Posted on May 13, 2008 by Mari Silbey
First the news: Motorola announced the launch of a new universal edge QAM today, the APEX1000. In brief, edge quadrature amplitude modulators (QAMs) are used to translate signals from IP into radio frequency (RF). (Leslie Ellis explains it by saying this modulation turns spectrum into bandwidth.) Operators are finding they need more QAM channels of [...]
Filed under: Bandwidth, Motorola News, Switched Digital | No Comments »
Posted on April 29, 2008 by Mari Silbey
A participant on the NCTA’s switched digital video (SDV) briefing call last week asked why the cable industry isn’t moving more quickly to all-digital broadcast given the bandwidth savings. Verizon’s making the shift, why not traditional cable operators? The answer is that cable companies as a whole have a lot more existing analog customers, and [...]
Filed under: Cable, DTV, HDTV, Switched Digital | 2 Comments »
Posted on April 28, 2008 by Mari Silbey
The NCTA conducted an interesting form of outreach last week. After apparently reading a number of unflattering and possibly inaccurate reports on switched digital video’s impact on CableCARD retail devices, the association put out the word that it would conduct a conference call briefing for any bloggers and journalists interested in discussing the topic. The [...]
Filed under: CE, Cable, CableCARD, Switched Digital, Tru2way | 3 Comments »
Posted on April 17, 2008 by Mari Silbey
I’ve gotten more than few friendly nudges lately for an update on the switched digital video (SDV) tuning resolver. The Motorola device is now officially called the MTR700 and it just came through a CableLabs interop with flying colors. Next the product will be submitted to CableLabs’ Cert Wave 60, and then it will be [...]
Filed under: Cable, Motorola News, Switched Digital, TV | 8 Comments »
Posted on March 2, 2008 by Mari Silbey
EngadgetHD ran a poll this weekend on how many HD channels readers have at home. Keeping in mind that the EngadgetHD audience is geekier than your average room full of people, I was surprised by the numbers as of Sunday night. More than half of the respondents acknowledged having fewer than 20 [...]
Filed under: Bandwidth, HDTV, Switched Digital | No Comments »
Posted on February 18, 2008 by Mari Silbey
Favorite links from a holiday weekend of reading:
Broadband Reports - $2 billion from Intel may bring national WiMAX network
Light Reading - Comcast aiming to implement SDV in 15% of network this year
EngadgetHD - Latest research confirms it – DVRs increase TV consumption
Ars Technica - Retail sales staff don’t know much about the DTV transition
Filed under: DTV, DVR, Switched Digital, WiMAX | No Comments »
Posted on February 11, 2008 by Mari Silbey
Get ready for a slew of DTV transition posts as we approach the one-year countdown. (I’ll have my own up soon enough.) In the meantime, however, there’s word out of Cox that the operator will continue offering analog signals until February 2012, three years after the official transition date in 2009. That’s [...]
Filed under: Bandwidth, Cable, Networks, Switched Digital, TV, VOD | No Comments »
Posted on February 10, 2008 by Mari Silbey
As we settle comfortably into 2008, switched digital video (SDV) technology is hitting its stride. First came news of the tuning resolver, a device designed (by Motorola and others) to allow retail products with one-way CableCARDs to access two-way, switched digital services. Light Reading reports that CableLabs officially issued specs for the tuning [...]
Filed under: Bandwidth, Cable, CableCARD, HDTV, Motorola News, Switched Digital | 2 Comments »
Posted on January 31, 2008 by Mari Silbey
Edge QAMs have been getting a fair bit of industry attention recently, not least of all because of the recent Kagan conference, “QAM Before the Storm”. (Still my favorite name for an event ever…) Some at the Kagan conference were predicting the near-term end of edge QAM devices given the coming shift from [...]
Filed under: Cable, Networks, Switched Digital, TV, VOD | No Comments »
Posted on January 7, 2008 by Mari Silbey
L to R: Fred Wright (Motorola) Geoff Roman (Motorola) Craig Cuttner (HBO) John Burke (Motorola)
I promised to write more on the Motorola set-top announcement with BT, and after just sitting through a panel session with several Motorola executives and Dan Marks, the CEO of BT Vision, I feel more than equipped to provide additional context. [...]
Filed under: CES 2008, DVR, Motorola News, Switched Digital, TV, Telecom | 3 Comments »
