NEW EDITION NOW AVAILABLE! ISBN 1-55860-828-1 Based on a tutorial workshop, this book overviews the technical details involved in a cable system. A complete descriptive reference of a cable television system. This book is the most up-to-date and comprehensive reference available on cable television technologies. It covers issues not addressed in any other book such as modern headend design, reliability calculations, modern architecture, and equipment interface. * Summarizes key standards including DOCSIS, DVS, NRSS, DSWG, EIA-542, and IS-23 * Explains digital cable, analog cable, data on cable, telephone on cable, and headend practices * Features distribution systems, from drops through fiber optics and covering everything from basic principles to network architectures * Includes coverage of digital video compression, digital modulation techniques, subjective video quality expectations, and consumer electronic equipment interface issues
Fully updated, revised, and expanded, this second edition of Modern Cable Television Technology addresses the significant changes undergone by cable since 1999--including, most notably, its continued transformation from a system for delivery of television to a scalable-bandwidth platform for a broad range of communication services. It provides in-depth coverage of high speed data transmission, home networking, IP-based voice, optical dense wavelength division multiplexing, new video compression techniques, integrated voice/video/data transport, and much more. Intended as a day-to-day reference for cable engineers, this book illuminates all the technologies involved in building and maintaining a cable system. But it's also a great study guide for candidates for SCTE certification, and its careful explanations will benefit any technician whose work involves connecting to a cable system or building products that consume cable services. Features * The much-awaited second edition of an award-winning book, written by leading figures in the cable industry. * Organized to "follow the plant" from signal creation, through multiplexing, transmission, and, finally, reception and processing within consumer's premises. * Focuses on the practical, not the theoretical, and explains concepts and techniques using a minimum of mathematics. * Covers both analog and digital signals, as well as coaxial and fiber-optic broadband distribution systems. * Discusses system architecture in detail, including considerations relating to digital fiber modulation and network reliability. * Explores a wide range of customer interface issues, including analog and digital video reception, consumer electronics, and home networks. About the Authors Walter Ciciora is a Fellow of the IEEE, the SMPTE, and SCTE and is a consultant in Cable, Consumer Electronics, and Telecommunications. He is a cofounder and CTO of HBA Matchmaker Media, a company with technologies in addressable advertising. Dr. Ciciora was cofounder and CTO of EnCamera Sciences, a company with technologies for embedding digital data in analog television signals, until it was sold in 2000. Previously, he was VP of Technology at Time Warner from 1982 to 1993 after being with Zenith since 1965. David Large is the Chief Technical Officer of Altrio Communications. He is a Fellow Member and Hall of Fame Honoree of the SCTE, a Senior Member of the IEEE, an NCTA Science and Technology Vanguard Award Winner, and SCTE-certified Broadband Communications Engineer. James Farmer is Chief Technical Officer at Wave7 Optics. He has previously been with Scientific-Atlanta, ESP, and ANTEC. He is a senior member of the IEEE and the SCTE and has served on administrative boards with both organizations. He is a recipient of the NCTA Vanguard Award in Technology, and is a member of the SCTE Hall of Fame. Michael Adams is President of Broadband Semantics, Inc. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE, and a member of the SCTE. In 2001, he received the Cable Center book award for "OpenCable Architecture."
Cable television is arguably the dominant mass media technology in the U.S. today. Blue Skies traces its history in detail, depicting the important events and people that shaped its development, from the precursors of cable TV in the 1920s and '30s to the first community antenna systems in the 1950s, and from the creation of the national satellite-distributed cable networks in the 1970s to the current incarnation of "info-structure" that dominates our lives. Author Patrick Parsons also considers the ways that economics, public perception, public policy, entrepreneurial personalities, the social construction of the possibilities of cable, and simple chance all influenced the development of cable TV. Since the 1960s, one of the pervasive visions of "cable" has been of a ubiquitous, flexible, interactive communications system capable of providing news, information, entertainment, diverse local programming, and even social services. That set of utopian hopes became known as the "Blue Sky" vision of cable television, from which the book takes its title. Thoroughly documented and carefully researched, yet lively, occasionally humorous, and consistently insightful, Blue Skies is the genealogy of our media society.
This book contains a key component of the NII 2000 project of the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, a set of white papers that contributed to and complements the project's final report, The Unpredictable Certainty: Information Infrastructure Through 2000, which was published in the spring of 1996. That report was disseminated widely and was well received by its sponsors and a variety of audiences in government, industry, and academia. Constraints on staff time and availability delayed the publication of these white papers, which offer details on a number of issues and positions relating to the deployment of information infrastructure.
