1 edit | [HD] Is Verizon lying about HD? Last night we had to watch the lance armstrong interview in low def. It was extremely painful and I may need to see an eye doctor, as my eyes are still hurting.
I'm sorry if this q is in the faq. But in the threads I just skimmed about Fios' HD channel selection, I'm getting mixed and contradictory data. One set of arguments, which are themselves buried deep in threads with hundreds of unrelated posts, say Fios has trouble paying subscription fees for HD vs. cheaper SD fees. The problem with this argument is that Fios is already by far the most expensive, and charges extra for getting more HD channels, so they just pass along any extra costs, and then some.
The other set of arguments says there is a data limitation on how many hd channels fios can carry. But I was thinking about this. I know fiber can carry a ton of data. According Fios's own marketers, that's supposedly why the PQ is highest on Fios. So the argument also makes little sense to me, unless Verizon is lying.
If I had to make a wild guess, I'd guess that neither argument is accurate, and that it is actually a mocha limitation, and that they just would need to upgrade their mocha routers to, for instance, use two mocha frequencies instead of 1. Is this crazy guess correct?
Jason Taylor
Daily rant @ »twitter.com/jasontaylor7 |
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guppy_fishPremium
join:2003-12-09
Lakeland, FL
kudos:1 Reviews:
 ·Verizon FiOS
| OWN is not carried in HD on FIOS, not just on FIOS but many other cable networks as well.
The ratings are horrible and discovery has pour half a billion into the new network, yet pulls in audiences less than on tenth of the previous syndicated weekly show.
No cable network has the capacity to carry all the available HD streams so decisions are made to carry the most popular |
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 More FiberPremium,MVM
join:2005-09-26
West Chester, PA
kudos:28 | reply to jasontaylor
said by jasontaylor:If I had to make a wild guess, I'd guess that neither argument is accurate, and that it is actually a mocha limitation, and that they just would need to upgrade their mocha routers to, for instance, use two mocha frequencies instead of 1. Is this crazy guess correct? No. MOCA has nothing to do with the video signal. MOCA is only used for your WAN connection between the ONT and the router and the LAN connection between the router and the STBs.
The routers already use two MOCA frequencies. One for WAN and one for LAN. Neither one has anything to do with video (except VOD).
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There are 10 kinds of people in the world; those who understand binary and those who don't.
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1 edit | Thanks guys. But is my q really answered? Hmmmm.
Ok, given the lack of a clear answer, perhaps I need to rephrase the q. Warning: this rephrasing is not for the math impaired.
1 HD channel is 4 mbps.
1 fiber optic cable is 26 Tbps.
1 terabit is 1048576 megabits.
Therefore, 26 Tbps / 4 mbps = 26 *1048576 / 4 =6815744 = about 7 million.
Therefore, 1 fiber optic cable can handle 7 million HD channels of data.
Ooops. I messed up. Silly me. I’m such an idiot. I forgot to subtract out my intense 30 Mbps data usage. Ok, so the actual # is (26*1048576-30) / 4 =6.999999 million. That’s a huge difference.
EDIT/COMMENT: The actual HD bandwidth per channel is more like 12-14 Mbps, which changes things by a factor of 3 or so. |
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 nascar
join:2000-02-28
Verona, NJ
kudos:2 | reply to jasontaylor
Re: [HD] Is Verizon lying about HD? You need to exclude the Fiber since everything else is the weak link. One day, but far from now, Fiber will show its potential. The Fiber cable as opposed to a coaxial cable is the main difference and only for how the TV is broadcast to the home.
Fiber, so far, has been nothing more than a marketing gimmick. Comcast, for example has no disadvantage when it comes to TV. The same Moto devices front end and back end are used. Vz has utilized IP for certain functionality but not for how the TV signal is broadcast to the home(yet). As long as QAM is the method of delivery than only removing SD channels and or compression will lead to more HD channels.
Internet is another matter and then Fiber has the advantage due to how the back end is setup and your in home ONT. |
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PJL
join:2008-07-24
Long Beach, CA
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Verizon FiOS
| reply to jasontaylor
said by jasontaylor:Thanks guys. But is my q really answered? Hmmmm.
