The end of Dish/DirecTV?

[JMikeF]

From USA Today

Cable operators say they may soon be able to offer services that would crush their satellite and phone competitors following introduction this week of a simple device that could free up massive amounts of bandwidth.

Pace Micro Technology unveiled at cable's annual convention here what it calls the "world's first" inexpensive digital-to-analog signal converter.

These devices, about the size of two cigarette packs, could enable cable systems to transmit lots of high-definition TV (HDTV), video phone connections, video on demand and far faster high-speed Internet connections.

"It allows you to dream, create and do things differently than you've ever done," says Comcast Cable President Steve Burke.

Operators envision buying millions of these converters — or similar ones planned by Motorola and others — and putting them on virtually every TV owned by their nearly 72 million customers. Then operators can stop transmitting analog signals and go all-digital.

That's a big deal. Analog TV channels consume about 65% of the bandwidth on most modern systems — and operators can squeeze as many as eight digital channels into the bandwidth that each analog channel now fills.

That's key for adding HDTV.

"An HDTV channel takes two to three channels of analog capacity," says Kagan World Media chief content officer Larry Gerbrandt. "So it's a better use of bandwidth."

Some also see using the capacity for services satellite and phone companies can't easily match.

"What may drive us to use a device like that is the ability to mix voice with video and data — like with games, where you could talk" to opponents, says Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt.

The Pace adapter is attractive, executives say, because it's small and inexpensive. The model on display this week would sell for about $70 and would feed signals to both a TV and a VCR.

"We think we can do better than that" price once mass orders come in, says David Novak, Pace vice president of marketing.

He says that owners of small franchises, who haven't spent heavily to expand their systems, see the adapters as an inexpensive way to offer additional channels.

And Burke says they could end cable piracy: "Virtually all of the theft is in the analog world. If the encryption is done properly with this, you can imagine gaining 5% more subscribers just by converting to digital, which would help pay for the transition."

[lee635]

That sounds like a great innovation. However, satellite has its owns emergng technologies, such as ka band and next generation signal encoding, heck even something like Northpoint could expand capacity tremendously.

[durl]

...and satellite is an alternative to cable, not just on the technology end, but also on the customer service/price end. One of the main reasons I dumped cable was because of the lousy customer service. I've always received excellent customer service with my satellite provider and I wouldn't dream of going back.

[Jacob S]

Satellite has been selling itself more on price lately than on offering more channels in some markets. This would really hurt satellite unless it came up with ways of bringing about a lot more space for HD and for high speed internet access. That statement was right, it could slaughter satellite. If this can be done for cable then how come could it not be done for satellite as well with some similar device? Some would keep satellite anyways that live in the country because they have no access to cable so there would always be a market for satellite unless the phone companies offered high speed internet and video service to all of its customers just as Verizon promised a while back and if other phone companies follow that lead.

[Scott Greczkowski]

Reporters now a days do not seem to investigate their stories. Look at this false report...An HDTV channel takes two to three channels of analog capacity," says Kagan World Media chief content officer Larry Gerbrandt. "So it's a better use of bandwidth." A HDTV Channel is 6 MHz, an analog cable station is 6 Mhz. How does a HDTV channel that two or three channels of analog capacity?

This idea by the cable companies is a good one, doing this will make it almost impossible for people to steel cable tv and it will add lots of new channels for cable viewers.

[joe]

Do you need one of these things for every tv(thats not digital)..If so Doesn't that spell the end for FREE additional outlets? I don't think satellite gonna be hurt with this

[lee635]

A piece opf technology like this concept for satellite would be great. If one could have a receiver sitting in one room that decodes a dozen or so channels and outputs them to analog channels for distribution throughout the house. Don't they have something like this for apartment complexes. I guess it's too pricey for the consumer market at present.

[waydwolf]

Originally posted by Scott Greczkowski
Reporters now a days do not seem to investigate their stories. Look at this false report... A HDTV Channel is 6 MHz, an analog cable station is 6 Mhz. How does a HDTV channel that two or three channels of analog capacity?

This idea by the cable companies is a good one, doing this will make it almost impossible for people to steel cable tv and it will add lots of new channels for cable viewers.

    Actually, HDTV broadcast through analog means would take just over two 6Mhz slots(hence "two or three") if done in analog. Instead, by doing it digitally, you can put as many as two or three HDTV channels in a single 6Mhz slot using 256QAM, depending on the average bandwidth consumption of each channel. Analysis shows most HD channels rarely approach the full spec bandwidth and many average around three-fourths.

