Sat-ND, 19.08.97

• from: owner-sat-nd@tags1.dn.net
• Date: Tue, 19 Aug 1997 21:56:51 GMT

 

This service is provided free of charge for personal use. It may be used and redistributed for non-commercial purposes only, provided the following notice is included:

© Copyright 1997 by Sat-ND

http://www.lynet.de/~pck/
http://www.sat-net.com/pck/

Please send contributions and comments regarding Sat-ND to

Peter C. Klanowski, email: pck@LyNet.De

Sat-ND is sponsored by TELE-satellite International

More mailing lists: http://www.TELE-satellit.com/

Satellite Charts: http://www.satcodx.com/

GOLDEN WORDS

No TV

"You can do all kinds of everything with it, probably even motorcycling or cooking, but not simply watch television."

Helmut Thoma, head of Germany's leading commercial broadcaster RTL, on Nokia's d-box (an integrated receiver/decoder for digital TV)

BUSINESS

Comsat deregulated

The U.S. Intelsat signatory Comsat Corp is in triumphant mood as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has granted the company's request for regulatory relief of its international video broadcast services.

The FCC ruling reduces the notice period for filing full-time video tariffs from 45 days to 14 days. As a result, Comsat said it can now offer services more quickly. In addition, the ruling presumes Comsat's tariffs are lawful, which means competitors [read: PanAmSat and Orion, as far as we're talking about global competition] can no longer delay the company's offerings simply by lodging costly and time-consuming protests.

The FCC based its decision on the fact that substantial competition has developed in international television broadcast markets rendering certain tariff regulations unnecessary. Comsat is also relieved of having to submit detailed cost information with its tariff filings. Finally, the FCC now allows Comsat to decrease rates for occasional-use video services that broadcasters use to transmit breaking news.

"This recognition brings us one step closer to our ultimate goal of winning reclassification as a non-dominant carrier," said COMSAT President and Chief Executive Officer Betty C. Alewine.

DIGITAL

Thomson's gimmicks

France's Thomson Consumer Electronics, the largest colour TV manufacturer in the U.S. (brand name: RCA,) plans to promote digital satellite reception as well as large-screen TV sets.

The company will be giving away a free Digital Satellite System to consumers who purchase a new RCA large screen TV. The sets, 14 in total, range in screen size from 32 to 61 inches (diagonal.) Effective August 21 through October 27, purchasers of the RCA brand colour TVs in question with suggested retail prices ranging from $1,799 to $3,099. will receive a coupon which can be redeemed for a DS4430RA system (suggested retail value US$399.) According to Thomson, it generates picture quality with greater resolution than standard broadcast signals.

"Just as the introduction of VCRs stimulated new colour TV sales, we know that new owners of satellite systems quickly consider purchasing a big screen TV," said James A. Gatman, Vice President Marketing, for Thomson Consumer Electronics. There's not the slightest reason, of course.

While RCA's so-called "Home Theatre" models offer a horizontal resolution of 850, twice as much as the U.S. TV standard NTSC, not too many channels will offer this resolution as it takes up roughly four times the bandwidth of a standard signal --and no, even digital data reduction technology can't change that fact.] If any digital decoder offers such as signal, it will almost certainly be blown up artificially. It would require actual HDTV transmissions to fully exploit an 850-lines resolution, but they're not very likely to come up in vast numbers. The much-praised "advantage" of digital TV, 8 to 12 channels on a single transponder, would almost be lost as one transponder could accommodate just 2 or 3 HDTV channels.

And, by the way, unless you subscribe to either DirecTV or USSB, Thomson's digital gimmick will be of absolutely no use. [So, do they pay Thomson anything?]

No equipment for HDTV

One of the protagonists of terrestrial HDTV in the USA has warned that the introduction of new, digital services won't be as easy as expected.

Paul DeGonia, executive director of the Advanced Television Technology Center (ATTC,) said that "there's a severe lack of equipment." He said that the ATTC has been able to demonstrate HDTV only by going to extreme measures, such as working with a German university [truly extreme indeed :-] to build an HDTV decoder that in the end cost up to US$26,000.

U.S: TV networks are currently considering their options regarding digital terrestrial TV: multichannel, HDTV, or a combination? As reported, some have already decided not to go the HDTV way and instead use their allocated capacity for multi-channel services. The computer industry still wants to change the vertical resolution from 425 interlaced lines (as delivered by a standard NTSC signal) to 480 progressive lines so programming could be easily displayed on computer screens as well. The AATC, however, is opting for an impressive resolution of 1,080 interlaced lines.

The Federal Communications Commission has in effect given up any regulatory effort, expecting that the business community will make digital television a reality one way or another. This will undoubtedly leave consumers confused as they are set to get multichannel programming during the day and then, all of a sudden, HDTV in prime-time.

