TECHNOLÜGY Official Trade Journal of the Society of Cable Television Engineers
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è e 4 a COMMUNICATIÔNS% TECHNOLÜGY Official trade journal of the Society of Cable Television Engineers Converging on the -73 --I 0 M ri• 0 * * CJ1 ›,/14 C.51 > * 4:# 4t- Lit world 4# 4k 4# e•—• P wering today's system Trabieshooting: The basic February 1994 LOOKING FOR TROUBLE? %?leefij; ) ii 1 1 j.7-1 1 1 nzi :AO CABLE PARAMETERS DISPLAY EXPAND RANGE VERT HORIZ Sencore's CA780 "CABLEIZER" will help you find any cable fault. More Than Just ATDR 65dB Sensitivity — See even minor cable damage, One Button Measurements — Cable Length, loose connectors, water ingress. Z (impedance), VSWR, Delta Distance, Delta Return Loss 2nSec Short Range Pulse — Test to within afew feet of the TDR. BEST OF ALL Great Value — High performance at alow price. Screen Storage & Printer System Interface — Document System Performance Measurements Easy To Use — Everyone's an expert in minutes! Call 1-800-SENCORE for aFREE field evaluation today! Sencore, 3200 Sencore Drive, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, 57107 — Phone (605) 339-0100 or 1-800-736-2673 —Fax (605) 339-0317 Reader Service Number 2 TRILOGY COMMUNICATIONS INC. THE ULTIMATE CABLE SUPPLI R Prove ech ology Low L ¡Leader Ektellence -Superior Control Process State of The Art Equipment Guaranteed On Time Delivery SUPERIOR CORROSION PROTECTED DROP CABLE Trilogy Communications expends the same diligent pursuit of perfection in manufacturing dual-drop cables for TV/tele y installations, 5O cables for downlink transmissions, and RMC 2 radiating air- dielectric coaxial c e for open-air communications in highly developed or underground locations. SENDING THE RIGHT SIGNAL stee e_ rikiknYtO COMMUNICATIONS INC. Reader Service Number 3. Call or write for free samples and brochure: TRiLOGY COMMUNICATIONS INC., 2910 Highway 80 East, Pearl, Mississippi 39208 (800) 874-5649 /(601) 932-4461 /FAX (601) 939-6637 CONTENTS FEBRUARY 1994 nepartments Features Editor's Letter 6 Digital video 22 Padmanabha Rao of News 10 Compression Labs Coverage from Emerging describes the potential of Technologies '94, the compressed digital video. Western Show and more. MPEG-2 30 SCTE News 20 A blueprint for network interoperability. Scientific- Back to Basics 83 Atlanta's Anthony Wasilewski details the This month's installment it tackles drop/feeder international standard. troubleshooting with articles by Jack Webb of Back to Basics 83 AC power 46 Sencore and Duff The past, present and Campbell of Riser-Bond. future of AC powering. By Power Guard's Marty de For Safety's Sake 94 Alminana. Ralph Haimowitz of the SCTE reviews afew new UPS 50 products for ladder safety. A look at standby power in the fiber age. By Jud Ad Index 97 Williams of Performance Cable TV Products. Bookshelf 100 Road to ATV 52 Brian James of CableLabs Business/Classifieds 102 searches for an advanced TV standard. Calendar 108 Digital video 22 President's Message 110 DirecTv 56 SCTE President Bill Riker Karen JP Howes covers reports on the board's the new digital satellite --I winter meeting. system. Cover CT Daily wrap 67 Art by Brad Hamilton. New products covered in the CT Daily at the Western Show. DirecTv 56 RF spectrum chart A pull-out wall chart covering cable and over- the-air assignments MPEG-2 30 from 300 kHz to 30 GHz. ©1994 by Phillips Business Information, Inc.. a subsidiary of Phillips Publishing International, Inc. All rights reserved. Contents may not be reproduced without permission. Communications Technology (ISSN 0884-2272) is published monthly by Phillips Business Information, Inc., 1201 Seven Locks Road, Suite 300. Rockville, MD 20850. Editorial and sales offices located at 1900 Grant St., Suite 720. Denver, CO 80203, 303-839-1565. February 1994, Volume 10, Number 2. Second class postage paid at Rockville. MD and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Communications Technology. Phillips Business Information. inc.. 1201 Seven Locks Road. Suite 300, Rockville, MD 20850. Printed in U.S.A. Most tamper evident Why Buy Anything Else? Easiest to read _ e Raised numerals getc&ragLcr reumuLe) last forever Products creatively designed for the cable industry Less expensive than 800-257-2448 the tags developed for the '70's Reader Service Number 26 4 FEBRUARY 1994 COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY 2020 VISION Will videoconferencing bring you to the table? Attend staff meetings from together for amajor announce- data. Teleconferencing, tele- home...end the battle with rush ment. When business calls for commuting and telecomputing hour traffic.., hold avideocon- videoconferencing, will your will change the way we work, ference with contractors in Los network answer? travel and close business deals. Angeles... link computers with Anticipate tomorrow's applica- Our network know-how helps engineers in Singapore and col- tions today. Digitized rings and you move your network toward