Cable is now as much in the broadband business as it is television. This book explains the fundamentals of coaxial cable technology and the DSP that controls it, along with the cable modem and voice over IP technology now drastically changing the cable operators’ business. Aimed at working engineers and technicians, it can also be used a textbook for the a basic cable communications course in a 2 year tech program.
An inside look at a cable titan and his industry John Malone, hailed as one of the great unsung heroes of our age by some and reviled by others as a ruthless robber baron, is revealed as a bit of both in Cable Cowboy. For more than twenty-five years, Malone has dominated the cable television industry, shaping the world of entertainment and communications, first with his cable company TCI and later with Liberty Media. Written with Malone's unprecedented cooperation, the engaging narrative brings this controversial capitalist and businessman to life. Cable Cowboy is at once a penetrating portrait of Malone's complex persona, and a captivating history of the cable TV industry. Told in a lively style with exclusive details, the book shows how an unassuming copper strand started as a backwoods antenna service and became the digital nervous system of the U.S., an evolution that gave U.S. consumers the fastest route to the Internet. Cable Cowboy reveals the forces that propelled this pioneer to such great heights, and captures the immovable conviction and quicksilver mind that have defined John Malone throughout his career.
Broadband Cable Access Networks focuses on broadband distribution and systems architecture and concentrates on practical concepts that will allow the reader to do their own design, improvement, and troubleshooting work. The objective is to enhance the skill sets of a large population that designs and builds broadband cable plants, as well as those maintaining and troubleshooting it. A large cross-section of technical personnel who need to learn these skills design, maintain, and service HFC systems from signal creation through transmission to reception and processing at the customer end point. In addition, data/voice and video specialists need to master and reference the basics of HFC design and distribution before contending with the intricacies of their own unique services. This book serves as an essential reference to all cable engineers—those who specifically design and maintain the HFC distribution plant as well as those primarily concerned with data/voice technology as well as video technology. - Concentrates on practical concepts that will allow the user to do his own design, improvement, and trouble-shooting work. - Prepares cable engineers and technicians to work with assurance as they face the latest developments and future directions. - Concise and tightly focused, allowing readers to easily find answers to questions about an idea or concept they are developing in this area.
The cable industry is undergoing a wrenching period of change and convergence, as fiber optic and digital technologies remake the landscape and high speed digital access presents applications and opportunities. This is a guide to the nuts and bolts technology issues driving these changes.
Richly researched and engaging, The Columbia History of American Television tracks the growth of TV into a convergent technology, a global industry, a social catalyst, a viable art form, and a complex and dynamic reflection of the American mind and character. Renowned media historian Gary R. Edgerton follows the technological progress and increasing cultural relevance of television from its prehistory (before 1947) to the Network Era (1948-1975) and the Cable Era (1976-1994). He considers the remodeling of television's look and purpose during World War II; the gender, racial, and ethnic components of its early broadcasts and audiences; its transformation of postwar America; and its function in the political life of the country. In conclusion, Edgerton takes a discerning look at our current Digital Era and the new forms of instantaneous communication that continue to change America's social, political, and economic landscape.
In the last ten years, television has reinvented itself in numerous ways. The demise of the U.S. three-network system, the rise of multi-channel cable and global satellite delivery, changes in regulation policies and ownership rules, technological innovations in screen design, and the development of digital systems like TiVo have combined to transform the practice we call watching tv. If tv refers to the technologies, program forms, government policies, and practices of looking associated with the medium in its classic public service and three-network age, it appears that we are now entering a new phase of television. Exploring these changes, the essays in this collection consider the future of television in the United States and Europe and the scholarship and activism focused on it. With historical, critical, and speculative essays by some of the leading television and media scholars, Television after TV examines both commercial and public service traditions and evaluates their dual (and some say merging) fates in our global, digital culture of convergence. The essays explore a broad range of topics, including contemporary programming and advertising strategies, the use of television and the Internet among diasporic and minority populations, the innovations of new technologies like TiVo, the rise of program forms from reality tv to lifestyle programs, television’s changing role in public places and at home, the Internet’s use as a means of social activism, and television’s role in education and the arts. In dialogue with previous media theorists and historians, the contributors collectively rethink the goals of media scholarship, pointing toward new ways of accounting for television’s past, present, and future. Contributors. William Boddy, Charlotte Brunsdon, John T. Caldwell, Michael Curtin, Julie D’Acci, Anna Everett, Jostein Gripsrud, John Hartley, Anna McCarthy, David Morley, Jan Olsson, Priscilla Peña Ovalle, Lisa Parks, Jeffrey Sconce, Lynn Spigel, William Uricchio
