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Jim Barthold
SkyConnect Inc. has beefed up its digital programming insertion efforts by naming Jay B. Schiller to the new position of chief technical officer (CTO). Schiller will direct SkyConnect's R&D activities with specific emphasis on software applications and video server technology for ad insertion and video-on-demand products, the company said.
"We're doing a number of things," said Schiller, who previously managed Tele-Communications Inc.'s (TCI) technical operations in California, Arizona and Nevada. "We're obviously taking our commercial insertion systems - the digital platform - and continuing to improve the interfaces."
That improvement includes working with Imedia Corp. and others to insert digital advertising into statistically multiplexed digitally compressed programming streams, a complex process still under development.
"When it's going into the MPEG stream it needs to be switched in at an appropriate splice point because, unlike analog where each frame is the same format, in digital the frames are communicated in a variety of formats ... and if it's not switched appropriately it won't look appropriate," he explained.
This development depends on standardized cable set-tops; the cooperation of vendors such as General Instrument Corp. and Scientific-Atlanta Inc.; and other factors that are evolving as the digital market grows.
"Commercially, it's a 12-month issue," Schiller admitted. Also on Schiller's plate is SkyConnect's long-range VOD development, which includes long-form programming, such as infomercials and potentially Web content, as well as more typical on-demand movies and entertainment.
"Video-on-demand is certainly still going to be with the big guys in the big cities, initially, but as the economics work their way out it will open up to others as well," he said.
Changing demographics, too, will impact this as smaller operations join together via fiber links.
The video insertion business, Schiller concluded, is booming and will continue to boom as the industry shifts to digital.
"What we're calling the analog product is still a sophisticated digital system; the output is analog," he pointed out, adding SkyConnect's goal is to make that technology accessible to the smaller operators.
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