CES: Comcast launching high-def download service

CEO Roberts gives show keynote

By Ned Randolph -- Video Business, 1/9/2008

JAN. 9 | Comcast Corp. will provide thousands of high-definition movies on demand and a new "wide-band" Internet service that can download high-def titles in four minutes over the Internet by the end of the year, CEO Brian Roberts told participants at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week.

Roberts, the first cable CEO to give a keynote address at the annual convention, said Comcast would prove that cable will be the leader in entertainment-related innovation.

He predicted that Comcast will be able to provide more than 6,000 movies on demand a month, including 3,000 in high-def to households within the early testing areas.

The wide-band architecture, called DOCSIS 3.0 technology, is created by recapturing and bonding together analogue channels falling into disuse as cable operators switch over to all-digital channels. Using that infrastructure, Comcast also will be able to deliver a new level of Internet connectivity, dwarfing current broadband speeds.

"If it's as popular as we expect, we'll continue rolling out this exciting product," he said. "No competitor will have this much speed in front of so many homes."

Just as broadband was the enabler of YouTube, Google and eBay, Roberts said the wide-band technology can create a new quantum leap.

"When we boost Web speeds of 10-20-50 times faster, it will mean a whole new world of innovation that we can barely imagine," he said.

Roberts also announced a new entertainment-based Web site, called Fancast, (www.fancast.com) which aggregates more than 3,000 hours of streaming video, TV shows and movie trailers in more than 11 million pages of entertainment. Anyone can register for Fancast, which personalizes content for each individual user. For Comcast customers, Fancast will allow them to manage and download content onto their PCs, program their digital video recorders and manage voicemail on their land lines.

Comcast also is embracing a new philosophy of opening its cable box platform to third-party developers in order to innovate faster. The cable box platform will be called Tru2way and will be standardized so that manufacturers can embed the platform in their products, such as the new Panasonic wireless HDTV, which has a Comcast platform integrated within its system.

"This open platform model has already been embraced by many of the biggest names, like Panasonic, Samsung, Intel, Cisco, LG, Microsoft, Motorola, TiVo, Sun Microsystems and more," Roberts said. "Virtually the entire cable industry will support Tru2way technology on our local systems by the end of this year. By that time, Tru2way consumer electronic devices will already be in the marketplace."