLC to help fill it out. That's about it.
>
> I like USDTV's idea of offering cable channels OTA, but they'd need a
> much greater selection and they'd still have to price it well below
> the competition. I don't see how they can do that.
>
> I'd also want to be able to add and drop favorites at will. I'd want
> USA when they're running new shows in the summer, but I don't need
> wall-to-wall Law and Order repeats the rest of the year.
>
> I wouldn't buy anything that didn't offer Comedy Central. How could I
> keep up with current events if I couldn't watch The Daily Show?
>
> Del Mibbler <mibbler@nycap.rr.com>


You are obviously NOT their target audience which appears to be families who
want some family content and a reasonably low price. There are many people
who don't have anything but rabbit ears and just can't justify even the
basic cable or sat prices with their budget or their morals. This gives them
HD and digital SD from locals as well as a few additional channels for kids
and other family viewing for $20 bucks a month.

 

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Charles Tomaras (tomaras@tomaras.com) wrote in alt.tv.tech.hdtv:
> This gives them
> HD and digital SD from locals as well as a few additional channels for kids
> and other family viewing for $20 bucks a month.

For that same price, though, you can get a "basic analog" cable package from
most providers, and it will give you about the same mix of channels with
no up-front costs.

Likewise, if you have an antenna already (which you need for USDTV), you
don't need to buy satellite locals, so Dish Network's AT60 package for
$24.99/month would give you everything that USDTV gives you except for
Fox News, HGTV and Toon Disney, plus a *lot* more.

If you can afford the display to show HD, you can afford a few more bucks
a month for a full-blown subscription to cable or satellite.

--
Jeff Rife | "You keep using that word. I do not think it
SPAM bait: | means what you think it means."
AskDOJ@usdoj.gov |
spam@ftc.gov | -- Inigo Montoya, "The Princess Bride"

 

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Within these hallowed halls, Mark Crispin of <mrc@CAC.Washington.EDU>
added the following to the collective conscience:
> On Sat, 28 Aug 2004, Gkdeys wrote:
>> For those of you *subscribing* to USDTV's service (all 10,000 of
>> you or so...), does USDTV plan on adding HD-channels?
>
> Not that I've heard. USDTV's business model seems to be to
> bottom-feed by providing a few of the more popular cable/satellite
> channels on the cheap to people who don't want to pay for
> cable/satellite. On a per-channel basis, they're more expensive, but
> that's the usual case with bottom-feeding services (think pre-pay
> cell phones).
>
> It's actually a pretty clever idea. The question is if they can get
> enough customers who only want (what will always be limited to) a
> relative handful of cable/satellite channels. The cable and
> satellite companies can always offer many times more channels.
>
The problem is unlike their forfathers (SelecTV & OnTV) these are commercial
laden channels (except for the Disney channels, but I don't think they could
carry commercials).

The joke is Fox News Channel should be carried on the FOX digital channel in
the same way ABC News Now is on most ABC affiliate digital channels along
with the 720p HD and radar subchannel.

 

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Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

On Sun, 29 Aug 2004 19:07:30 GMT, "21C BBS" <dontlook@here.net> wrote:

>The problem is unlike their forfathers (SelecTV & OnTV)

^^^^^
There is a name I thought EVERYONE forgot about!

 

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"Jeff Rife" <wevsr@nabs.net> wrote in message
news:MPG.1b9c1fd37b33f249897f6@news.nabs.net...
> Charles Tomaras (tomaras@tomaras.com) wrote in alt.tv.tech.hdtv:
>> This gives
>> them
>> HD and digital SD from locals as well as a few additional channels for
>> kids
>> and other family viewing for $20 bucks a month.
>
> For that same price, though, you can get a "basic analog" cable package
> from
> most providers, and it will give you about the same mix of channels with
> no up-front costs.
>
> Likewise, if you have an antenna already (which you need for USDTV), you
> don't need to buy satellite locals, so Dish Network's AT60 package for
> $24.99/month would give you everything that USDTV gives you except for
> Fox News, HGTV and Toon Disney, plus a *lot* more.


