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Quick Jump Menu to this Issue’s Articles March 31st, 2004 Overview Digital Hollywood – Too Much Good Content – Part 1: Importance of Content Protection MTA and ‘the Wonderful World of Color’
MTA and ‘the Wonderful World of Color’:
by Roger Bindl ([email protected]), Check out Roger’s Web Site
March 31st, 2004 Issue
March 25, 2004 is a special and historical date for television. Will 2004 be a big year for Television in Telecom?
Fifty years ago the first color televisions rolled off an RCA production line.The RCA model CT-100 color set sold for about $1,000. The Wisconsin State Journal (3/26/2004) describes this as equivalent to a state-of-the-art, 70-inch flat screen HDTV in today’s money – roughly $6,500.
This week, fifty years to the week from that rollout, the MTA held its spring conference in Minneapolis. John Schultz, GM/CTO at FTTH Communications, spoke about video at the conference. Like me, he was likely unaware that this was a special week as he talked about video, and HDTV. He described watching a lab trial of highly compressed HDTV; 6.4Mb. Compression advances like this will soon allow providers to transmit HDTV on the fiber and copper telecom networks of today.
In another room, Rod Halsted, CTO at JSI, quoted research data that 108 million homes have televisions today. Ninety-five million of those have CATV or DBS. For telco’s considering this huge market, he encouraged them to plan. Referencing the Triple Play, he warns “outs don’t win games”. There may be reasons to do or not do video, and there may be a grand slam if done right.
Telecom television, or IP Video, was a hot topic at MTA, but VoIP took the cake. Despite my primary goal to report on Telecom TV, VoIP kept surfacing. Rod Halsted described it as just one of many alternatives to POTS. Voice is available today on local line, wireless, cable modems, DSL, and over PC’s. VoIP also linked to that other V in IP – IP Video – as access vendors promoted new CPE equipment to integrate VoIP with data and video.
Grass may seem greener on the other side of the fence, but I realized this week that VoIP is creating another field of grass. CATV companies are watching VoIP traffic from Vonage (and alike) on their network, so they’re looking to take action. Telco’s are equally aware of the threat and opportunity, and taking action. The green grass of summer, or competitive alternatives, look like they are taking root with different plants.
Content reared its entertaining, yet ugly side. Mark Marinkovich of ATI told another filled room how equipment costs are dropping. On the flip side, a few telco’s described how the equipment savings were partially offset by content increases. And yet, FTTH Communications released news of a partnership with View Now. This new competitor could improve video costs in at least one area. Competition may be good.
And finally, one point of agreement, from IP and ATM vendors; technology is giving us longer reach and more bandwidth. ADSL2Plus sounds like the answer to a lot of video concerns… more streams, more bandwidth for HDTV, longer reach, and standards.
Now to celebrate, here are special notes from the U.S. Census Bureau; March 11, 2004; for the 50th Anniversary of ‘Wonderful World of Color’ TV.
www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/001702.html
• 98.2% of households have televisions.
• 248 Milliong televisions in households in 2001.
• 2.4 televisions per home.
• 1,669 is the average number of hours adults will watched television in 2004.
• $255.18 is projected annual spending per person, on cable and satellite TV in 2004.
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