Cable and DBS Not Permitted to Downgrade HDTV Signals

[rdinkel]

Check out this story: http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6295518.html
May help our case for keeping HD true HD quality. Look toward the middle of the article for references to Echostar.

 

[GeorgeLV]

Check out this story: http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6295518.html
May help our case for keeping HD true HD quality. Look toward the middle of the article for references to Echostar.

Read closer. It only applies if they must-carry. If they go retransmit consent the cable/dbs company can do whatever they like.

 

[FreddyvsJasonvsAsh]

hmmmmmm.....interesting

 

[rdinkel]

Read closer. It only applies if they must-carry. If they go retransmit consent the cable/dbs company can do whatever they like.

Agreed. But it is also clear that the NAB is coming online in favor of not downgrading their signals. That may help in the long run--as so many folks start buying HDTV sets..

 

[David_Levin]

While those of us with HD TVs certainly want full HD resolution. The big issue comes up after the analog shut-off.

Cable wants to convert the Digital to analog to keep people's cable-ready analog TVs ( VCR, & DVD Recorder) alive. This makes sense for the 3rd and 4th TVs in the guest and kids rooms (& especially your "visiting" mother-in-law ). I think many customers will want this.

 

[drdr]

While those of us with HD TVs certainly want full HD resolution. The big issue comes up after the analog shut-off.
Cable wants to convert the Digital to analog to keep people's cable-ready analog TVs ( VCR, & DVD Recorder) alive. This makes sense for the 3rd and 4th TVs in the guest and kids rooms (& especially your "visiting" mother-in-law ). I think many customers will want this.

Actually, I think Comcast wants to get rid of all analog channels and provide cheap digital STB for all customers. They can fit many digital channels into one analog channel slot. Eliminating analog channels is necessary to provide bandwidth for HDTV and VOD.

DBS actually has much more bandwidth available than cable at the individual home level. The problem is that they have to deliver the same content to everyone (except for spotbeams, which serve homes in groups of hundreds of thousands of customers rather than for tens of millions).

Cable could give everyone in your neighborhood different HDTV programming through VOD and only stream the programming you are actually watching at that time. This is probably the direction Comcast wants to go.

I had Comcast VOD for a while, and it really could make the DVR obsolete. They just don't have the bandwidth to do VOD with HDTV yet given the hundreds of MHz consumed by analog channels. If individualized programming like this catches on, DBS will have a hard time competing. (FIOS has even more bandwidth, but most of us are a long way from getting fiber into our homes.)

 

[kb7oeb]

I think the digital tuner mandate will really help the cable analog to digital conversion. A lot of the sets that now sell with digital tuners support cable card. If they don't encrypt the basic channels people will be able to split the basic signal the same way they do today with analog.