Todd Spangler

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Cable Show 2012: Cisco Flash Mob Features Big Green Men

Boston — It looked like Cisco Systems fellow John Chapman was opening up the 2012 Cable Show’s Imagine Park exhibit on Monday to talk about the vendor’s Videoscape platform (see Cisco Pushes Videoscape Into ‘Cloud’ Formation ). But (thankfully?) he was quickly interrupted by a blaring techno mix and a dude dancing on stage behind him — who was... More

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Cable Show 2012: Is VOD Advertising 'Not a Dream Anymore'?

Boston — Cable’s years of offering free VOD without generating any serious ad dollars may be coming to an end. Comcast has deployed BlackArrow’s system for dynamic ad-insertion on VOD — including midroll ads — across more than 90% of its footprint, and now Time Warner Cable is about to get into the mix (see Time Warner Cable To Light Up Dynamic VOD Ads... More

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Cable Show 2012: The Next Big Things? Four Startups Take the Podium

Boston — The “Next Big Thing: Ideas, Inventions and Emerging Tech Innovations” session here today provided lightning-round presentations by four tech companies, pitching their ideas to the cable world. The session was moderated by Comcast Ventures managing director Louis Toth. I don’t know if these are the next billion-dollar ideas, but each was pretty... More

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Cable Show 2012: TiVo Omits Full Slingbox-ing from 'TiVo Stream'

Boston — It’s not a Slingbox, but TiVo is promising to let its MSO partners deliver live TV and DVR recordings to tablets, smartphones and PCs throughout the home — and “sideload” certain content to take it to go — with the new TiVo Stream device (see TiVo Streams TV To Tablets, Debuts IP Set-Top ). The TiVo Stream box uses transcoding silicon from... More

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Once Again, Here's What Data-Usage Caps Are For

Some reporters on Comcast’s call yesterday about its new bandwidth-cap approach were confused: If only a very small number of subscribers even approach the 250-Gigabyte limit today, what is even the point of having a cap? (See Comcast To Shift From Broadband Caps To Usage-Based Pricing .) Comcast EVP David Cohen responded, “It’s a matter of messaging, rather than... More