DTV, It's Just Not Your Day [Broadcasting and Cable]
Will the digital television transition actually occur on February 17th? Cable operators and broadcasters have been promoting readiness for the transition with that date in mind for many months now. But, with the news that the Federal government's digital converter box coupon program has been halted due to a lack of funds and Nielsen reports asserting that millions of American households are still unprepared for digital television, there is now a movement among some policymakers, especially the Obama transition team, to delay the February 17th deadline. This article outlines the participants in the debate and their current position on a DTV delay.
The cable industry is prepared to do its part whether the transition occurs in February or some few months later. The Obama transition team, to their credit, recently focused on how to become more prepared to receive millions of inquiries at the time of transition. Until they began to look into this, I was deeply concerned at the lack of preparation to handle those calls.
I understand the future administration's decision to seek a delay given the state of preparation they found. They also inherited a digital converter coupon program that has, amazingly, run out of money. Congress needs to fix that and, if they do so quickly, I wonder if we're not simply better off just getting on with this. No matter when the transition actually occurs, there will be many people who are unprepared so I question whether a delay would meaningfully reduce the unavoidable confusion or simply add more because of the changing date.
Unfortunately, I worry that we won't know the outcome of the debate over the delay soon enough. But, at the risk of sounding like a broken record every time we talk about this, rest assured that if your televisions are connected to cable, you'll be fine, no matter when the transition occurs. Right now, it's still February 17th and if that changes, you'll read about it here.
YouTube launches platforms for Congress [CNET News]
The presidential election last year was heavily influenced by the use of YouTube by the candidates to disseminate their message to voters. Attempting to capitalize on YouTube's status in the public policy sector, Google (which owns YouTube), announced the creation of YouTube platforms for the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. The platforms promise to bring clips of legislative action in both chambers, access to each representative or senator's YouTube videos, and the ability to ask your elected officials a question and receive an answer via a YouTube video.
Smart move on Google's part. Great government relations. Hey, did you know that the cable industry moved the headquarters of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association a couple of years ago to be within walking distance of the Capitol? Since then, we have always provided members of Congress with a convenient venue from where they could speak directly to their constituents, whenever they feel the need -- right from our own little studio. Members could stop by, produce their message and distribute it over television outlets, their own websites or, if they prefer, over YouTube.
Not that I'm trying to steal thunder from Google's announcement.
Cisco To Take DOCSIS 3.0 Modems Over 300 Mbps [Multichannel News]
Cisco is plunging headfirst into the super-fast speeds promised by the DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem standard. Using a chipset developed by Broadcom that bonds eight downstream channels, a new Cisco cable modem promises to bring users download speeds of up to 300 Mbps. While Cisco's modem won't go into testing until later this year and won't come to market until next year, it gives users a glimpse of the blazing fast speeds that are just around the corner with the DOCSIS 3.0 standard.
Very cool.
CBS Tries to Out-Hulu Hulu with TV.com [NewTeeVee]
With their acquisition of CNET last year, CBS gained control of TV.com. Now, CBS is announcing that TV.com has become the newest online video portal, looking to compete with the Fox/NBC Universal venture Hulu.com. TV.com already has a deal for the content available on Hulu, and it has content from CBS, giving it one advantage over Hulu. According to this article, TV.com already has a user base of millions of TV viewers, so it doesn't have to build an audience from scratch. I'll look forward to following TV.com as it endeavors to establish itself in the online video portal market.
So the future is 300 MPBS and yet many providers are wanting to (or have) implement bandwidth caps?
At 300 MPBS you could hit the 250 gig Comcast Bandwidth cap in roughly 14 mins (if my calculations are correct, it is early).
This type of technology moving forward is proof that bandwidth caps just don't make any sense.
Posted by: Steve Huff | Wednesday, January 14, 2009 at 08:06 AM