Every year the Resident Student Association collects requests from students about channels they want to see added to HuskyCable. We work with Information Services to see if it is possible to add the channels that are requested, and to look at the costs associated with adding these channels. This year, two requests were made for premium channel packages. One request was Showtime, the other Cinemax. However, after talking with Information Services and residents, the Housing Services Committee voted in favor of a recommendation that neither channel package be added. Our reasoning was:
- The price to bring Showtime or Cinemax to HuskyCable exceeds the benefit of having the channel and its programming;
- HBO offers several channels worth of premium content; and
- RSA Cinema provides students with an additional set of movies each month.
Currently, we have have HBO as a premium channel package. Back in 2005 when HuskyCable was being created, the student feedback was that HBO was the top choice for a premium channel package. A three-year agreement was made, so next year it will be possible to consider swapping HBO for something else, which would not raise the cost of HuskyCable. The Housing Services Committee will be working to gather student input and feedback and make a recommendation for the 2009-2010 year. As a piece of background information, approximately one-third of the cost of HuskyCable is for HBO, and adding a second premium channel package would lead to at least a 30 percent price increase which would be passed onto residents through housing charges. From our outreach this year, it was clear that students did not see a premium channel package as being worth a 30 percent price increase in HuskyCable. Of course, next year students minds may change.
4 comments:
Any word on when HuskyCable will include digital broadcasts of all channels?
We brought this up to Information Services this year. The problem, as of now, is that we buy the feeds off Comcast and Comcast encrypts the HD signals and will not allow Northeasten to decode them at the cable head end and send them to students. Comcast allows the central decoding for premium non-HD content like HBO, but not for HD. They would require every student to have a cable box, and this puts us back into the problems we had before 2006 when HuskyCable came into existence.
HD Channels are not really the concern. Right now HuskyCable transmits ~10 digital broadcasts, all of which are ATSC -- that is, they have been pulled out of the air to be transmitted over coax into dorms. These channels are ABC, Fox, NBC, CBS, PBS, and a few random channels no one will ever watch. Because more and more TV's are being built with digital tuners (non-HD sets too, its a federal law http://www.dtv.gov/consumercorner.html#faq7), it makes sense for IS to broadcast all the channels it can in a digital format. HD is a nice perk, but it would be swell if they broadcast SD digital content too.
Over-the-air broadcasts are going from analog to digital (NTSC to ATSC). All HD channels that are over-the-air are ATSC, but not all ATSC channels are HD. (For example, 7.2 is a digital channel that is not HD, but 25.1 is a HD channel that broadcasts in 720p high-definition.
Right now everything we have digital is pulled Over the air and the reason we cannot do digital / HD is because of Comcast.
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