Does that AT60 package give you an HD OTA tuner or are you suggesting that
these folks should be happy with an ATSC analogue signal from thier locals?


>
> If you can afford the display to show HD, you can afford a few more bucks
> a month for a full-blown subscription to cable or satellite.



For some people it's not a matter of affordability but of principal. There
are actually people out there who have the money to buy an HDTV and only
watch an hour or two at most of television per day. I still stand by the
notion that USDTV is not a bad buy for someone who wants to get an OTA HD
tuner and also have the ability to pick up a news channel a movie channel
and a couple of other extras. I'm sure USDTV's choices will expand somewhat
if they get some more markets and figure out their niche better but I see no
reason to be highly critical of a company like this that is giving it a shot
at a market segment that is totally ignored. The Sat and Cable companies
really act like everybody wants or need 200 channels to choose from and
really don't offer much service to the lower tiers of their base.

 

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Charles Tomaras (tomaras@tomaras.com) wrote in alt.tv.tech.hdtv:
> Does that AT60 package give you an HD OTA tuner or are you suggesting that
> these folks should be happy with an ATSC analogue signal from thier locals?

I know this is an HDTV newsgroup, but USDTV isn't aimed at people that want
HDTV, so I don't think that it's really an issue.

> I still stand by the
> notion that USDTV is not a bad buy for someone who wants to get an OTA HD
> tuner and also have the ability to pick up a news channel a movie channel
> and a couple of other extras.

No, it's a terrible deal for those extra cable channels. But, if you buy
the $200 USDTV HD receiver and use it to get local ATSC signals and then
add a cheap (less than $30/month) cable or satellite subscription for those
extra channels, it's a great deal.

One problem with the USDTV business model is that they don't require a
subscription for the ATSC receiver to work. This is great for people that
just want OTA HD, but it really makes the extra channels that USDTV offers
a very bad deal, although the picture quality should be decent for the few
channels they offer.

Another problem that will start to show up is that USDTV can't add channels
without reducing quality to cable/satellite levels plus they might have
to reduce quality anyway if they are using bandwidth from a station that
decides to go to HD (or sell bandwidth to somebody that pays more).

--
Jeff Rife |
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AskDOJ@usdoj.gov |
spam@ftc.gov |

 

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Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

Within these hallowed halls, the_professor@atbi.com of
<the_professor@atbi.com> added the following to the collective
conscience:
> On Sun, 29 Aug 2004 19:07:30 GMT, "21C BBS" <dontlook@here.net> wrote:
>
>> The problem is unlike their forefathers (SelecTV & OnTV)
>
> ^^^^^
> There is a name I thought EVERYONE forgot about!

Naw, I lived in Los Angeles area (Huntington Beach) when both were popular.
Both were easily hacked as they merely tweaked the video standard to be
unwachable (well, unstable but somewhat watchable) without the overpriced
decoders.

USDTV has the edge as it's digital and not big enough to put the effort into
hacking (though it would be a fun weekend project for hacking enthusiasts).

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

Jeff Rife wrote:
> Charles Tomaras (tomaras@tomaras.com) wrote in alt.tv.tech.hdtv:
>
>>Does that AT60 package give you an HD OTA tuner or are you suggesting that
>>these folks should be happy with an ATSC analogue signal from thier locals?
>
>
> I know this is an HDTV newsgroup, but USDTV isn't aimed at people that want
> HDTV, so I don't think that it's really an issue.
>
>
>> I still stand by the
>>notion that USDTV is not a bad buy for someone who wants to get an OTA HD
>>tuner and also have the ability to pick up a news channel a movie channel
>>and a couple of other extras.
>
>
> No, it's a terrible deal for those extra cable channels. But, if you buy
> the $200 USDTV HD receiver and use it to get local ATSC signals and then
> add a cheap (less than $30/month) cable or satellite subscription for those
> extra channels, it's a great deal.

The deal is $19.95 for 12 cable channels and $19.95 for the HDTV
receiver for a USDTV subscriber with a year contract. In new markets
they will have the ability to double at least the number of cable
channels since they will use WM9. The same receiver can be bought
without a subscription for $198.76 at WalMart.

