June 27, 2006

Comcast Media Center Tour Highlights Industry Asset

By Justin J. Junkus

As part of Cable-Tec Expo, the SCTE offered tours of Denver area cable facilities, including the Comcast Media Center. On last Tuesday's tour day, Expo attendees got a view of an industry asset that, although seldom seen by consumers, directly affects the TV experience of every viewer in the United States . The 305,000-square-foot Comcast Media Center (CMC) in Littleton , CO , serves more than 400 MSOs operating more than 3,000 regional and standalone cable headends with origination of 79 TV channels and video transmission for 445 full-time services. CMC capabilities include channel and live origination services in HD and standard definition, studio and post-production, encoding, and content hosting and storage services.

Tour participants were guided through two data centers, five video production studios, four audio studios, an operations and monitoring center, and a video lab. Mitch Weinraub, Comcast New Media Group, pointed out that the production studios are used by several major and emerging networks, including PBS, Food Net and Great American Country to develop specialized content for media ranging from conventional TV through cell phones.

The center is in the forefront of VOD segment production. Rather than merely repurposing live show programming for a VOD application, the production facilities create custom VOD segments for specific markets. For example, highlights of a complete hockey championship game can be made into VOD summary program segments available to subscribers the morning after the game. Other emerging services include trailer-type promotions of network programming for distribution on cellular networks or the Internet, to remind viewers of programming choices for evening viewing.

Ad content services include management and insertion of ads for national and regional programming, including out-of-market sports packages. In this application, center staff monitors local content and inserts ad content appropriate to the particular market being served, in real time.

The center also provides virtual network services for emerging and established networks that do not have the resources for in-house program management. One operator at the center can manage as many as 12 channels in a state-of-the-art control room, freeing the network's staff to focus on content and advertising sales. In addition to being a resource for startups, this service is also being used for "warm backup" in geographies susceptible to seasonal natural disasters.

Looking toward the future of digital services, the center also includes a lab to experiment with high density content distribution and video-rich navigation for programming guides. At the tour conclusion, participants saw examples of three HD channels transported within 6 MHz of spectrum and programming guides with multiple program windows to draw consumers to events chosen for promotion by the operator.

- Justin J. Junkus