High Bandwidth Digital Copy Protection — A content protection system developed by Intel Corp. (and others, but mostly Intel) to guard uncompressed digital video and audio moving at very high speeds — 5 Gbps, compared to 400 Mbps for early 1394/”firewire” and USB 2.0 connections — over a DVI (Digital Visual Interface) or HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) connector. Always remember: In digital, connectors and content protection methods travel together. HDCP works by encrypting every pixel as it leaves, say, a PC or set-top box, then decrypting the bits (representing the pixels) inside the digital display device. So, unlike 5C, HDCP doesnt specify whether or how many times a piece of content can be duplicated. Instead, it bodyguards those three or so critical feet of cabling feeding into digital and HDTVs. (Note for home installers: Don’t run DVI cables longer than 6 feet, unless you dont mind digital poltergeists.) To implement HDCP, manufacturers need a license from Digital Content Protection LLC.

High Definition Multimedia Interfaces: A cable and connector designed for digital video, high definition and audio transmission. A descendent of DVI (Digital Visual Interface) connectors, and generally paired with HDCP for digital rights management.

A digital television standard promising four to six times the picture resolution of analog TVs. HDTV, standardized by the Advanced Television Systems Committee in 1996, doubles both vertical and horizontal resolution of analog, NTSC-based TV displays, and adds CD-quality, digital sound. (NTSC is the National Television Standards Committee, and the organization that wrote and marshaled the analog TV spec more than 50 years ago.) HDTV is the product everybody wants to skyrocket — except anyone with “bandwidth issues.” As in, not enough. If HDTV were sent in analog (which it isnt), it’d be even fatter: HD pictures contain 30 MHz for red, 30 MHz for green and 30 MHz for blue information. (Red, green and blue, or “RGB,” are what make TVs show pictures.) That’s nearly 100 MHz of information, or 16x that used by a standard definition (read: plain old) TV picture. Digitization and compression helped — mightily — but the overall plumpness of HD signals is making bandwidth-keepers vigilant about bandwidth management. In today’s world, two, sometimes three, HDTV channels wriggle into the space of one “regular” analog TV channel. If 25 channels of linear HDTV need carriage, somebody needs to find (and clear off) between eight and 12 channels worth of room (assuming MPEG-2 compression.) HDTV is also the product everybody wished to come down the cost curve. Way down. HDTV capable sets started at $10,000+. For the first edition of this dictionary, in 2001, prices were hovering “upwards of $4,000.” During the 2004 holiday season, HDTV displays were started to dip below $2,000. By Christmas of 2008: Below $1000.

The building or suite of rooms that serves as the heart of a cable system, responsible for collecting and formatting video, voice and data signals for delivery to subscribing homes. Headends are home base for satellite receivers, demodulators, modulators, combiners, and optical lasers, which work as a group to shuttle signals from their origin (satellite, off-air broadcast antenna, public Internet connection, private high-speed backbone, telephone network) to subscribing homes. Every cable-delivered service starts at or travels through a headend. The headend connects services to the plant, which directs services to in-home electronics — cable modems, set-top boxes, telephony adaptors. Headends vary in size and type, but almost always require careful attention to interior climate (not too hot, not too humid, almost always chilly), and a backup generator for power, in the event of a power utility failure. Two trends patterned cable headends over the last several years: Lingering space limitations, and consolidation. Headend consolidation happened because metropolitan area networks got faster and better, so that fewer headends were needed for signal processing.

Engineering-speak for the root analog frequency measurement of one cycle per second. Hertz are used to quantify analog bandwidth: One Hz is one cycle per second, one MegaHertz is one million cycles per second. So, cable systems upgraded to 860 MHz are built for 860 million cycles per second of bandwidth. To calculate what that means in terms of channel capacity, first subtract the 42 MHz of bandwidth used for two-way signaling. That leaves 818 MHz. Divide that by six, because each analog channel uses 6 MHz of room. Subtract unusable frequencies; you’re left with about 130 channels, in an 860 MHz system.

A piece of hardware crammed with software that lets a person share their digital audio, video and photographic/multimedia files amongst connected devices. The term itself — home media center” — was promulgated by Microsoft Corp., and remains a heavy area of Microsoft “evangelism.” Consumer electronics companies and cable providers are also poised to compete to make the thing that links a family’s “digital stuff” together. Because it’s new turf (since the last edition, anyway), with lots of sparkle, the home media center is the epicenter of an unrestrained bit of nomenclature sparring. The attempts at a name for the technology — residential gateways, media centers, media center PCs — elbow into the attempts at a name for what they provide — networked home, digital home, multimedia home. Their purpose, in most cases, is to be the central repository and traffic cop linking up all of the digital stuff in a person’s house. That means photos, videos, DVDs, music, and digital video recordings of TV — available to multiple devices, in multiple rooms. Everything gets connected.