Ok, given the lack of a clear answer, perhaps I need to rephrase the q. Warning: this rephrasing is not for the math impaired.
1 HD channel is 4 mbps.
1 fiber optic cable is 26 Tbps.
1 terabit is 1048576 megabits.
Therefore, 26 Tbps / 4 mbps = 26 *1048576 / 4 =6815744 = about 7 million.
Therefore, 1 fiber optic cable can handle 7 million HD channels of data.
Ooops. I messed up. Silly me. I’m such an idiot. I forgot to subtract out my intense 30 Mbps data usage. Ok, so the actual # is (26*1048576-30) / 4 =6.999999 million. That’s a huge difference.
FiOS TV is delivered via QAM channels, so your calculations for fiber capacity are not relevant. The problem is a limitation on the number of available QAM channels, not fiber capacity. Only a certain number of TV channels can be placed on a given QAM channel (and that's usually only two unless the content provider uses low bandwidths that allows combining more than two onto one QAM). Verizon does not further compress content provider streams, but takes advantage of the combining when they can to conserver QAM space. Some newer content (sports subscription, etc.) are being moved to MP4 compression (which is more efficient), but moving all channels to MP4 thus increasing channel capacity requires that all subscribers have the newer 7XXX STBs since the 6XXX STBs cannot decode MP4.
Now if FiOS moved to IP delivery (versus QAM) then fiber capacity would be used, but if it's only one stream per STB tuners in use, then it is a very small amount of traffic. |
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 ThinkdiffPremium,MVM
join:2001-08-07
Bronx, NY
kudos:6 | Just to make this point even clearer - FiOS TV utilizes an RF to fiber to RF conversion. At the FiOS headend, they basically run a regular CableTV system that has ~864MHz bandwidth split into 6MHz QAM channels. That RF signal is modulated onto one single wavelength in the fiber and demodulated into RF in your ONT. This is the same technique used by cable companies that run HFC networks (local fiber nodes convert fiber to coax for 200-300 homes), which is pretty much all of them.
The benefit is FiOS used to offer analog TV service, it works with industry standard set top boxes, and it works with QAM tuners and CableCARDs. Verizon didn't have to recreate anything - they can just reuse. The downside is FiOS has the same restrictions/limitations on capacity that cable companies do. The upside is they don't need to waste space on analog or DOCSIS Channels (for cable modem), so they can get away with 2 HD channels per QAM and claim they don't recompress anything.
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University of Southern California - Fight On! |
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hubrisnxs
join:2009-12-30
Fountain Valley, CA
kudos:1 | QAM is the correct answer, it's still the limiting factor,. |
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 DrDrewSo that others may surf.
join:2009-01-28
SoCal
kudos:8
4 edits | reply to jasontaylor
said by jasontaylor:Ok, given the lack of a clear answer, perhaps I need to rephrase the q. Warning: this rephrasing is not for the math impaired.
1 HD channel is 4 mbps.
1 fiber optic cable is 26 Tbps.
1 terabit is 1048576 megabits.
Therefore, 26 Tbps / 4 mbps = 26 *1048576 / 4 =6815744 = about 7 million.
Therefore, 1 fiber optic cable can handle 7 million HD channels of data.
1 HD channel is a ~12-14 mpbs MPEG2 video stream. 1 SD channel is a ~3.8 mpbs MPEG2 video stream.
1 EIA 256 QAM, 6 Mhz wide, RF cable channel = ~38 mpbs usable data rate.
2-3 HD or 10 SD channels fit on a single 256 QAM RF cable channel.
Verizon FIOS fiber equipment carries a RF cable signal of 860 Mhz. This is on a separate light wave from the xPON data channels used for data.
860 Mhz = ~135 RF cable channels. These RF channels can be 256 QAM, 64 QAM, analog, or something else using a 6 Mhz wide analog carrier signal.
135 channels x 38 mbps = ~5.1 Tbps downstream broadcast data capacity.
135 QAM RF channels x 2 HD streams per QAM = 270 HD channels.
135 QAM RF channels x 3 HD streams per QAM = 405 HD channels.
Of course the actual number of HD channel is less due to the number of SD channels on the system.