But USDTV is not the end all of this new trend. Other more interesting
models are in the works.
>
> One problem with the USDTV business model is that they don't require a
> subscription for the ATSC receiver to work. This is great for people that
> just want OTA HD, but it really makes the extra channels that USDTV offers
> a very bad deal, although the picture quality should be decent for the few
> channels they offer.
>
> Another problem that will start to show up is that USDTV can't add channels
> without reducing quality to cable/satellite levels plus they might have
> to reduce quality anyway if they are using bandwidth from a station that
> decides to go to HD (or sell bandwidth to somebody that pays more).
>

 

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Bob Miller (robmx@earthlink.net) wrote in alt.tv.tech.hdtv:
> > No, it's a terrible deal for those extra cable channels. But, if you buy
> > the $200 USDTV HD receiver and use it to get local ATSC signals and then
> > add a cheap (less than $30/month) cable or satellite subscription for those
> > extra channels, it's a great deal.
>
> The deal is $19.95 for 12 cable channels and $19.95 for the HDTV
> receiver for a USDTV subscriber with a year contract.

Then, it's definitely better to not subscribe to USDTV. The receiver plus
subscription is $259.35 for the first year. Buying the receiver alone is
$200 (give or take a few pennies), so you are left with $59.35, which pays
for 2-3 months of minimum cable or satellite. After that, you can either
toss the cable and just live with OTA or spend the $25-30/month and get
40-60 channels instead of 12 channels for $20/month.

> In new markets
> they will have the ability to double at least the number of cable
> channels since they will use WM9.

I keep hearing claims like this, but every WM9 demo I have seen shows that
the actual bitrate savings for the same quality picture is only about 25%,
and that is on multi-pass, non-realtime compression. For single pass, the
savings isn't very much at all, and doing it in realtime would require
a pretty hefty CPU just to keep up.

--
Jeff Rife |
SPAM bait: | http/www.nabs.net/Cartoons/Dilbert/SupportTraining.gif
AskDOJ@usdoj.gov |
spam@ftc.gov |

 

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>>The deal is $19.95 for 12 cable channels and $19.95 for the HDTV
>>receiver for a USDTV subscriber with a year contract.
>
> Then, it's definitely better to not subscribe to USDTV. The receiver plus
> subscription is $259.35 for the first year. Buying the receiver alone is
> $200 (give or take a few pennies), so you are left with $59.35, which pays
> for 2-3 months of minimum cable or satellite. After that, you can either
> toss the cable and just live with OTA or spend the $25-30/month and get
> 40-60 channels instead of 12 channels for $20/month.

I don't follow your logic. If a family does *NOT* have an HDTV, then
I agree, why waste $259 (1 year) for 10-20 channels? On the other hand,
if the family has an HD-ready (but no ATSC capability) TV, then the
USDTV box is actually worth considering.

And let's get one thing straight ... in the markets USDTV is targeting,
the 'basic cable' rate is well over $40/mo. Here in Los Angeles,
California, it's a ridiculous $50/mo (Comcast.) You don't even want
to know the cost of (residential) electricity in California, you'd
laugh to death...(you really would...)

> I keep hearing claims like this, but every WM9 demo I have seen shows that
> the actual bitrate savings for the same quality picture is only about 25%,
> and that is on multi-pass, non-realtime compression. For single pass, the
> savings isn't very much at all, and doing it in realtime would require
> a pretty hefty CPU just to keep up.

Ok, I admit this doesn't address your point directly (i.e.
'WM9 vs MPEG-2 at standard-definition bit-rates'), but have you
seen the high-definition 'tech-demos' put out by Microsoft?
http/www.wmvhd.com
http/www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/content_provider/film/ContentShowcase.aspx

You'll need an AMD 2600+ or Pentium4/2.8 (or faster) to watch these.
(Sadly, Microsoft's MacOSX player doesn't yet support DRM (digital
rights management), so most won't play on a Mac platform.)

