Bright House CableCARD customers win battle

[SideFx]

Bright House CableCARD customers win battle, get their HD channels back - Engadget HD

[Chucky Cheese]

Wow they just won 5-6 months of time, then after the six months then what? Switch Digtial is on its way wether they like it or not. It's just not Bright House doing this, it's just about every Cable provider going to switch video.

[jcarrera]

What is switch digital? Is that the SDV acronym people throw out as if everybody understands what they mean?

[Saxamoophone]

Yeah I guess they also said this:

"This is good only until the Aug/Sep timeframe when SDV will be rolled out. The SDV rollout is pending an upgrade from Passport to Maestro on all BHN boxes, which is due in August."

So looks like the BH should have just about every HD channel out there just in time for College Football Season.

ESPNNEWS-HD, CBS-College-Sports-HD, and ESPN-U-HD anyone?

jcarrera, SDV or Switched Digital Video is a Two-Way Data Method of getting you your tv channel.

Right now, EVERY channel BH offers is sent to your Digital Box. The Box decides which channel to tune into, but every channel is already "there." With SDV, you are basically "asking" Brighthouse to "send you" JUST that channel. It's basically just like Video-On-Demand, but I'm sure with a MUCH quicker start-up-time (since VOD takes 5-10 seconds to start up normally).

But yeah, I guess score one for TIVO/Media Center owners.

I'm seriously looking into both of those options for the future (since the BH-HD-DVR is AWFUL), but, until they can offer SDV & VOD support...no way will I be switching!

[stevenl]

Was nice of them to put them back at least, until SDV is live.

[skottey]

Yeah I guess they also said this:

"This is good only until the Aug/Sep timeframe when SDV will be rolled out. The SDV rollout is pending an upgrade from Passport to Maestro on all BHN boxes, which is due in August."

So looks like the BH should have just about every HD channel out there just in time for College Football Season.

ESPNNEWS-HD, CBS-College-Sports-HD, and ESPN-U-HD anyone?

jcarrera, SDV or Switched Digital Video is a Two-Way Data Method of getting you your tv channel.

Right now, EVERY channel BH offers is sent to your Digital Box. The Box decides which channel to tune into, but every channel is already "there." With SDV, you are basically "asking" Brighthouse to "send you" JUST that channel. It's basically just like Video-On-Demand, but I'm sure with a MUCH quicker start-up-time (since VOD takes 5-10 seconds to start up normally).

But yeah, I guess score one for TIVO/Media Center owners.

I'm seriously looking into both of those options for the future (since the BH-HD-DVR is AWFUL), but, until they can offer SDV & VOD support...no way will I be switching!

This will probably slow down channel changing speed, since it is seeking and starting a stream with each channel change and the channel is not already there.

But heck, I'll take a slight delay if they roll out more HD.

[Saxamoophone]

Actually, I think the delay isn't really that big....

I'm sure somebody else in here can explain it better (or just tell me i'm way off =p), but I think the "Switch" happens at each local node. So the fiberline still has EVERYTHING, it's just from the "end" of the fiberline to your house that is the Switched (two-way) part. That way, the delay time is kept pretty small.

Either way, everything I heard about SDV is that it lets you change channels without much of a wait (no more then normal at least)

[stevenl]

The wait to change channels is not that much different.. Someone will bitch about it though. Even if it was faster someone would bitch.

[Saxamoophone]

The wait to change channels is not that much different.. Someone will bitch about it though. Even if it was faster someone would bitch.

Haha, That's probably true.

[LonghornXP]

Haha, That's probably true.

For those people complaining about slow switching BHN can always say without the slow switching you wouldn't even have the channel. We have no problems taking away the new channels for you if you would like that.

I'm sure that would shut up most of those customers eh!