Webcast: Q4 2004 Cablevision Systems Corp. Earnings Conference Call
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hbk409 said:
The 8300s currently being released to subscribers do not, I believe, include the multi-room capability yet.
jnardone said:
how much storage space would they need to hold even a days worth of every channel? even if they did not record the repeats im sure it would be a couple of terabytes for a day, then how long would they keep the programming on their servers? one day you go to watch something, watch half then the next day its gone. the end user would have no control
madpoet said:
its in limited markets it was to time warner sorry. this is from http://sciatl.com/newscenter/newsre...atlanta.com/newscenter/releases/05Jan06-2.htm
CES/January 6-9, 2005
South Hall, Booth#31754
Scientific-Atlanta is First to Launch Cable Multi-Room DVR for the Connected Home
— Multi-Room technology from Scientific-Atlanta now commercially available to Time Warner Cable consumers in Minneapolis —
Las Vegas, NV – CES 2005 – Scientific-Atlanta announced today the commercial availability of its innovative Explorer® 8300™ MR-DVR set-top. Time Warner Cable, the cable industry leader in the deployment of DVRs, is now initiating the deployment of Multi-Room™ DVR set-tops in its Minneapolis division. Scientific-Atlanta’s innovative Multi-Room DVR service builds on its very popular DVR service first commercially deployed in August 2002. With Multi-Room DVR, a consumer can not only choose what to watch, when they want to watch, but also let’s the consumer decide where to watch it as well.
"New DVR research shows that the concept of a truly connected home that allows recorded content to be viewed on multiple TVs is indeed very appealing to consumers," said Jennifer Choate, Principal, CCubed, LLC. "In fact, that was one of the highest ranked features of interest by DVR users surveyed.”
“Multi-Room DVR provides cable operators a clear competitive advantage in the market place by providing consumers unprecedented control in how they watch their favorite programs” said Michael P. Harney, corporate senior vice president and president of Subscriber Networks. “With Scientific-Atlanta’s Multi-Room DVR solution, we have made it incredibly easy for our customer’s subscribers to watch their DVR recorded content throughout the home. For operators that deploy, market, and bundle Multi-Room DVR service in their service packages, they are setting the stage as the provider in the market place for the connected home.”
For more information on Multi-Room DVR and/or to see a demonstration of the product, visit Scientific-Atlanta at CES in the South Hall, Booth #31754.
Media Requests:
To request an at-show briefing with a Scientific-Atlanta executive attending the show, please contact Sara Stutzenstein at 770-331-0269 or sara.stutzenstein@sciatl.com; or Rae Howard at 404-262-3000 or rae.howard@edelman.com
About Scientific-Atlanta
Scientific-Atlanta, Inc. (NYSE: SFA - http://www.scientificatlanta.com) is a leading supplier of digital content distribution systems, transmission networks for broadband access to the home, digital interactive set-tops and subscriber systems designed for video, high-speed Internet and voice over IP (VoIP) networks, and worldwide customer service and support.
"Forward-looking statements," as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, may be included in this news release. A variety of factors could cause Scientific-Atlanta's actual results to differ from the anticipated results expressed in such forward-looking statements. Investors are referred to Scientific-Atlanta's Cautionary Statements (Exhibit 99.1 to the Company's most recent Form 10-Q), which statements are incorporated into this news release by reference.
###
Contact:
Sara Stutzenstein, Scientific-Atlanta, +1.770.236.2181, +1.770.236.3088/fax, sara.stutzenstein@sciatl.com
Peggy Ballard, Scientific-Atlanta, +1.770.236.7871, +1.770.236.3088/fax, peggy.ballard@sciatl.com
For more information visit http://www.scientificatlanta.com. Writers and editors may access a variety of information on the company and its product, as well as downloadable images, by selecting News Center from the home page. Scientific-Atlanta, the Scientific-Atlanta logo and Explorer are registered trademarks and Multi-Room, 8000 and 8300 are trademarks of Scientific-Atlanta, Inc.
The Voom numbers were in the press release - $661.4 MILLION DOLLARS LOST in 2004 - total Cablevision loss $59 million (Cablevision would have made $600 million without Voom).Scott Greczkowski said:
No subscriber number for Voom in the PR.
JL
I'd like to dig up the Q3 release and see what the YTD losses were at that point, so we can judge how much loss Voom generated in Q4.
hbk409 said:
Comletely uncompressed HD video will take up about a terabyte for every hour and a half of video. But the DVR will need to have a somewhat high compression rate to make it worth while.
hbk409 said:
The box has a hard drive but it only needs to be big enough for one or two movies. Comcast cable in my area already does this. They have a bunch of kids shows and other stuff to pick from and watch at any time - for no extra charge. While you are watching live TV the same box buffers the show so you can pause it or watch on delay and skip commercials.
What he was saying was that they view a consumer-owned DVR as a short term solution and that the system that I describe will be available within a year or two and is a better long term plan. That is why they do not intend to push DVR sales unless it becomes necessary,
The 4Q only numbers are in the press release too ...madpoet said:
Total Cablevision $279,056,000 lost - Rainbow DBS $449,845,000 lost
JL
jnardone said:
sound like your talking about the ondemand for the kids programming and a dvr for live tv, if they are currently doing this how big is the hard drive in you box? that you are able to pause live programming w/o a dvr bx?
hbk409 said:
Yes - but I don't have it I have VOOM. The point is that if the cable company is going to record everything (as memory becomes cheaper and cheaper and compression becomes better and better) then the box does not need a big hard drive or multiple tuners like a DVR. If you get enough subscribers at $10 per month then you make a lot more money giving them a cheaper box and offering VOD. Also, you provide better service as the customer doesn't have to remember to set the DVR to record or can check out older episodes of popular shows.
This "On Demand" stuff that they are talking about is SD. CVC "On Demand" HD is very weak. To me On Demand SD programming does not cut it.
Of course, just how much of that money 661.4M is being used for prepaid operating expenses to keep VOOM HD LLC running through 2005? And how much of that money is going to be used hand deliver 250K subscribers (subscriber acquisition expense) to Dolan Sr.? It's no wonder Cablevision won't speak of VOOM until after the spin-off/sale of VOOM assets.
Very few people can answer these questions...everything else (including the above comments) are mere speculation and opinion.
jnardone said:
still you would need alot of capacity. as prices go down on memory the can just increase the size of the hard drive in the dvr, add that to a webbase application so that you could access your box to record from anywhere, just like tivo is now doing. I feel it would be alot better product then having the material on the providers severs. Also with the current boxes that have the ablity to add an external sata harddrive for added storage.
Sean Mota said:
I agree - but what cablevision said was that going forward they prefer on demand to customer-operated DVR's. He was not talking about NOW he was talking about the future - one or two years down the road. You have to admit that a HD VOD system operated by the cable company with all available programs is functionally better than a DVR. And if the cable company makes more money doing it that way then that is the direction they will move.
There is almost the same thing going on now with bittorrent and the Internet. Past episodes of HD TV shows are now the most downloaded files on the bittorrent sites that I use. We started watching Lost in HD a few months ago and we needed to catch up and watch episodes 1 through 8. At the time these shows aired I did not know that I would want to watch them so even if VOOM had a DVR I would not have recorded them. With the "poor man's VOD" of bittorrent and the Internet we are able to get caught up.
