Switched Digital Video
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Cox hoping to add capacity for 50 HD channels by year-end
Finally, a figure we can (halfway) believe. While competing carriers blurt out obscene numbers in the race to magically crank out HD channels that don't even exist yet, Cox Communications president Pat Esser came back from Cloud 9 by suggesting that his company is "aiming to have the capacity to offer 50 HD channels by the end of 2007." Unfortunately, he did make certain that we took note of the word "capacity," but explained that the firm would be eying a number of bandwidth-optimization tools and techniques including "system upgrades, retirement of analog channels, statistical multiplexing of HD signals, and switched digital video." Of course, it was reported that Cox would try to expand capacity to hold 100 HD channels by the end of 2009, but considering that it can hopefully rid itself of analog support, even that seems somewhat reasonable.
Comcast promises 400 HD channels this year and 800 the next
Never before have we had so many options for getting HD content, but these marketing claims are getting out of control. DirecTV kicked it off at CES this year, claiming 100 national HD channels, then followed up with commercials just to make sure everyone got the word. The cable companies responded by suing, and now in what we can only call, if you can't beat 'em join 'em, a Comcast exec announced that they will have 400 HD channels this year, and 800 in 2008. Never-mind the fact that there are nowhere near that many HD channels of available content, but 800 quality HD channels would take up almost 11 Gbps of throughput (using today's technology). So in order to make this work, we presume they will need to deploy Switched Digital Video, which is great and all, but renders every CableCARD device made today obsolete.
Time Warner to deploy Switched Digital to 50% of their markets in 2007
In an attempt to obtain "virtually unlimited" HD capacity, Time Warner Cable will deploy Switched Digital Video to 50% of their markets before the end of 2007. While it is great news that TWC will have the bandwidth to provide as many HD channels as they can get carriage deals, every TiVo Series3 fan will have to live with the fact that these channels will be inaccessible by the best DVR available. It doesn't make sense for any provider to switch all their channels to SDV, but it is likely that a new HD channel you'd otherwise love to watch won't be available. The good news is that you probably won't lose any programming, but rather just be unable to enjoy new HD channels. Sure, if CableCARD 2.0 ever makes it and everyone upgrades their Series3, this will be a non-issue, but at the rate CableLabs moves we have little faith this will happen in the next five years -- if ever.
