said by Mike Wolf:A great way to increase capacity and offerings is to "clean house" and do a good job at knowing what the hell their doing. Other providers simply use SDV as a crutch or quick fix to get the extra capacity and offerings without actually being efficient. Sometimes taking shortcuts isn't a good idea in the long run.
actually SDV is not a crutch or quick fix to get the extra capacity. The only reason why people are complaining with SDV is Tivo has an issue on their end with SDV tuning to recommendations and the fact that the Cisco tuning adapters have had issues. Most of the time Motorola headends actually perform better with SDV than Cisco headends not only due to the smaller size of the tuning adapter but they also don't give the fits that the Cisco tuning adapter does.
TWC is actually getting to the point where they are going to start to come off of SDV for some channels when they get HD DTAs up and running they are already starting to bring the standard tier of channels digital simulcast off of SDV to allow for DTA usage in areas that have SDV. TWC is getting ready for a huge analog removal in the Northeast on October 10th and October 17. TWC is also getting ready do the same in Kansas City KS/MO.
SDV is not that bad of a service. I had my doubts about it in 2010 when TWC was getting ready to launch it and it only takes about 1 1/2 hours to configure a hub for SDV at least that is how long it took from taking down the broadcast QAMs and turning up the Narrowcast QAMs and launching SDV in my Hub. It took a whole month to launch SDV in the DFW area as they had to turn it on hub by hub.
TWC has freed up some bandwidth by using SDV in my area:
Extra VOD QAM expansion went from 4 to 8 VOD QAMs per node.
2 extra DOCSIS channels now have 6 downstream internet channels instead of 4.
Total number of SDV QAMs:
24
Total number of HD channels sent via SDV:
121 as of tommorow including the recent adds of NFL Network and NFL Redzone in SD and HD.
Have 139 HD channels soon to be 141 HD channels with 119 HD channels sent via SDV soon to be 121 when TWC Sportnet HD (National version) and TWC Deportes HD (National Version) are added tommorow.
Also TWC actually has systems that have dropped the expanded basic tier of analogs in Los Angeles including Hollywood. These are the former comcast areas. But they have an issue they are running low on bandwidth as they have not launched:
ESPN Deportes HD
MLB Strike Zone HD
So those system are being stingy on bandwidth right now as they have had to add 6 HD channels in the last month and a half and they are 750MHz with no SDV. They have a 7th HD on the way too.
Another thing is there is no way you could fit 200 HD chanels on a 750MHz system without using SDV it is not possible as you have to carry SD Channels and have bandwidth set aside for DOCSIS and VOD. it would take 75 QAMs to carry 225 HD channels at 3 to a QAM without SDV and I don't know of any 750MHz cable system that would have 75 QAMs available after using 16 for VOD/DOCSIS and all of the SD content. Bright House in Orlando Florida is carrying 206 HD channels right now with SDV and running at 750MHz and have 3 more HD channels announced so they are getting close to 225 HD channels slowly they have most HD channels on a single cable system in probably the entire planet.