 GuspazGuspazPremium,MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC
kudos:16 | Well, what kind of compression are they using?q 38.8Mbps is more than enough for three 720p feeds using 12mbit CBR h.264. On the other hand, if they're trying to cram 720p MPEG-2 in there, or worse yet, 1080p MPEG-2... Yeah, that's a problem. |
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| said by Guspaz:38.8Mbps is more than enough for three 720p feeds using 12mbit CBR h.264. On the other hand, if they're trying to cram 720p MPEG-2 in there, or worse yet, 1080p MPEG-2... Yeah, that's a problem. Well what they are doing is either 720p MPEG-2 or 1080i MPEG2, those are the relevant standards. 720p tends to peak out at about 15 Mbps, while 1080i can take the full 19 Mbps. Technically, you can get 3 720p stat muxed into a single 39 mbps QAM256 carrier as long as you are careful what kind of channels you are mixing together. IE, you probably shouldn't put ESPN HD, ESPN 2 HD, and FSN HD together as when they are showing live events they will all be needing a lot of bandwidth. Stat muxing is an art as much as a science. Comcast has also been doing tweeks the past couple of weeks and the picture does appear to be improving.
Of course the best way of solving bandwidth problems is getting rid of analog television which is of course the worst bandwidth waster of all. |
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GuspazGuspazPremium,MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC
kudos:16 | That and abandon MPEG-2; it's a dying technology for a reason. It's at least two generations behind. |
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Reviews:
 ·Comcast
| said by Guspaz:That and abandon MPEG-2; it's a dying technology for a reason. It's at least two generations behind. It may be , but how does a normal tv react to mpeg4 ? I ask this because I don't think a tv can decompress the mpeg4 signal , if they do this they lose the leg up they have on satellite , which is the regular tv in your kitchen or kids rooms don't need a cable box.
Mpeg4 needs a decoder box and those are expensive. What is it 22 million cable subscribers ?
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"It's always funny until someone gets hurt......and then it's absolutely friggin' hysterical!" |
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GuspazGuspazPremium,MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC
kudos:16 | Normal TVs need decoder boxes for digital cable anyhow. ATSC tuners can't handle encryption, for one thing. I may be using an insufficiently small sample set, but Videotron Illico (the local digital cable offering using MPEG-2) doesn't work without a box.
MPEG4 decoder boxes don't need to be expensive. Just because decoder boxes have an enormous mark up doesn't mean they have to. |
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RadioDoc58ef2c0Premium,ExMod 2000-03
join:2000-05-11 | If the MSOs would get off their collective asses and deliver CableCARDS like they are supposed to, the QAM tuners in most ATSC sets would gladly decrypt that content. They don't wanna, though, because there goes another VoD sales opportunity. Much better to force a converter box on the customer for an additional monthly fee and have that extra "storefront" in the room for impulse purchases.
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Toolmaster of La Grange. |
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| said by RadioDoc:If the MSOs would get off their collective asses and deliver CableCARDS like they are supposed to, the QAM tuners in most ATSC sets would gladly decrypt that content. They don't wanna, though, because there goes another VoD sales opportunity. Much better to force a converter box on the customer for an additional monthly fee and have that extra "storefront" in the room for impulse purchases. My TV has a Cablecard and it certainly WILL NOT decode MPEG-4 content. |
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Reviews:
·Comcast
| reply to Guspaz
said by Guspaz:Normal TVs need decoder boxes for digital cable anyhow. ATSC tuners can't handle encryption, for one thing. I may be using an insufficiently small sample set, but Videotron Illico (the local digital cable offering using MPEG-2) doesn't work without a box. MPEG4 decoder boxes don't need to be expensive. Just because decoder boxes have an enormous mark up doesn't mean they have to. Ahh , no. My tv has a digital tuner atsc/ntsc and it decodes mpeg2 fine. ATSC tuners have a cable card slot to handle encryption , thats different then mpeg 2/4 handling.
Mpeg4 codec chips are damn expensive , broadcom has a huge stake in this market and is the defacto standard at this point for STBs.
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"It's always funny until someone gets hurt......and then it's absolutely friggin' hysterical!" |
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Reviews:
·Comcast
| reply to jmallory
said by jmallory:said by RadioDoc:If the MSOs would get off their collective asses and deliver CableCARDS like they are supposed to, the QAM tuners in most ATSC sets would gladly decrypt that content. They don't wanna, though, because there goes another VoD sales opportunity. Much better to force a converter box on the customer for an additional monthly fee and have that extra "storefront" in the room for impulse purchases. My TV has a Cablecard and it certainly WILL NOT decode MPEG-4 content. Neither will mine , I was thinking the same , I guess they think the tv doesn't do anything to the transport to view it.
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"It's always funny until someone gets hurt......and then it's absolutely friggin' hysterical!" |
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RadioDoc58ef2c0Premium,ExMod 2000-03
join:2000-05-11 | reply to jmallory
Who said anything about MPEG-4? I'm referring to the digital channel encryption comment above.
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Toolmaster of La Grange. |
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