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Wednesday, October 23, 2002 |
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• HDTV ad insertion becomes a reality • Lucent beats earnings estimates, sales plunge • Next Level extends Bell Canada contract • CinemaNow scores on-demand goal • Time Warner Cable expands digital options in Austin • Study: Wireless ISPs to invest $1B in broadband
HDTV ad insertion becomes a reality Cable operators eye opening digital channels to local advertisers as a source of revenue. Terayon Communication Systems Inc. has teamed with nCUBE Corp. to now include high-definition television in the mix. The companies have developed an HD ad insertion system built on Terayon's DM 6400 Network CherryPicker and nCUBE's DPI Premium System. nCUBE's DPI system stores the ads in a digital format and delivers them to the CherryPicker on cue. The CherryPicker then synchronizes the bit rate of the ad with the bit rate of the program and then splices the ad into the program. The Society
of Cable Telecommunications Engineers has developed Digital
Program Insertion (DPI) standards to facilitate digital ad insertion. "The need for HD ad insertion solutions in growing as cable operators continue their preparations to widely offer HDTV," said Mark Jeffrey, senior product line manager for Terayon's Digital Video Solutions. "Fortunately, the work we have done with nCUBE shows that the SCTE's DPI standards, which were originally developed for SD digital ad insertion, can work for HD as well," he said. The HD ad insertion system has not yet made its market debut. The companies have been testing the system and say the while operating for five consecutive days, it inserted frame-accurate HD ad every two minutes into an HDTV stream. No errors were reported, according to the companies. The companies plan to demonstrate their HD ad insertion system at upcoming cable shows. Related stories:
Lucent beats earnings estimates, sales plunge Lucent Technologies Inc.'s ongoing attempt to reach break-even revenue of $2.5 billion per quarter led to another quarterly loss. The telecom equipment giant posted a fourth quarter net loss of net loss of $2.81 billion, or 84 cents a share, compared to a net loss of $8.8 billion, or $2.59 a share, in the same quarter in 2001. On a pro forma basis, the company recorded a per-share loss of 64 cents, which beat analysts' previously reduced consensus estimates by a penny. Revenue plummeted 56 percent from $5.16 billion a year ago to $2.28 billion. Earlier this month, Lucent said it planned to lay off another 10,000 workers by the end of fiscal 2003. Once complete, Lucent will have a work force of 35,000. At its peak, Lucent had more than 100,000 employees. Analysts have speculated that Lucent may run out of cash. Merrill Lynch analyst Tal Liani has forecast that the telecom giant could use up its entire $4.4 billion cash balance before the end of next year. Lucent denies that it is on the verge of running out of money. The company is working toward its goal of achieving EPS break-even late in fiscal 2003 at $2.5 billion in quarterly revenue. "We will continue to improve the way we run the business by streamlining the processes we use with our customers and driving greater efficiency through improvements in supply chain and information systems," said Frank D'Amelio, Lucent's chief financial officer. First-quarter revenue is expected to be flat or down
10 percent from the numbers posted in the fourth quarter. Analysts
were expecting Lucent to post first-quarter revenue of $2.27 billion,
according to Thomson First Call. Related stories:
Next Level extends Bell Canada contract Telco Bell Canada wants to expand its bundled data and video service offering, and has extended an existing contract with Next Level Communications Inc. to make it happen. Under the terms of the three-year contract extension, Bell Canada will use Next Level's Full Service Access Platform broadband access equipment to continue the rollout of data and video services to apartments and condominiums in Toronto. The Canadian market is ripe, with roughly 40 percent of Canada's residents living in multi-dwelling units. Bell Canada has more than 14 million access lines, 5 million of which are in the Toronto area. The Full Service Platform is designed to deliver up to three digital TV channels simultaneously on multiple TVs, high-speed Internet access and telephone services. Financial terms were not disclosed. Separately, the Nasdaq put Next Level on notice. The company's stock has traded below the minimum $1 per share price for 30 consecutive trading days. Next Level must boost its stock to at least $1 and trade there for 10 consecutive trading days, or face delisting, according to the NASDAQ notice. Next Level has until Jan. 13 to be in compliance. As of 11:28 a.m. EDT, the company's stock was trading at 73 cents a share. Next Level said it will monitor its stock closely. Related stories:
CinemaNow scores on-demand goal Attention hockey fans, NHL.com has teamed with CinemaNow Inc. to deliver on-demand hockey highlights. The on-demand service gives hockey fans access to streaming video highlights from almost every NHL game, classic NHL moments, previews of titles from the NHL Home Video library and a behind-the-scenes look at NHL teams and players. The NHL Highlight Machine gives subscribers various highlight options, including building a play list and watching highlights in that order, comparing specific players vs. specific goalies; comparing team vs. team, watching archived game highlights; and seeing individual player information and stats. The video-on-demand distributor's proprietary PatchBay VOD technology will handle the content distribution, including digital and territorial rights protection, user profiling, pay-per-view and subscription services and detailed report generation. PatchBay uses Microsoft's Digital Rights Management solution and is integrated with Windows Media 9 Series. The puck dropped last week to start. Content is available on a pay-per-view basis, or as part of a season-long subscription. The NHL Highlight Machine, for example, is priced at $4.95 a month, or $29.95 for the season. Related stories:
