Getting more HD through the same old cable; CableCard on the outs?
By Richard Lawler 
posted Jun 5th 2006 3:49PM
posted Jun 5th 2006 3:49PM
That's the problem cable providers are facing, as we keep pushing for more channels and capacity keeps...staying the same. USA Today had a nice writeup today concerning the problems faced as they try to add more channels and features to compete with satellite television providers, and a couple different ways they can solve them. Unfortunately for CableCard DVR and television users, one of the proposed solutions "switched digital" would make their cards useless and force them into using a digital cable box. As TV works now, every channel is sent to you all the time, the proposed solution changes things so that you are only sent the channel you are currently watching. Time Warner has implemented the technology in a few areas already, while Cox and Cablevision are looking into it. The other workaround means stripping channels from analog cable packages, and replacing them with high definition channels.This conundrum may explain the sudden disappearance of CableCard, as manufacturers wait for the 2.0 standard instead of throwing in a feature that may soon be obsolete anyway.
I really hope they do away with analog cable and have digital simulcasts of the analog channels. Ive seen devices that hook into the cable on the outside of the house and converts to digital before it ever enters the house and then you can still use all the old tv's to tune analog channels but they would then be digital. That would free up room for alot of channels. I dont remember the specifics but I want to say a hdtv station takes as much space as 2 or 3 analog channels (and my local cable co has 70 analog channels.... so thats 15-20 HD channels after putting up the digital versions).
My cable co already has 12 HD channels online now and said they have room for ~20 more right now. So I really dont think they are in that much trouble atm. Granted if/when sat companies get to 50+ HD NATIONAL channels there will be a problem.
The amount of space the HD signal takes up depends on the modulation. If your cable company is using 256 QAM, they can actually fit two HD channels in the space of each analog. If they are using 64 QAM, they can only fit one. I'm not sure about other modulation types, but most cable companies are migrating toward QAM if they're not already there.
Basically, a lot of problems will just go away along with analog :-)
If only the channels you're tuned to come into your house with this new system, the Cable Co will be able to tell instantly how many televisions are on (at least how many are tuned to different shows), what those shows are, whether the subscriber is leaving a single channel up or surfing, etc. just by paying attention to which data is getting sent where.
Essentially, every screen could become a data-point in an audience database. (Also, your cable company will know for certain just how much playboy channel you watch.) What happens when Homeland Security uses Total Information Awareness to poll this data for "suspicious" viewers?
Of course, If a subscriber is only using bandwidth for what they are watching, they may want to pay _only_ for what they're watching (a la carte business model).
Definitely a mixed bag - less privacy, but increased practicality of alternate pricing models.
Brian,
QAM 256 has 38Mbps of throughput and doesn't require the error checking of ATSC. This combined with statistical multiplexing, most cable co's fit 3 or more HD channels on one SD channel.
Well I was way wrong then.... much more than 20 channels will be avaliable once analog goes away. Will be more like 60 which would put it right there with dish/directv's longest term plans.
Won't things get worse before they get better? My cable co is just about to begin a digital simulcast, sending the entire channel lineup digitally alongside the basic cable stations in analog. So people with digital boxes of any kind will get the digital versions of every channel. Sounds great and all, but doesnt this mean they will be using up even more bandwidth, since they are leaving the analog stuff there for now?
Curious ... how much bandwidth does DOCSIS 2.0 and 3.0 provide? Maybe switching over to a GigE platform would be better in order to retain the all channels multicasted operation.
It will be unfortunate if we lose the CableCard as Windows Vista was going to have support for it (HTPC meets cableDVR).
What's cable? That thing that goes from my antenna to the back of my HDTV?