Looks like good read. Thanks.
Very nice summary of rate-shaping, re-encoding and other digital cable techniques
I don't know if this is the right place for this (if not, I'm sure that the moderators will swoop in and quickly move it 
). However, we often talk about bitrate-reduction. Here's a nice, short, informative summary:
http://broadcastengineering.com/aps/...digital_cable/
). However, we often talk about bitrate-reduction. Here's a nice, short, informative summary:http://broadcastengineering.com/aps/...digital_cable/
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Interesting, even if the author did get his numbers on cable penetration wrong.
Aside from that, it is certainly not encouraging in terms of picture quality. Because we can safely bet that if these "rate shaping" tools exist, they will eventually get used by many cable systems. And if a broadcaster is offering relatively high data rate HD only to see it reduced by "rate shaping" for 2/3 of local viewers -- well, why bother to maintain the higher data rate?
Aside from that, it is certainly not encouraging in terms of picture quality. Because we can safely bet that if these "rate shaping" tools exist, they will eventually get used by many cable systems. And if a broadcaster is offering relatively high data rate HD only to see it reduced by "rate shaping" for 2/3 of local viewers -- well, why bother to maintain the higher data rate?
I somehow get the impression from that article they are bound and determined to get 3 HD channels into each 38.8 mbps cable channel.
But when you get as far as suggesting 3 TV stations get together and jointly encode the stream it seems they might also want to explore more advanced codecs like VC1, AVC, whatever. If they are already suggesting stations have a special non-broadcast encoder for cable use then you could make all kinds of other changes.
- Tom
But when you get as far as suggesting 3 TV stations get together and jointly encode the stream it seems they might also want to explore more advanced codecs like VC1, AVC, whatever. If they are already suggesting stations have a special non-broadcast encoder for cable use then you could make all kinds of other changes.
- Tom
Yeah--I hadn't noticed the cable penetration stats at the beginning. Actually, though his overall percentage of the entire market which are cable subscribers is high (he claims 75% and the NCTA's November number was 67%) his number of digital cable subscribers was actually low. He said that there were 20 million digital cable subs; the NCTA makes it 24 million.
Tom, people like you speak as though the cable providers are free to adopt a new encoding standard at the drop of a hat--they aren't. The brand spankin' new Plug-and-Play DTV-Over-Cable specs that took years to hammer out between the cable industry, the CEA and the FCC is firmly based on MPEG2, and the CE industry is already pumpin' out millions of parts compliant to it. If the cable companies decided to move with H.264 or something, suddenly a huge boatload of "Digital Cable Ready" televisions and STBs aren't "ready" anymore. There's no way that the FCC would allow it.
And I didn't get the impression that they're "bound and determined" to stuff 3 channels per 38.8 mbps stream--exactly what sentence or phrase gave you that idea? The entire thing is about how cable would do it when they do it, written by a marketing director (doubtlessly with much engineering help) of a company that makes equipment for doing it ( this equipment).
Actually, this whitepaper is 1.5 years old; as time goes by and higher and higher speed processing becomes less and less expensive, decoding/re-encoding, which yields better results at higher compression ratios, becomes much more attractive. However, the broadcasters are already doing that at their house before passing it onto the cable companies--doing it again can only add problems. They really should custom encode their network source feed to the cable providers' specs, inserting their local ads into the custom feed as they do into the broadcast feed. Of course, the individual cable providers would have to provide them with equipment and pay something for the service.
Tom, people like you speak as though the cable providers are free to adopt a new encoding standard at the drop of a hat--they aren't. The brand spankin' new Plug-and-Play DTV-Over-Cable specs that took years to hammer out between the cable industry, the CEA and the FCC is firmly based on MPEG2, and the CE industry is already pumpin' out millions of parts compliant to it. If the cable companies decided to move with H.264 or something, suddenly a huge boatload of "Digital Cable Ready" televisions and STBs aren't "ready" anymore. There's no way that the FCC would allow it.
And I didn't get the impression that they're "bound and determined" to stuff 3 channels per 38.8 mbps stream--exactly what sentence or phrase gave you that idea? The entire thing is about how cable would do it when they do it, written by a marketing director (doubtlessly with much engineering help) of a company that makes equipment for doing it ( this equipment).
Actually, this whitepaper is 1.5 years old; as time goes by and higher and higher speed processing becomes less and less expensive, decoding/re-encoding, which yields better results at higher compression ratios, becomes much more attractive. However, the broadcasters are already doing that at their house before passing it onto the cable companies--doing it again can only add problems. They really should custom encode their network source feed to the cable providers' specs, inserting their local ads into the custom feed as they do into the broadcast feed. Of course, the individual cable providers would have to provide them with equipment and pay something for the service.
Quote:
This story is from Aug 1, 2003
Things have changed a little as far as sub numbers go, just like the tech might have changed since then.
| Originally posted by michaeltscott Yeah--I hadn't noticed the cable penetration stats at the beginning. Actually, though his overall percentage of the entire market which are cable subscribers is high (he claims 75% and the NCTA's November number was 67%) his number of digital cable subscribers was actually low. He said that there were 20 million digital cable subs; the NCTA makes it 24 million. |
Things have changed a little as far as sub numbers go, just like the tech might have changed since then.
Quote:
Good point--it's known that cable penetration has slipped over the past few years, due to their failure to control rampant price increases. I don't know about them losing 8% over the past 18 months, though. No big.
| Originally posted by boo This story is from Aug 1, 2003 Things have changed a little as far as sub numbers go, just like the tech might have changed since then. |
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