On Sun, Oct 27, 2002 at 04:50:44PM -0600, Julia Thompson wrote: > I was going to comment on a similar service available from Time Warner > in Austin for HBO, called HBO On Demand, where you get to view a bunch > of things offered by HBO when you want to see them (no more worrying > about VCR setup to see The Sopranos, which is the only use of it I've > heard about from my friends). You need to be subscribed to HBO already, > which is a premium channel, and the On Demand feature is an additional > $6.95 a month. > > When you select a program, there is very little, if any, delay in seeing > it. At least, this is my understanding from friends.
I'd be interested in a confirmation on that. Specifically, at any given time how many programs (total) are available on demand, and exactly how much delay is there? If they are using coaxial cable, there is an upper limit on bandwidth. If they are using some major compression, maybe they can get 10x. If they charge enough, they can put a smaller number of people on each head-end (normally I think it is several thousand people per headend). Anyway, I can only guesstimate without more info, but with 10x compression they could have room for around 2000 "channels". If they limit each headend to 2000 people, then you could indeed have each person watching a different program. Or if they can't get 10x compression, maybe they either put fewer people per headend (and charge more), or they might oversubscribe the system, counting on the fact that not EVERYONE will request a different program simultaneously, which is probably a good bet. > (Being stuck with Cox, which isn't advertising this sort of service, I > can't speak from first-hand experience. But at least the connection > between here and a certain set of servers in California is good, which > is the most important thing as far as our cable service goes, as DSL > is not offered where we are now. I miss DSL....) Do you have digital service? I only have analog with RCN here in New Jersey. My cable modem is "one-way" :-( which means it using a conventional modem for upstream data (and another phone line). But they are supposedly upgrading our headend to digital and two-way cable modem in a month. -- "Erik Reuter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.erikreuter.net/ _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
