Is cable history?
Published September 12, 2003
Is cable history?
You'd think so. I love my satellite dish. I've been a subscriber to both Dish and DirecTV, and both had a picture much superior to that of cable, both have kept prices down, both have jumped on HDTV quicker than Comcast, and DirecTV has NFL Sunday Ticket.
But I wouldn't count cable out yet. One thing that cable has on the sats is nearly limitless bandwidth. They don't have to launch another Sputnik just to add new channels, or to add their HDTV versions. True HDTV is a hefty data stream.
But I think cable's killer app is pay-per-view on demand. Time Warner is calling it inDemand, and it rules. My parents have it, and it's amazingly convenient to be able to start a movie whenever you want, and even more convenient to be able to watch a multitude of teevee shows whenever you want. This is absolutely impossible for DirecTV to match, at least for the forseeable future. Say ten thousand people are watching a movie across the country at any given time... they'd essentially need to transmit ten thousand seperate channels at the same time. Right now I'd say they have maybe four or five hundred going at once, and it seems like you need to watch a new satellite for every five new HD channels.
Course, all that is academic until Comcast gets off their ass and offers an HDTV set-top box.
- Is cable history?
- Published: September 12, 2003
- Type:
- Section: Video
- Filed Under: Culture: Media, Video: Television
- Writer: Matt Moore
- Matt Moore's BC Writer page
- Matt Moore's personal site
- Spread the Word
- Like this article?
- Email this
Save to del.icio.us
Comments on this articleComments
Even there DirecTV won't be far behind. They already offer pretty quick access, although I'll never buy it because of the half second lag.
Actually, I had satellite for a year or so, and Unless a satellite service offered me every channel in the known universe for 4 dollars a year, I'd NEVER get satellite again...
Not a day went by that it wouldn't piss me off in some way.
On my experience, I'd take digital cable in a heartbeat.
What were your problems, blotchyporridge? I've been insanely happy with DirecTV.
Add your comment, speak your mind
(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/8345)
This is absolutely impossible for DirecTV to match, at least for the forseeable future.
Not really impossible. DirecTV with Tivo is pretty damn close. They run the movie several times a day, and you tell the thing to record the next showing. Since all of your TiVo viewing is time-shifted anyway, the fact that you have wait an hour or so for the movie to start is no big deal.
Cable's only real advantages over satellite are the things related to the integration of cable TV programming with broadband cable Internet access, and the cable companies haven't even started thinking about how to exploit such applications.