Audio Video News

Here's reason number 37,878 to resent the cable industry: It may soon start charging prohibitive tariffs on high-def downloads to penalize consumers who buy or rent from non-cable-controlled download services.

Coming soon to unwary Time Warner Cable subscribers in Beaumont, Texas is a new rate plan that would set a fixed amount of bandwidth per customer. Go above that amount and you pay extra. TWC told The New York Times that packages would probably run 5 to 40 gigabytes a month, and would likely be modeled on Bell Canada's rate structure, which charges from 1 to 7.50 Canadian dollars per extra gigabyte depending on the plan. The story in the Times suggested this may add as much as 30 bucks to the cost of an HD download.

Is TWC gouging or just rationally charging higher rates to the heaviest users? Depends on whom you ask. An expert cited by the Times said that more 80 percent of the cable company's costs per user are fixed. TWC retorts that five percent of users hog half its bandwidth.

In what may or may not be related news, this week another Time Warner subsidiary launched HBO on Broadband in two test markets, Milwaukee and Green Bay, Wisconsin. Existing HBO subscribers will be able to access live feeds and downloads at no extra cost. There are limitations: Downloads will expire after 12 weeks and cannot be transferred from the PC to other devices. The rotating selection of 130 titles a month will be twice that offered by the seven-year-old HBO On Demand.