Device Could Change Cable { Speeeed }

[Seeker of Truth]

Posted 6/13/2003 2:05 AM Updated 6/13/2003 3:25 AM

Device could change cable

By David Lieberman, USA TODAY
CHICAGO — 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."


More @ usatoday.com (http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-06-12-cable_x.htm)

[nosferatuscoffin]

Is it me, or does this remind me of John Dvorak (my fave PC Mag columnist for the last 15 years) saying that we will have to wear a TV on our wristwatches?

It is not going to happen until all of the copper wire is torn from our infrastructure.

[Rhino]

I can make a D to A converter the same size with about $20 in parts from Radio Shack. There's nothing new or revolutionary about them. I learned about them and built them in Air Force Electronics school 25 years ago, and they were around long before then. Most cable connections are already digital, and the remaining analog ones are disappearing fast, excepting rural areas. If you get the internet over cable, you're already digital and all those capabilities already exist. For those reasons, I think these devices are not D to A converters at all, but some new digital modulation and demodulation devices that allow the grouping of more signals onto a single carrier. The telephone companies do the same thing with modulated signals called "supergroups". Another reason I think this is the case is because USA Today, like most media outlets, wouldn't know an electron if it bit them in the ass and they regularly publish tech stories with just barely enough knowledge to make them dangerous. Thus they almost always get them wrong.

[DoctorDoom]

Gee whiz, such a promising development. Instead of a hundred channels of utter garbage, we can have 500 channels of high-definition utter garbage. What a shame that no one can devise an attachment that can improve the quality of the programming.

A solid gold sewer pipe still carries the same shit.

[Rhino]

LOL! Catchy phrase Doc!

[dajoga]

So does this device make it possible to use a non-HD TV even when HD becomes standard?

[Rhino]

No. Mainly because, besides just being digital instead of analog, the HDTV signal will have more horizontal scan lines than the analog signals currently being used. However, I wouldn't worry too much, for several reasons:

1) The way they're arguing now, we may not see an HDTV standard adopted for many more years, making the chances of your still owning an older set less likely.

2) Since the HDTV standard ultimately adopted may not be the same as that of the 'HDTV ready' sets now being sold, even the new HDTV sets out there will not work with it. That would make every television set now in existence incompatible until they can be modified, replaced or furnished with an interface device. Since no existing TV will be able to receive such signals, the chances of seeing adaptor boxes being marketed for existing TVs of all types is extremely high. For obvious reasons, the TV manufacturers are pushing for adoption of the existing standards being sold. Hollywood however, is still insisting on some type of copy protection type system, which ranges from simply being able to recognize an original from a copy, to as draconian a system as one that allows them to detect what you view and actually disable your TV remotely.

3) Regardless of how things go, a free market responds to demand. If an HDTV standard becomes universal whilst there are still a lot of analog TVs out there, you can bet your rear end there will be companies fighting to market adaptor devices of some sort.