These demo-clips were all prepared/supervised by Microsoft, so it's
safe to say they received 'the upmost scrutiny,' (best encoder
settings, multi-pass, D-5 professional digital video source.)
Most of the time, they're nearly reference quality. (Some of the
clips, like the 'Speed' trailer with flying birds, do show obviously
severe compression-artifacts.) Not bad considering they're encoded
between 6-9Mbps.

If you don't trust Microsoft's prepared clips, then look at the
Bourne Supremacy trailer at the official movie site,
http/www.thebournesupremacy.com/trailer/BourneSupremacyT3_720p_8mbit_SRD_NR_bt-1.zip

Again, the quality is superb to my eyes, and at a bitrate half of
OTA/ATSC.

Divx.com just posted the *same* Bourne Supremacy trailer, compressed in
DIVX5 (MPEG-4, 1280x720.)
http/www.divx.com/movies/
The employee stated the trailer was sourced from a D-5 digital reel
(so it's *NOT* just a re-encode of the official WMV9 trailer.)

DIVX's trailer is encoded at just 3.5Mbps. And even though the
picture-quality is obviously inferior to the WMV9 clip (@ 7-8Mbps),
it's still surprisingly good. My local ABC affiliate's broadcast
(@ 15Mbps) doesn't look as good as the MPEG-4 clip @ 3.5MBps.

Given these 2 data points (for the Bourne Supremacy Trailer),
this gives me hope for a Pay-per-view HD movie-service. The
movies could be encoded offline using multi-pass and the highest
quality possible, and still deliver excellent quality at just
4-5 MBps. For a TV-viewing environment, the quality would
surpass any other widely available consumer HD-source (not
counting DVHS/DTheatre.)

 

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annoyed (annoyed@nowhere.net) wrote in alt.tv.tech.hdtv:
> I don't follow your logic. If a family does *NOT* have an HDTV, then
> I agree, why waste $259 (1 year) for 10-20 channels? On the other hand,
> if the family has an HD-ready (but no ATSC capability) TV, then the
> USDTV box is actually worth considering.

The box is good...just not the subscription.

> And let's get one thing straight ... in the markets USDTV is targeting,
> the 'basic cable' rate is well over $40/mo. Here in Los Angeles,
> California, it's a ridiculous $50/mo (Comcast.)

I have a very expensive local Comcast, too, but if you look closely, they
have an analog-only package for less than $30/month.

> Ok, I admit this doesn't address your point directly (i.e.
> 'WM9 vs MPEG-2 at standard-definition bit-rates'), but have you
> seen the high-definition 'tech-demos' put out by Microsoft?

Yes, and those are the ones that prove that they only get about 25% extra
compression, because most are filtered down to *far* less than 1920x1080,
or use 1920x1080/24p, which takes *far* less bandwidth than 1920x1080/60i.

> Again, the quality is superb to my eyes, and at a bitrate half of
> OTA/ATSC.

Again, not a big deal. Do the math:

For 1080/60i:
1920 * 1080 * 60 / 2 = 62,208,000 pixels/sec

For 1080/24p:
1920 * 1080 * 24 = 49,766,400 pixels/sec

Just to start with, the raw pixel rate is 80% of that of 1080i. Thus,
you get a savings of 20% without even doing anything. So, if the actual
bitrate is 50% of the full 19.3Mbps ATSC MPEG2, they're only saving about
35% off what MPEG2 would take to encode 24p data. Plus, they don't have
a single example of realtime compression.

We all know that the very best DVDs can look astonishingly good at a "mere"
5Mbps, yet 5Mbps is barely enough for good realtime encoding of MPEG2
without spending literally *millions* of dollars on encoders.

> Divx.com just posted the *same* Bourne Supremacy trailer, compressed in
> DIVX5 (MPEG-4, 1280x720.)
>
> DIVX's trailer is encoded at just 3.5Mbps. And even though the
> picture-quality is obviously inferior to the WMV9 clip (@ 7-8Mbps),
> it's still surprisingly good. My local ABC affiliate's broadcast
> (@ 15Mbps) doesn't look as good as the MPEG-4 clip @ 3.5MBps.

