Sounds like we are reaching something of consensus after a long, but
educational thread.
I believe the University of Florida has a cable network in the dorms that may
be all IP. I don't think the cable systems are unaware of how to deliver
everything via IP, but they still have the legacy MPEG infrastructure that is
highly profitable and still viable in the short term. Many systems are still
holding onto the analog tier because it is still profitable and provides
service to legacy TVs without a STB.
It may be helpful to look at the next generation boxes used to support Comcast
X-finity and Cox Contour. These boxes still speak MPEG, but also have the
ability to convert h.262 with MPEG-2TS into h.264 with IP. They record more
programs thanks to the improved efficiency of h.264, and are able to send the
IP streams to smartphones and tablets via WiFi in the home.
Obviously it would not take much to convert to h.264 and IP, except for the
need to replace a HHUGE number of STBs. Then again, many devices including some
smart TVs could deal with these streams natively.
The area I would still like to learn more about is how gigabit service changes
the traffic dynamics in a neighborhood PON. And in turn, how it may impact what
a MVPD service looks like. There is a fair about of noise about the possible
Apple service, with many people speculating that it will be heavily oriented to
on demand services.
Only a small amount of the programming in the MVPD bundles is LIVE- primarily
sports and news channels. The cable head ends could become giant edge servers,
with most of the programming for each channel downloaded to local storage.
Instead of going to the program guide to watch linear streams in a program
grid, it might be possible to access any program on demand. And for live
channels, the programs could be recorded by the edge servers and made available
on demand shortly after they start live.
Bert has championed many of these ideas...
But he tends to think that incumbent services are unable to adapt and improve
by incorporating them into "the bundle."
I think that is short sighted. The incumbents have the incentive to adapt and
survive, if not thrive.
Regards
Craig
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