May 4, 2007

Cable Operators Join TVN's HD VOD Club

By Mike Robuck

With sales of HDTV sets continuing to mushroom, cable operators are scrambling to provide more HD content to their customers, and HD is also a battlefront for cable against similar offerings from satellite and telecom providers.

According to The National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE), not only are sales of HDTV sets up 47 percent from this time frame last year, HDTV sets outsold standard definition (SD) sets by 90 percent in 2006. It is projected that there will be more than 50 million HDTV sets in the United States by end of this year.

Last week TVN Entertainment launched its HD VOD Club, which is an HD programming service that uses on-demand content from Hollywood studios, Starz Entertainment and other content suppliers.

Unlike other pre-packaged HD VOD solutions, TVN allows cable operators the flexibility to customize content, hardware and software based on their own unique local market parameters. TVN recently deployed a second satellite transponder with VOD receivers to support the expansion of its HD VOD services.

"TVN has invested heavily in the facilities and operations to support our HD VOD service," said Dom Stasi, chief technology officer for TVN, in a prepared statement. "From high definition encoding, upgraded Dolby 5.1 audio, bandwidth allocation, storage, asset management, forensics, and secure satellite transport, TVN is actively supporting HD VOD for our affiliates and content partners."

Blue Ridge Cable Television adds HD VOD tier

HD VOD Club is launching with BendBroadband, and the service is in a trial with Charter Communications. Blue Ridge Cable Television, which has numerous small cable systems throughout central and eastern Pennsylvania and serves over 175,000 homes, launched the service a month ago.

"There was very little for us to do on the technology side," said Mark Masenheimer, Blue Ridge's general manager. "They (TVN) purchase the rights to the movies and pitch us the HD content, and all of our VOD content comes from TVN. TVN made it a turnkey solution and easy for us to launch."

The service is available to Blue Ridge's 60,000 digital subscribers for $5.95 a month through their Scientific Atlanta set-top boxes. The service delivers roughly 50 hours of HD on-demand programming each month, including a selection of first run movies from some Hollywood studios. Aside from HD VOD Club, TVN also offers HD on-demand programming from MTV, Discovery, National Geographic and Sportskool.

"We've only had it a month or so, but we expect the category to grow with more movies and programs and with more HDTV sets penetrating the market," Masenheimer said. "The product looks great and it works well."

- Mike Robuck