Then your local ABC affiliate is doing something hideously wrong. 24p
encodes wonderfully into the 60p transmission that ABC does. You get
lots of "repeat frame" flags that allow all those extra bits to go towards
dealing with every problem.

In theory, you can do 24p in just 40% of the bitrate of 60p, so 8Mbps
isn't all that big a deal for 720/24p.

> Given these 2 data points (for the Bourne Supremacy Trailer),
> this gives me hope for a Pay-per-view HD movie-service.

Keep dreaming.

> The
> movies could be encoded offline using multi-pass and the highest
> quality possible, and still deliver excellent quality at just
> 4-5 MBps.

This won't happen because there isn't a TV station in the world that
can deal with pumping out the bits unchanged. That may happen far in
the future, but it's actually quite an expensive proposition, and who
is going to pay for it at those small-time stations that are selling their
bandwidth to USDTV?

--
Jeff Rife |
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AskDOJ@usdoj.gov |
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>>Ok, I admit this doesn't address your point directly (i.e.
>>'WM9 vs MPEG-2 at standard-definition bit-rates'), but have you
>>seen the high-definition 'tech-demos' put out by Microsoft?
>
>
> Yes, and those are the ones that prove that they only get about 25% extra
> compression, because most are filtered down to *far* less than 1920x1080,
> or use 1920x1080/24p, which takes *far* less bandwidth than 1920x1080/60i.
>
>
>>Again, the quality is superb to my eyes, and at a bitrate half of
>>OTA/ATSC.
>
>
> Again, not a big deal. Do the math:
>
> For 1080/60i:
> 1920 * 1080 * 60 / 2 = 62,208,000 pixels/sec
>
> For 1080/24p:
> 1920 * 1080 * 24 = 49,766,400 pixels/sec
>
> Just to start with, the raw pixel rate is 80% of that of 1080i. Thus,
> you get a savings of 20% without even doing anything. So, if the actual
> bitrate is 50% of the full 19.3Mbps ATSC MPEG2, they're only saving about
> 35% off what MPEG2 would take to encode 24p data. Plus, they don't have
> a single example of realtime compression.
>
> We all know that the very best DVDs can look astonishingly good at a "mere"
> 5Mbps, yet 5Mbps is barely enough for good realtime encoding of MPEG2
> without spending literally *millions* of dollars on encoders.

Ah, for some reason my basic math was failing me, and I just now see
your point. Indeed, accounting for the inherent bitrate-reduction of
24fps vs 30fps, the compression-gain no longer looks as 'fantastic' as
it once did.

> Then your local ABC affiliate is doing something hideously wrong. 24p
> encodes wonderfully into the 60p transmission that ABC does. You get
> lots of "repeat frame" flags that allow all those extra bits to go towards
> dealing with every problem.

You're probably right. The Los Angeles TV stations were among the early
adopters of ATSC, so they all got stuck with early encoders.
Our local stations never use the repeat-frame flag (at least, not
according to my ATSC-captures), but I've seen other reports that say
other stations and the cable-channels (HBO-HD) do make proper use of the
repeat-flag for 3:2 material.

>>movies could be encoded offline using multi-pass and the highest
>>quality possible, and still deliver excellent quality at just
>>4-5 MBps.
>
>
> This won't happen because there isn't a TV station in the world that
> can deal with pumping out the bits unchanged. That may happen far in
> the future, but it's actually quite an expensive proposition, and who
> is going to pay for it at those small-time stations that are selling their
> bandwidth to USDTV?

Sorry, I probably didn't explain myself clearly. Let me try again.

USDTV (and others) are investigating a broadcast-based 'movie service.'
I guess it's a lot like satellite or cable pay-per-view systems. The
cable-operator transmits a pre-selected batch of movies (rotated on
some schedule.) A customer orders a movie, and his 'box' is
allowed to decode it.

In USDTV's scheme, the transmission medium is the ATSC broadcaster
(instead of satellite or cable.) Each customer has a USDTV
receiver with a hard-drive. The customer orders the movie the night
before, then the movie is 'streamed' over the nighttime.
The following day, the entire movie is on the DVR's hard-drive,
and ready for play.