    I don't know enough about this new device, but if it doesn't simply convert to ch.3/4 output like a regular digital box, then it sounds like it would do a switched format where it would downconvert from digital to analog a set of channels pre-chosen or in pre-defined blocks and map them to existing analog space so that you'd use your TV or VCR tuner to change channels. That would extend SD usage immensely by allowing people to continue using existing receivers for a while, giving them economic breathing space to afford new full-spectrum digital sets while allowing the digital transistion to proceed apace.

    It would of course have to have the component output for HD though but that's no big problem.

Originally posted by lee635
That sounds like a great innovation. However, satellite has its owns emergng technologies, such as ka band and next generation signal encoding, heck even something like Northpoint could expand capacity tremendously.

    Open-air broadcast of any EM is a very strictly controlled thing by the FCC whereas closed circuit has plenty of space provided it stays on the circuit(hence FCC leakage checks against cable, constantly). The FCC also wants to share the space with other emerging technologies. Therefore, they aren't going to be allowed to broadcast across many thousands of Mhz of space forever all willy nilly.

    On top of that, short of putting motors on the dishes or creating wide view multisat dishes capable of covering many tens of degrees of view, it isn't feasible to cover rooftops with an array of dishes. The industry could back the inexpensive manufacturing and selling of flat conformal phased arrays, but they haven't and don't look like they ever will at this point.

    Satellite has NO magic bullet coming to save it and the thing that is killing it as quick as it is, is the industry's continued idiotic obsession with painting cable as it was prior to digital technology, painting it as consumer-unresponsive(today I did for free a repair on a customer because of disgust with a small mistake made by someone else and this sort of pride in work is far more common among cable installers than satellite guys), and unfairly priced(wait till the content providers finally have the monumental theft rate in DBS sink in and they start jacking the rates up that they charge DTV and E*, never mind some of the other economic forces at work). DBS cannot survive with the current crop of fools at the helm and can't be forward thinking with their heads jammed up their posteriors.

[raj2001]

Originally posted by Scott Greczkowski
This idea by the cable companies is a good one, doing this will make it almost impossible for people to steel cable tv and it will add lots of new channels for cable viewers.

It's already impossible/very difficult to steal digital cable.

[Eyedox]

Originally posted by Scott Greczkowski
A HDTV Channel is 6 MHz, an analog cable station is 6 Mhz. How does a HDTV channel that two or three channels of analog capacity?Of course, you are correct Scott. What the idiots meant to say was that when compressing signals for digital transmission, they can squeeze more SD channels in the same amount of bandwidth than they can HD.:rolleyes:

[Eyedox]

Why are there no DIGITAL cable boxes to buy on the black market??

[Geronimo]

I get spam offering to sell me them all the time. I have no idea if they work.

[Jacob S]

I guess if digital cable will be able to do this in the future then this may make satellite much more competitive just like it used to be in which it may be much cheaper and offer perks that you cant get on cable. C-band used to be cheap on its channels and the price went up the last couple three years a whole lot because its still cheaper than Dish/Direct/cable.

Maybe it would force satellite to come up with ways to advance and to become more competitive as well. It could actually become a good thing with satellite because this technology may be able to be used with satellite as well and help them come up with new ways to provide more space that they have not thought of before.

[CrankyYankee]

Let's return to the original topic of this discussion...The end of Dish/Direct TV.
I don't think either company is going away soon. Correct me if I'm wrong in this thought, but the "little dish" came about following the growing popularity of the "big dish". People got the BUDs because most of them lived far enough away from TV transmitters to get maginal or no signals. Look at pocket or hand-held calculators: they got smaller and so did the prices. Same for home computers. The same can be said for home satellite dishes. The "dish" grew out of demand by rural folks for the service that they could not get via cable because cable would never come by their house because any cable company eventually wants to recoup it's investment in hanging wire and start making some money from it's investment. I'd be willing to guess that at first the people behind PrimeStar, AlphaStar and other early "small(er)" dish companies had the same idea as did the pocket calculator designers. Make it smaller, cheaper, and they should sell like crazy! It was cable customers who made the "small dish" business backers take note that these things could become cable alternatives. I don't think the "little dish" was originally designed to sell in cities and towns as much as it was hoped to sell to every rural dweller who lived beyond the reach of cable. If Direct & Dish sold a unit to every home that sits beyond cable, I think they would be very, very happy. Any thoughts on this?

