VIA SATELLITE: Are there any other key 3-D technological elements that are you are currently seeking from the development community?
Pagano: I don’t think there are. I am just intrigued by where things go above and beyond 3-D TV. 4K television is starting to make its point in discussions in terms of where TV technology is going. But from a 3-D TV aspect, a year ago for us, it was more difficulit to get things from suppliers so we could launch something. Now, things are much improved. We were all running around trying to get this thing launched, but we did not have everything that we needed at the time. Ironically, a lot of vendors were able to adapt and come up with new tools that we could use pretty fast. It is the essence of our industry — they tend to come up with products to put out fires. We had the desire to get as much water as we could. Now, it is a case of where the innovation will happen in terms of making it a richer and higher quality process. That is how we have been doing television engineering from the get-go. It goes through the innovation phase of making it better and making it a richer experience, but we have everything we need, at least from a production standpoint, to make this happen.
VIA SATELLITE: What are your expectations for 4K television?
Pagano: That is the thousand-dollar question. We are trying to figure out where it is going in terms of delivery and which distribution partners are capable of it. There is lot out on the rumor mill from the vendors’ side of the equation, which suggests that they will be introducing a lot of 4K capable television sets in the next couple of years. Our fans are some of the earliest adopters of new distribution and viewing technologies, so somehow we have to figure out a way to be there for them because they will be the first adopters. I haven’t even seen a 4K television in a real good setting yet, but I know it is the next. Our plan is to make sure that we are in that mode so that we are ready for it. 4K will be the next-generation HD experience with perhaps even some 3-D TV involved. But we are just trying to get our arms around what we have to be ready for if it makes its entry in the next couple of years.
VIA SATELLITE: What are your demands for satellite capacity as a result of going to 3-D TV?
Pagano: We haven’t hit the tires on that yet; that will happen as a function of us rolling out our MPEG4 product. It is a function of working with our cable distribution partners. Right now, the majority of our 3-D TV is sent to our partners, such as Time Warner, Comcast and DirecTV, via fiber. We connect to their POPs via fiber and via our facility in Bristol. But we are going to be rolling out 3-D TV on a satellite basis because more and more of the cable systems that do not have direct fiber connectivity desire to carry 3-D TV. I don’t have a final date as to when we will launch 3-D TV via satellite. We are still in the rollout mode of our regular 2-D HD product on the MPEG4 platform. The decision will probably be made some time after the summer, but it could pop-up overnight. It depends on the instructions we get from affiliates.
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