I guess the idea/model isn't really new. The 'twist' is that
companies want to buy ATSC bandwidth to operate this service over
the TV-airwaves.

My point is, USDTV would arrange for the delivery of their
'service bitstream.' I would think the ATSC TV-station doesn't
care what the bitstream contains; live programming or 'streamed'
movie packages. It's just a separate feed they plug into their
station multiplixer.

But since I don't work in industry, I hvae on clue whether this
is 'easy' or 'difficult.' I think the very few ATSC-transmitters
that are already sending out USDTV-content, could easily accomodate
USDTV's propsed PPV movie-service.

 

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annoyed (annoyed@nowhere.net) wrote in alt.tv.tech.hdtv:
> > This won't happen because there isn't a TV station in the world that
> > can deal with pumping out the bits unchanged. That may happen far in
> > the future, but it's actually quite an expensive proposition, and who
> > is going to pay for it at those small-time stations that are selling their
> > bandwidth to USDTV?
>
> My point is, USDTV would arrange for the delivery of their
> 'service bitstream.' I would think the ATSC TV-station doesn't
> care what the bitstream contains; live programming or 'streamed'
> movie packages. It's just a separate feed they plug into their
> station multiplixer.

Right. Pseudo-VOD over OTA. That can be done, but it won't make any money.
Eventually, all the providers are going to figure out that giving a plain
old DVR to every subscriber will allow them to save bandwidth by chucking
the VOD idea entirely, as long as they have the room for 100 PPV channels
(and most do, although USDTV won't). So, they up their PPV channel count
by 20 or so and they can chuck all that expensive hardware that "bandwidth
multiplies" for VOD.

They then just run everything that they would have offered on VOD in a
continuous loop on the 20 PPV channels.

--
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[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

Jeff Rife wrote:

> annoyed (annoyed@nowhere.net) wrote in alt.tv.tech.hdtv:
>
>>>This won't happen because there isn't a TV station in the world that
>>>can deal with pumping out the bits unchanged. That may happen far in
>>>the future, but it's actually quite an expensive proposition, and who
>>>is going to pay for it at those small-time stations that are selling their
>>>bandwidth to USDTV?
>>
>>My point is, USDTV would arrange for the delivery of their
>>'service bitstream.' I would think the ATSC TV-station doesn't
>>care what the bitstream contains; live programming or 'streamed'
>>movie packages. It's just a separate feed they plug into their
>>station multiplixer.
>
>
> Right. Pseudo-VOD over OTA. That can be done, but it won't make any money.
> Eventually, all the providers are going to figure out that giving a plain
> old DVR to every subscriber will allow them to save bandwidth by chucking
> the VOD idea entirely, as long as they have the room for 100 PPV channels
> (and most do, although USDTV won't). So, they up their PPV channel count
> by 20 or so and they can chuck all that expensive hardware that "bandwidth
> multiplies" for VOD.
>
> They then just run everything that they would have offered on VOD in a
> continuous loop on the 20 PPV channels.
>

With the "Pseudo-VOD" your offerings are limited by the hard drive size.
Hard drive capacity will increase while cost and size decline. MPEG4 AVC
or VC-9 will continue to improve offering a steady virtual increase in
bandwidth/storage capacity. MPEG2 will not keep up. This is not a static
business, it is dynamic. Your business plan has to reflect that.

"Pseudo-VOD" looks like a winner in that race to me. Their
infrastructure build and maintenance cost are minuscule while they are
new on the block and do not have massive debt to maintain or a skittish
market to worry about which will swoon if they ever see real competition.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

Bob Miller (robmx@earthlink.net) wrote in alt.tv.tech.hdtv:
> Jeff Rife wrote:
> > Right. Pseudo-VOD over OTA. That can be done, but it won't make any money.

Well, my prediction is now looking quite good, isn't it?

> "Pseudo-VOD" looks like a winner in that race to me

With a track record of being 100% wrong in such things, Bob Miller shows
that I'm feeling even more confident.

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