Highlights from the 2007 Cable Industry Show in Las Vegas and a discussion on DVD on Demand technology.  There's some really great stuff on the horizon, you don't want to miss it.

 

 

This week the Cable Industry wrapped up its annual show in Las Vegas. We take you through the announcements and news that we thought was interesting.

Motorola demonstrated the DCH series of digital cable receivers. The DCH receivers also enable the Motorola Follow Me TV experience, which lets consumers place- shift video, pictures, music and more throughout the home and to compatible mobile devices. The products support CableCARD technology, Motorola's Linux-Java software platform and the Open Cable Application Platform initiative.

Comcast COO Stephen Burke would like to make available movies on demand at the same time they are released in the theaters. Comcast is looking to charge between $30 and $50 for this feature. "I'm sure some movie theaters won't like the added competition," he said. "But at the end of the day, it's about giving consumers what they want. Anybody who doesn't do that is going to get left behind."

Comcast also announced a new cable modem technology that has download speeds of up to 150 Mbps. For about the same price as current modems the Channel Bonding technology can make IPTV a reality for Comcast's subscribers. With this technology Comcast can offer downloads at three times the rate of FiOS. As a demo the entire Encyclopedia Britannica 2007 and Merriam-Webster's visual dictionary was downloaded in under four minutes, a standard cable modem took just over three hours.

Time Warner Cable wants to augment its "Start Over" service with a new one called "Catch-Up" Catch-Up allows viewers to watch recent first run TV shows and Quick Clips video clips from the Internet via the cable box. The system will be supported by advertising so fast-forwarding through commercials will be deactivated. The "Start Over" service allows subscribers to start over a program if they come in mid-way through the broadcast.

There was a two day OCAP Developers Forum called “OCAP—Interactive and More.” The track will provide an in-depth look at CableLabs’ OpenCable Applications Platform, which is designed to foster unified, open standards to speed the development of interactive applications for cable set top boxes.

 

 

DVD on Demand

We ran across an article recently that talked about how HP was helping Wal-Mart develop a DVD on demand system. This is not a download service but a system that allows Wal-Mart to burn a DVD at the time of order. At the heart of the system is a network of servers and DVD burners that can theoretically store every Movie, Television Program, or other video known to man. Well maybe not that many but you can see that this would dramatically reduce the warehouse space required to run such an operation. This development can really make for some interesting possibilities.

All movies are available with no back orders - This is obvious but its worth mentioning. Back catalog movies can be hard to find at times. With this technology there is no reason why every movie made in the last 75 years can't sit on a server someplace waiting to be copied to a DVD.

All TV programs are available - The same argument from above applies but with this technology you could order the episodes that you wanted. It would also be nice if the program would become available the day after something airs. Missed an episode of 24 because of a DVR issue, no problem, just order it and it will be in your mailbox within two days. Just like Netflix. Speaking of Netflix see the next point.

DVD Rentals - There was a technology that gave you about 48 hours to watch a DVD after an air tight seal was broken. It failed miserably, but maybe now its time has come. Imagine being able to rent any movie for about $2 including shipping. The service send you a DVD that once you break the seal on it you have 48 hours to watch the movie. After that you just throw away the disc. No more Short Wait or Long Wait for movies in your queue.

Mix and Match - You can put as much or as little content on your disc. Say you want two 30 minute episodes of a sitcom and a 60 minute episode of a drama. You can make mixes of what you want.

International Content - Why limit this to US movies and television programming? Let the whole world play together.

A Subsidized Version - If you want a free or low cost version you could opt in for ad based movies. This works for the advertisers too. They could target ads based on your user profile. It would be a different me than for my mom.

We know that many of you are saying that you can already do this via bit torrent. But downloading this type of content is illegal. This can all go out the window if iTunes or some other service provides exact copies of DVDs via download. But with bandwidth not being free this looks like an idea whose time has come.