[Mike123abc]

When cable systems go all digital they will have a ton of capacity. When digital cable ready TVs come out this fall it will start the march towards this. It will probably take 10 years before they can shut off all the analog (gee sounds like the HDTV debate) and not have people complain too loudly.

Cable systems vary in capacity from about 350MHZ (old crusty ones with only 60 analog channels) to 1GHZ (new modern ones). Obviously some cable companies will be in a very good condition to compete with DBS. At 1GHZ a modern cable company would have capacity for over 300 HDTV channels. Essentially they could deliver their entire lineup in HDTV, have HDTV PPV and HDTV video on demand. I would suspect the few places that are lucky enough to have a state of the art cable plant like this will be a bad market for DBS companies. But, for every market like that there will be a bunch with old crusty cable and the cable company will not be doing much upgrading... DBS will live in these areas (not to mention the large number of homes with no cable available at all).

[Jacob S]

If it would take 10 years for all the cable companies to do this then this gives time for satellite to advance enough to be able to do something like this if not better as well. The small dish has been out for around 10 years for DirecTv and not that long for Dish Network and you can see how much they have advanced so far.

I think it is a little different now than when the C-band dishes were out in that the number of subscribers are far greater in which will more likely keep the satellite companies alive. If a new technology does come out then it will be more likely for these current companies to adopt the technology and invest in their customers than with C-band, Primestar, Alphastar, etc. because of all the additional customers.

Also with Rainbow and SES Americom coming out to compete with Dish and Direct this should make competition even better along with cable advances in that it will keep the companies in check more with prices, technology, and programming offerings.

[durl]

All of the technology issues are extremely valid and will affect the way the cable/satellite industry adapts for current market trends.

However, I would still like to stress that not everyone jumps to satellite tv for the technology aspect. This may be a slightly educated guess, but I would say that 50-60% of satellite customers could care less about bandwith and other deeply technical aspects of the system--they want an alternative to the local cable monopoly. Some people like the programming options that satellite provides and it's true that this new technology from cable could wipe out that advantage that satellite has had. But satellite could also roll out new technogies that could hurt cable. (I honestly believe that if satellite companies would drop the charge for extra receivers, it would drastically increase their business...and it wouldn't involve millions of dollars of investment to make it happen. But that's just a simple idea of how a management decision could greatly harm cable.) I believe that the cable companies have progressed in the face of competition from satellite providers and that's helped all consumers but there are still people that (like me) would never think about going back to cable.

I don't believe that cable will wipe out satellite because people want a choice. Some people go to Wal-Mart, others prefer Target. Some prefer one grocery store over the other. Stores can carry almost identical product and still thrive in the same market because people tend to prefer one over the other. (My wife dreads the thought of going in a Wal-Mart even though it's closer to our home than the Target.)

As long as each system delivers a quality product at a reasonable price, both can survive. I believe it will just come down to the intangibles, like customer service.

[Brett]

Regarding analog cable piracy, cable companies can go put all their channels in digital, end limit piracy.

Instead, the cable companies chose not to at this time. They dont have enough digital boxes for all their subscribers times all the TVs that need to be connected. One advantage they have over satellite is that not every TV needs a receiver.

[Jacob S]

If its digital cable then all of their tv's need a receiver if I recall correctly. I am sure in the future the digital cable would probably get figured out as well if it hasnt already. Its just a matter of time and if its manmade it can be broken.

[raj2001]

Originally posted by Eyedox
Why are there no DIGITAL cable boxes to buy on the black market??

This is because digital boxes use two way authentication. Therefore, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible to hack the boxes to steal TV. And even if you do, the cable company will catch you really quickly.

[Jacob S]

Wouldn't they able to filter out information that goes back to them though or changing it to something that they would identify as a regular account not being hacked? This reminds me of how satellite can use the phone lines to detect if someone is legit or not whether it is coming from a different phone number or if there is information on the card that is foreign.

[american_2000]

Will this give cable providers another excuse to jack up their rates??

[Jacob S]

Yep. Either way you look at it, they look at it that way. They could say that it is costing them money to condone piracy or costing them money because of lost business due to piracy.