Translation Please — Broadband technology explained

Leslie Ellis is an independent technology columnist, analyst, author, and owner of Ellis Edits, Inc., based in Denver, CO. Since September of 2000, she has written and continues to write a bi-weekly column for Multichannel News called "Translation Please," aimed at demystifying commonly-used cable and broadband technology terms

Ms. Ellis is Senior Technology Advisor to the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing. She received the National Cable Television Association's Vanguard Award for Associates & Affiliates in 2005.

Sure Is Getting Cloud-y! by Leslie Ellis - 1/25/10 This Wednesday (Jan. 27), Apple finally throws its tablet into the gadget bling. Gird for a twittery hullaballoo. A few weeks ago, Google unveiled its first stab at a portable display, the “Nexus One” smart phone. Apple’s tablet will presumably fetch video content from iTunes (with a predictable impact on carrier bandwidth.) Notably, YouTube added a payment option last week, so people can watch five titles from the Sundance Film Festival. YouTube is Google is A.... read more


3D-TV and Bandwidth by Leslie Ellis - 1/18/10 Speaking of 3D-TV, the darling of this year’s Consumer Electronics Show: It all seems very … 2004. That was the year anyone trekking around the Las Vegas Convention Center saw something new and shiny and everywhere. It was called HDTV. At the time, and from the perspective of anyone in the bandwidth business, big questions loomed around the bandwidth-gobbling implications of high definition television. Refresher: HDTV images contain 6x the picture information of standard definition digital TV. Even with compression (MPEG-2), 6x the picture info meant that only two, maybe three HDTV video streams could shimmy into the same channel width (6 MHz) that carried 10 to 12 standard-def streams. It was (and is) a big deal..... read more


Coming Soon to a Windows 7 Machine Near You: Cable by Leslie Ellis - 1/11/10 Last Wednesday night, on the eve of the Consumer Electronics Show, Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft Corp., tucked a small remark into a gadget-y keynote. And if you work in multichannel video, you’re going to need to know about it. Soon. RECENT COLUMNS Sure Is Getting Cloud-y! January 25 2010 3D-TV and Bandwidth January 18 2010 Coming Soon to a Windows 7 Machine Near You: Cable January 11 2010 A CES 2010 Preview January 04 2010 What Your Cable Tech Pals Want for Christmas December 21 2009 Receive a notice when there's a new column Your Email address All contents © Ellis Edits Inc. All rights reserved.