laborate on aproduct design... packetized signals will link busi- the future, using incremental bring regional salespeople nesses to the electronic super- revenues to drive investment. highway, allowing efficient, two- To see what our network vision way delivery of video, voice and brings to your table, call us at 1-800-TO ANTEC. Our Cable Integrated Services Network provides a plan for integrating digital rings into the information 14111TEC highway, making services like videoconferencing and Ngt-tvvc>rlk Kric>vv-hc)vv telecommuting areality 01993 ANTEC Reader Service Number 5. Reader Response Number 4 EDITOR'S LETTER 2 4 Convergence conversations or he scene was Jerrold's Christmas party in Denver. It was nice to see many old industry friends and ac- quaintances and toast the upcoming holidays. Not surprisingly, the chit- chat centered on the recently an- nounced mergers between cable and telephone companies. One long-time friend, a purchasing agent at a major MSO, commented on the benefits of the convergence of the two industries. She echoed the feelings of many at that holiday cele- bration: New capital from the mergers will allow additional growth; we'll have access to new ideas, technolo- gy and resources; telephone and cable will combine to form a revolu- tionary new business. I'm an advocate of convergence. But Iwalked away from that conversa- it may not bode well in the long run tion with a suddenly uneasy feeling. for folks like my purchasing agent Yes, convergence generally will be friend. Only time will tell. positive for both industries. CATV sys- tem personnel will have an opportunity Lists to work in what will literally be a brand Jonathan Kramer, CompuServe's new industry. In the end, the consumer broadcast professional forum CATV will be the true beneficiary. sysop, recently announced that he is But what of the people who work in putting together a list of Society of the corporate offices of the MSOs who Cable Television Engineers members are merging with the phone compa- who are available on-line. The pur- nies? Think about it for a moment. Can pose is to encourage direct E-Mail you tell me a single situation where contact between SCTE members, one company merged with another forum visitors and interested parties. and then retained the entire staffs of The list will be posted in the library the two original companies? section of the BP forum. Why on earth would a large telco If you want to be on the list, drop — with its corporate staff that already Jonathan an E-Mail via his Com- includes human resources, communi- puServe address: 73300,2161. Be cations, marketing, legal, operations, sure to include your name, addresses engineering and purchasing depart- (please identify by service), SCTE ments — keep duplicate functions in member status and number, chapter an acquired CATV corporate opera- or meeting group affiliation, and any tion? With the possible exception of additional pertinent information engineering, which likely would be ab- (chapter official, ham call sign, inter- sorbed by the telco, the other depart- ests, etc.). APARTMENT BOXES ments' responsibilities probably can Speaking of lists, if you're a ham be handled by the telco's own people. radio operator, don't forget that Time Ap- 11b rIN' Granted, the percentage of corpo- Warner's Steve Johnson maintains a t rate types who might possibly be dis- list of hams in the CATV industry. To U1 III Cable Security placed by these mergers, at least date it numbers in excess of 500, and •. compared to field personnel (some- • 801 Fox Trail you can add to that total by calling 11V • P.O. Box 2796 one has to run the systems), is fairly Steve at (303) 799-1200. Opelika, AL 36801 small. And don't think I'm being a cur- 800-288-1506 Fax: 205-742-0058 mudgeon about all of the recently an- Ronald J. Hranac nounced mergers. Quite the contrary: Senior Technical Editor 6 FEBRUARY 1994 COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY Communication superhighways demand highly reliable powering GLOBAL networks. Power Guard is aworld NETWORK leader in supplying simple solutions to POWERING these complex powering issues. SOLUTIONS Call today to discuss your powering requirements. 801 Fox Trail - P.O. Box 2796 Opelika, Al 36803 800 288-1507 205 742-0055 205 742-0058 Fax NEWS NEWS 11-I ET 94: CATV's rates of only 10 kbytes. Nash said that one of the problems AT&T researcher Clive Holborow with digital systems is that they either bright future dug into the details of MPEG modula- work or they don't. Consequently, there PHOENIX — The excitement over the tion. He said that the MPEG working may not be an indication that the net- coming generation of cable TV tech- group built a virtual VCR place holder work is about to fail, as snowy pictures nologies drew a larger than expected into the MPEG standard, which will can indicate for analog systems. crowd to the SCTE's 1994 Conference provide consumers with VCR-like con- In the cable plant, ingress could play on Emerging Technologies.