
In the linked interview, Bresnan Communications' VP of strategic engineering, Pragash Pillai, doubles the company's
earlier HD channel plans for 2008, moving the mark up to 50. He also indicates that figure does not include the couple hundred hours of HD VOD (video on demand) that's also planned for the year. The tech plans detailed by Pillai are interesting: Besnan has about 96-percent of its systems at 750 MHz and above, and will be moving to 256
QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation) to get the most out of its bandwidth. In the end, he expects 2.5 HD channels per 6 MHz QAM channel. Looking to 2009, he also expects to see rollout of
MPEG4 to homes as necessary. This kind of long-term planning is encouraging to see, especially from a smaller player -- infrastructure improvements are costly, and only companies that see the HD future will be prepared to keep growing their offerings and feeding our appetite.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jim Mallory @ Feb 25th 2008 2:24PM
How do you get 2.5 HDs channels on a QAM? I wonder if they mean 2 HDs and a SD channel or two?
keith @ Feb 25th 2008 5:34PM
From the article:
"We are also doing advanced grooming, which allows us to get an average of 2.5 HD channels per QAM. If I have satellite channel, I can get three to one but if I have an off air channel I can only get two to one. So it is some combination of three to one or two to one that gives you an average of 2.5 per 6 MHz channel."
wreckedchevy @ Feb 25th 2008 2:32PM
yea more hd goodness for me.... please for the love of god get abc in hd lost looks like it was recorded on vhs in the 80's and then ran threw a demagnetizer...