To increase the number of channels carried, Verizon could:
1. Upgrade to MPEG4 or better. allows about double the number of HD channels per RF channel.
2. Upgrade RF bandwidth to 1 Ghz, allows for about 20 more RF channels and about 40-60 more HD channels.
3. Increase IPTV offerings beyond VOD, streaming channels only when requested. Possibly unlimited channels.
[edit] Added pics above, taken from the attached PDF.
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If it's important, back it up... twice. Even 99.999% availability isn't enough sometimes. |
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| Nice response drew, but how could they increase to 1Ghz ? I thought thats where Moca lived, above 860Mhz? |
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More FiberPremium,MVM
join:2005-09-26
West Chester, PA
kudos:28 | said by ITALIAN926:I thought thats where Moca lived, above 860Mhz? Indeed. Channel C4 is used for MOCA WAN. It is a 50Mhz frequency band from 875-1025Mhz.
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There are 10 kinds of people in the world; those who understand binary and those who don't.
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 Zero
join:2009-07-01
Collegeville, PA | reply to ITALIAN926
You're right they can't because of MoCA, which is why they didn't start out with a 1GHz plant. Only options 1 and 3 are viable and only option 1 is mature enough to be implemented now. |
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| reply to guppy_fish
said by guppy_fish:OWN is not carried in HD on FIOS, not just on FIOS but many other cable networks as well.
The ratings are horrible and discovery has pour half a billion into the new network, yet pulls in audiences less than on tenth of the previous syndicated weekly show.
No cable network has the capacity to carry all the available HD streams so decisions are made to carry the most popular
This argument doesn't work on Verizon, sorry. They couldn't care less about "popularity." They will add whatever random crap a Verizon exec decides on a whim that needs to be added.
FiOS probably has the highest ratio of crap HD out there. Need I remind you that Verizon is wasting six HD slots on those ".TV" networks that no cable provider will carry; another ten HD slots on those weird Spanish channels that no one has ever heard of before, and another dozen HD slots carrying redundant west coast premium channels on east coast systems and vice versa.
What is that, over 25 HD channel slots Verizon is wasting on random, redundant or low rated bullshit right now?
Also, OWN is carried in HD by everyone else except for DirecTV and Comcast. They are in HD on Dish, AT&T, Time Warner, Cox, Charter, etc. It's far from being a fringe network like the Byron Allen channels are. |
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| You had me until your defense of OWN, which is a nothing vanity channel created to feed one large woman's equally massive ego. I'm glad we don't have it in HD. |
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DrDrewSo that others may surf.
join:2009-01-28
SoCal
kudos:8
2 edits | reply to ITALIAN926
MOCA has several bands. IF the provider is using up to 1 Ghz, they should probably use MOCA band D so it doesn't interfere. Slide from this presentaion: » www.mocalliance.org/CEDIA/presen···tion.pdfVerizon didn't start with 1 Ghz because at the time they launched, the boxes weren't available to do 1 Ghz. It's possible now, but doesn't provide a huge benefit for the costs involved. Especially since all the 1 Ghz capable boxes also do MPEG4. |
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Will VZ ever go the full IPTV route? If so, when?
I mean I'm actually surprised they haven't moved more in that direction already... |
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Dr Drew, they couldnt do that because there are a BILLION 5-1000Mhz coax splitters in the field right now. |
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nascar
join:2000-02-28
Verona, NJ
kudos:2 | reply to JackBauer
In the works...
said by JackBauer:Will VZ ever go the full IPTV route? If so, when?
I mean I'm actually surprised they haven't moved more in that direction already...
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DrDrewSo that others may surf.
join:2009-01-28
SoCal
kudos:8 | reply to ITALIAN926
said by ITALIAN926:Dr Drew, they couldnt do that because there are a BILLION 5-1000Mhz splitters right now in the field.
That 1000Mhz isn't a hard cut off.
The signal above 1000 Mhz still passes on the majority of 5-1000 Mhz splitters. They just aren't performance tested or rated for a known amount of loss above 1000 Mhz. MOCA equipment was designed with that in mind.
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If it's important, back it up... twice. Even 99.999% availability isn't enough sometimes. |
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