Time Warner to shutter ITV effort
ITV Tests Around Europe: So Far, It's a Turn-Off
DAVIC call-for-proposals for Internet-based video-on-demand
channel width 6.0 MHz
video bandwidth 4.2 MHz
chrominance sub-carrier 3.579545 MHz
horiz. scanning: 15,750 Hz monochrome
15,734.264 Hz color (2/455 x chrominance)
vertical scanning: 59.94 Hz (2 x 525 of h-scanning)
Not sure what your source is for the 30000/1001 number, but I did some digging about TV frequencies. Basically, the frame rate is exactly the horizontal scanning frequency divided by 525, since you can't have partial lines on a screen. The horizontal scanning frequency for color is given as 15,734.264 plus/minus 0.044 Hz, which gives you between 29.9699 and 29.9701 Hz, with the middle at 29.97002667, which is close to, but not the same as 30000/1001=29.97002997. Another relation is that the horiz. scanning frequency is 2/455 the chrominance subcarrier, which is fixed at 3.579545 MHz. This yields a frame rate of 29.97002617 Hz. All this is from Freeman, "Reference Manual for Telecommunications Engineering", p. 1877f.While I have not yet checked the MPEG standard, it is clear that the a picture generated by the 90000/1001 method will display just fine on any TV set.
Jupiter Research estimates that it costs cable companies up to $100 to make digital cable available to each subscriber and an additional $40 to $80 to add video on demand. ... And as contract talks with studios delay new releases, Insight has seen the average movie ordered by a household drop from three a month more than a year ago to one a month.
In part, the studios are responding to a stagnating VHS rental market, in which revenue actually declined by 5 percent last year, to $16.9 million. ... In the case of the DVD - short for digital videodisc - Blockbuster and the studios do not share rental revenue, as has been the practice with VHS tapes. Instead, the studios simply sell the DVD's outright to video stores - for about $16 each on average - and the video stores can then rent them or sell them. ... He also points out that DVD rental transactions are growing faster than DVD unit sales. That is true, although while rental spending for DVD's rose nearly 600 percent last year, to $747 million, the business remained far smaller than DVD sales, at $3.4 billion. ... The home-video market represents an average of 40 percent of the revenue for a major movie release. ... It was in February 1997 that the first DVD players went on the market. And since then, some 15 million American households have purchased the machines. That is still far behind the estimated 95 million, or 94 percent, of households with at least one VCR. But DVD players are quickly gaining ground, and by 2006 nearly two-thirds of households will have them, according to forecasts by Adams Media Research. ... According to Adams Media Research, consumers spent $10.3 billion last year to rent videocassettes and DVD's. Of that total, the studios kept only about 26 percent, or $2.7 billion. But of the $10.8 billion that consumers paid to buy tapes and discs, the studios pocketed a full 75 percent - or $8.2 billion. ... And the studios have the same basic arrangement, under which Blockbuster pays an upfront fee of about $8 a cassette, then gives the studios roughly 40 percent of the rental revenue and keeps the balance. ... Retail sales have always been part the videocassette business, too, providing much fatter profit margins for the studios, which keep an average of 75 percent of the price of each VHS version of a movie sold.
WTDR: One trial in the United States has found that users choose an average of 2.5 videos per month (slightly less than the 3.5 per month average for purchasing and renting video tapes).4 With US$ 3-4 per movie being charged in the trial, annual revenues would be around US$ 90-120 per subscriber. Estimates for the initial cost of providing the service range from US$ 500-1'000. Taking into account the cost of acquiring rights to broadcast the films, it would take a minimum 5-10 years to break even. This is a long time by telecommunication industry standards; a telephone line can usually recover installation costs in about 2-3 years.
Companies such as British Telecommunications and Deutsche Telekom are trying to figure out what it is that Europeans really want to do with their home computers -- and they're still not sure. A recent survey of European consumers indicates that very few are engaged in what are considered "precursor behaviors" to interactive television use, such as video rental, mail-order purchasing and home delivery of take-out food. While 75% of U.S. homes with VCRs rent a movie at least once a month, only 40% of Western Europeans do. Only 21% of Europeans have take-out food delivered, and an even smaller percentage -- 19% -- of consumers in France and Britain express a strong interest in video-on-demand services. (Wall Street Journal 6/20/95 B10B)
100 head ends with 210,000 customers each
1,200 level-A amplifiers with 17,000 homes each
4,000 level-B amplifiers with 5,300 homes each
220,000 level-C amplifiers with 100 homes each
>= 300 MHz bandwidth, but usually 450 MHz, with 600 MHz planned; 5-30 MHz: data return channel; 70-88 MHz: unused; 15 hyperchannels most everywhere.
top 10 movies account for 80% of rentals -> NVOD 2 Mb each; live 6 Mb show at 15 minute intervals -> 60 channels at 2 Mb -> 120 Mb/s; 6 channels of PPV/PPC -> 36 Mb/s; using QAM64 in one 8 MHz channel after digital muxing to 40 Mb; need only 4 RF channels (160 Mb/s).
quality mixture: 50% of 2 Mb/s channels, 40% of 6 Mb/s channels (SVHS quality), 10% of 25 Mb/s channels (HDTV); 10-25% of customers want set-top interactive; need 10-15 RF channels.