"We think there is going to be some place, maybe a big place, for HDTV," said Jay Fine, the senior VP and GM of East Coast broadcast operations at CBS. "Probably the easiest thing for us to do is look at prime time."

Fine estimated that his network would have to invest about US$25 million to deliver an HDTV feed. Affiliates could pass that cost through over-the-air service or multiplex their own programming by investing about U$1 million to U$3 million in equipment and new towers.

Togo joins the Internet

PanAmSat Corporation announced that Togo has joined the list of countries using PanAmSat satellites to connect to the Internet.

C.A.F.E. Informatique et Telecommunications, an Internet service provider (ISP) based in the African nation's capital city of Lom, is using PanAmSat's PAS-3 Atlantic Ocean Region satellite to introduce C@FEnet, an Internet access service offering customers high-speed access to the World Wide Web.

Universal sells to Spain's Sogecable

Universal Studios has concluded multiple agreements with Sogecable, Spain's largest private film and television company.

These agreements include an exclusive motion picture and long-form television product output deal for Sogecable pay television movie services, as well as a significant non-exclusive pay-per-view license and a deal for carriage of Universal's action and suspense channel.

Sogecable operates the terrestrial pay television channel, Canal+ Spain, which saw its subscriber count rise to 1,417,000 by the end of May and has recently launched Spain's first satellite delivered DTH digital platform, CanalSatelite Digital to 110,000 homes. Sogecable's largest shareholders include Spain's leading media conglomerate, Prisa and French pay-TV giant Canal+.

Universal Studios is a diversified entertainment company and a worldwide leader in motion pictures, television, music, home entertainment and location based entertainment. Universal Studios is a unit of The Seagram Company Ltd., a global beverage and entertainment company.

One chip does it all

CommQuest Technologies Inc. introduced their next generation single chip Digital Broadcast Satellite (DBS) receiver for consumer Set Top Box and satellite PC applications.

The chip, designated the CQT6020, is one of the most highly integrated devices specifically designed to minimise system integration issues and to reduce cost of the front-end satellite demodulation subsystem. I will spare you the gory details. Just this: The CQT6020 DBS-XL, a single chip front-end satellite receiver, is available for sampling now. The CQT6020 is priced at US$10 in quantities of 100,000. [Compare that to the cost of available digital boxes... however, you're probably not going to pay significantly less for them in future. Imagine where the money goes instead.]

CommQuest designs, develops and markets state-of-the-art system solutions for personal wireless communication markets. Current products include CommQuest's three-chip GSM Total System Solution, a digital AMPS/TACS three-chip Total System Solution, single chip DBS front-end receivers, and a wide variety of advanced satellite communications modems.

Digital competition in France gears up

While in neighbouring Germany moves are underway to create a giant digital pay-TV monopoly, the competition between rivalling platforms in France is heating up.

Canalsatellite will offer a free satellite dish, valued at about FF600 (US$98), to each new subscriber between August 20 and October 31. TPS is expected to strike back by offering new users a FF450 coupon for television equipment.

Analysts expect this autumn to be crucial in determining whether TPS can remain a serious competitor to Canalsatellite as this time of year is traditionally the hottest season for television subscriptions.

Canalsatellite had 535,826 subscribers at the end of June, including more than 400,000 for its digital service. TPS counts more than 175,000 subscribers. There are about 25 million TV households in France. The terrestrial pay-TV service Canal+, the driving force behind Canalsatellite, expects to have 4.3 million customers at the end of the year.

FEEDBACK

Microsoft's World Wide Extravaganza

Scott Cousland kindly supplied me with some URLs that shed some light on Microsoft's upcoming five-hour broadcast "Internet Explorer 4.0: The Web the Way You Want It." Here they are:

http://www.microsoft.com/corpinfo/

http://www.microsoft.com/isapi/events/wwlive/default.asp

Can you believe they're selling this stuff as pay-per-view on DirecTV in the USA for "just" US$14.95? Whoaaa! Everybody who really manages to watch the whole show should receive a US$14.95 reward from Microsoft.

Scott was also wondering how I found out that Intelsat satellites would be used for transmission of this, uh, "event" in Europe. Well, I didn't find out anything; instead I was forwarded a message that in the end came from somebody who should know. This person is obviously involved in setting up a so-called live event hinging upon this transmission. Besides, as far as transmissions from the U.S. to Europe are concerned: there are just three satellite systems that can provide them, the largest of which is Intelsat (making them a sure guess anyway.)

• Prev: Sat-ND, 20.8.97
• Next: Sat-ND, 18.8.97
• Index: SAT-nd mailing list