Cable’s traditional set-top suppliers are designing many, if not all, of the features that come with CE- and PC-styled home media centers (think multi-room DVR and HD- VOD here.) Simultaneously, the technologists working on home networks, wired and wireless, are tackling the issue from the IP (Internet protocol) side of the network. On all fronts, the main barrier to media centers is known as “digital rights management,” or “DRM.” It’s always within two feet of any conversation about home media centers, sticking up at a pointy angle, demanding resolution. The problem is how to make a device that copyright holders will deem a “trusted domain,” to hold and share content — with other “trusted” devices. It’s the digital TV equivalent of “no shoes, no shirt, no service.” Ultimately, it probably comes back to whether people really want to do a lot of futzing with their digital photos, music, and home videos. Especially if it’s so complicated, you feel the need for an IT degree to jump in.

The linking of different in-home electronics devices within a home over existing wires, or without wires. A residential version of the networks that connect multiple PCs, printers and servers in offices. Home networks were originally seen as a way to share printers, before printers dropped to the $200-$300 range. Next, they were viewed as a way to share the best, and most expensive, PC accoutrements, like laser scanners. Currently, home networks remain the end-game desire for broadband service providers, who want to link up set-tops, cable modems and telephones to other in-home devices, such as stereos and TVs, so that all can share information and be centrally controllable. On the wired home network side, there are at as many types are there are wires inside the walls of a house: Phone, coax, and power. On the wireless side, the most common mechanism for home networks is WiFi (short for wireless fidelity).

The number of residences capable of connecting to a cable, telco or satellite network, regardless of whether or not those residences choose to do so. Homes passed, abbreviated “HP,” indicates potential. If you have 10 HP, and five are your customers, thats five homes to tempt with your services. Put another way, you’re 50 percent penetrated. A hybrid fiber-coax cable network is built out on a neighborhood node basis, with 500 or so homes sharing the same node. All of those homes are “passed” by cable; the number of homes that subscribe represent a more accurate snapshot of service successes. Ditto for telephone companies, although the HP number for basic telephone service tends to equate to every home (in the U.S., anyway), since phone penetration is nearly ubiquitous.

Usage: “HP” is also a fudge indicator, especially for new service providers. If, for instance, you ask for subscriber count and are answered in homes passed, it’s probably good to ask again…”yes, but how many of the homes you pass are customers?”

A service and set of technologies that allow consumers and businesses to use the Internet at speeds much faster than old-fashioned “dial-up” Internet access. Synonymous with “broadband Internet.” HSD is provided by cable, telephone, and wireless companies.
Cable modems can render a shared downstream speed of around 38 Mbps (using 256-QAM). Available downstream bandwidth varies depending on:
– Node size (the number of homes per node; usually 500)
– Subscribership (how many HSD customers exist within that node)
– Simultaneous usage (how many HSD customers are online at the same time)
– Usage type (what HSD customers are doing — streaming video consumes more and different bandwidth than sending e-mail, as one example)
Telephone companies, with DSL, offer HSD packages, offering speeds of 8 Mbps or more downstream (as of 2005). Available downstream bandwidth varies depending on:
– “Flavor” of DSL used – DSL, A-DSL, V-DSL
– Distance from the central office (the longer the distance, the slower the speed, although one must wonder if speed is discernable by humans after, say, 3 Mbps)

Wireless companies, such as those that sell nationwide WiFi (wireless fidelity) access for road warriors, offer shared downstream speeds ranging from 2-11 Mbps (again, as of 2005). Availability of downstream bandwidth varies depending on:
– “Cell” size
– Subscribership (how many subscribers are sharing a cell’s bandwidth)
– Simultaneous usage (what those subscribers are doing, bandwidth-wise)
– Interference

A physical location within a cable HFC network where signals are taken off a primary fiber ring and moved onto secondary fiber lines. Also known as “distribution hubs.” The optical lines extending from the hub connect with the coaxial portion of the plant at fiber nodes. Among other things, hubs contain optical receivers, to catch the signals moving on the primary ring(s), and laser transmitters, to continue the signal’s transit over fiber to nodes.

The modern descriptor for how a cable television network is constructed, with a blend (hybrid) of fiber optic cables, and coaxial cable. Fibers extend outward from the headend in north-south-east-west directions, then join, at nodes, to coaxial cables that carry signals the rest of the way, to subscribing homes.