Time Warner Cable expands digital options in Austin
Time Warner Cable has begun to offer another service for Austin-area customers: digital video program recording that takes place inside the cable set-top control box. The $9.95 option is Time Warner's latest offering -- joining increased channel choices, program guide and video-on-demand -- to entice customers to switch to its digital cable service. It also offers the cable company another potential revenue stream. The cable company says it has about 300,000 cable customers in the Austin area, compared with about 290,000 two years ago. It says a "healthy percentage" of that total are digital customers, but it declines to divulge the number. As with other digital video recorders, Time Warner's new set-top box, made by Scientific-Atlanta Inc., uses a computer hard-disk drive to record up to 40 hours of programming or 80 gigabytes of information. Users can fast-forward through programs, rewind or pause. The new service also gives customers almost all the capabilities of conventional digital video recorders, such as the TiVo device, plus some extras. It lets cable subscribers record up to two programs at once and also gives subscribers the ability to watch two programs at once with a "picture-in-picture" feature. "You get to watch TV the way you want to watch it," said Roger Heaney, the cable company's director of public affairs. Unlike some digital video recorders, the new box won't let users automatically skip past commercials when playing back recorded programs. Viewers who want to skip commercials must fast-forward through them. Time Warner's new option allows the company to better compete with services offered by satellite television providers using the TiVo digital recorders. TiVo says its recorder boxes cost $299 or $349 and can be rented for $12.95 a month. Time Warner said 300 new cable customers chose the new service between Saturday and Monday morning. The company has 2,000 of the new boxes in stock in Austin and has another 3,000 on order. The company will order more as needed. The lowest rate for basic digital cable from Time Warner is $47.02 a month, plus a $5.95 monthly rental charge for the set-top box. Premium channels, such as HBO, cost extra. That means the lowest a customer could pay for the new digital recorder service would be $62.92 a month, plus tax. The new service is available to digital cable customers across most of its Austin service area, except Fredericksburg, which has a different digital system. Digital cable customers who want the new service can exchange their current set-top boxes and remote control for a new unit at a Time Warner service center. Once customers plug in the new box, it will configure itself within a few minutes. Customers who want a cable technician to install the new box must pay a $30.57 fee.
Study: Wireless ISPs to invest $1B in broadband Next year may be the year for broadband wireless, one analysis says. Wireless ISPs plan to spend $1.1 billion on broadband wireless products and services over the next 12 to 18 months, according to a new research study conducted by BWE Research Services, the research arm of Broadband Wireless Exchange Inc. "While many companies in our industry are still in startup or early build out stages of their network deployment, the latest research shows that entrepreneurs, existing service providers and investors have big plans for utilizing broadband wireless technology in 2003," said Robert Hoskins, Broadband Wireless Exchange's president and CEO. The Broadband Wireless 2003 Forecast report will be available Nov. 1. In addition to the report, BWE has compiled an online research database that contains qualified leads from individuals and businesses that intend to build broadband wireless networks in the next 12 months. BWE plans to update the database daily.
• Macromedia delivers on-demand streams for Yahoo! Yahoo! Inc. has teamed with Macromedia Inc. to deliver on-demand streaming capabilities to SBC Yahoo! DSL subscribers. The Macromedia Flash Communication Server MX has been integrated into SBC Yahoo! DSL to enable streaming on-demand video clips directly from a subscriber's home page. "By integrating Macromedia Flash Communication Server MX into SBC Yahoo! DSL, members have instant access to streaming content with very little buffering and without having to open a separate media player," said Jim Brock, senior vice president of major initiatives at Yahoo!. • Liberate delays 10-Q filing Liberate Technologies plans to delay filing its 10-Q. The filing delay prompted a letter from the NASDAQ stating that the company does not meet the timely filing requirements for continued listing. Liberate has requested a hearing to review the staff determination, but said there can be no assurances that Liberate's stock will continued to be listed on the NASDAQ Beginning Oct. 24, Liberate's stock will trade under the symbol LBRTE. • Equator bows new chip Equator Technologies Inc. has introduced the BSP-15-500 chip, the latest addition to the company's BSP-15 product line. The BSP-15-500, which operates at 500 MHz, is designed to deliver 50 billions of operations per second of video processing.
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