Cable going MPEG-4

[dingo05]

Does this affect SA Tivo's?

By the end of 2009, MPEG-4 will take over cable too
Posted Dec 20th 2007 1:09PM by Ben Drawbaugh
Filed under: Industry, Set-top boxes

DirecTV and DISH have already figured out that the best way to make the most out of bandwidth is to make the switch to MPEG-4 and have even convinced some providers to supply them content in the soon-to-be standard in video compression. Now, as expected, cable is looking to make the switch to help solve their bandwidth woes and one of Moto's VPs Geoff Roman predicts that MPEG-4 will see widespread deployment in 2009 and "By the latter part of 2009, MPEG-2 stand-alone devices will have completely disappeared." We assume that by stand-alone, he means MPEG-2 only, and not hybrids that are sure to fill the gap for years to come -- till everything is all switched over. This is great news, cause it means they'll have more room for all that new HD content that we all want, now for now, there's just the long wait.

Link

[Tico]

Does this affect SA Tivo's?

By the end of 2009, MPEG-4 will take over cable too
Posted Dec 20th 2007 1:09PM by Ben Drawbaugh
Filed under: Industry, Set-top boxes

DirecTV and DISH have already figured out that the best way to make the most out of bandwidth is to make the switch to MPEG-4 and have even convinced some providers to supply them content in the soon-to-be standard in video compression. Now, as expected, cable is looking to make the switch to help solve their bandwidth woes and one of Moto's VPs Geoff Roman predicts that MPEG-4 will see widespread deployment in 2009 and "By the latter part of 2009, MPEG-2 stand-alone devices will have completely disappeared." We assume that by stand-alone, he means MPEG-2 only, and not hybrids that are sure to fill the gap for years to come -- till everything is all switched over. This is great news, cause it means they'll have more room for all that new HD content that we all want, now for now, there's just the long wait.

Link
Yup, Cox already has said they will be moving towards Mpeg-4

[jcthorne]

Hardware wise, the S3 and TivoHD could support Mpeg4. There is just no software to support it yet. So for the boxes that support cablecard, there is no reason to believe Tivo cannot support this in the future.

[classicsat]

It doesn't affect Series 2 Standalones at all, since the cable box will still output the SD analog video the Series 2 needs to record from, unless they are using the upgrade as an excuse to eliminate SD outputs.

It jsut affects the Series 3 platform, which as I understand it, have MPEG4 decoders in them anyways. If they are usable for MPEG4 cable decoding, I cannot say.

As for time, I think 2009 is too early to predict for a shut off of MPEG2.They might start adding HD channels in MPEG4 before that, if they have MPEG4 STBs available.

Due to the sheer number of boxes out there, SD MPEG2 will be around for quite a while longer.

[flatcurve]

yeah, bear in mind that this isn't happening over night. If they haven't already, the cablecos still need to get MP4 compatible STBs out to their customers before they flip any switches. Hopefully TiVo will have the software for the S3 and THD ready by then.

[DeathRider]

It doesn't affect Series 2 Standalones at all, since the cable box will still output the SD analog video the Series 2 needs to record from, unless they are using the upgrade as an excuse to eliminate SD outputs.


As you stated, there are alot of SD MPEG2 boxes out there, there are still alot of SD TVs out there as well...along with SD channels.

[classicsat]

But a person could choose or end up having one of these new MPEG4 boxes some time, when they come out. In that case, it would no different than the situation with MPEG4, satellite today.

[JJ]

Motorola
would like to stop making MPEG2 boxes in 2009 according to this statement. This makes sense in that cable franchises would be buying new STBs and head end hardware, from Motorola. Statement, while future looking appears rather self serving to the Motorola bottom line and planned product mix...