Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Cable karmic punishment

As stated here last week, over in the Netherlands UPC has confirmed it's going to go after the Amsterdam fiber project in court. Simultaneously, it seems UPC is living through a kind of High Definition hell. Apparently, the copy protection signal transmitted with the HD media has a tendency to bork the Philips HD boxes being rolled out, so they're not being rolled out. This wouldn't be so terribly bad, if only the company hadn't apparently made a pledge last year to show the World Cup matches in HD - a claim it now appears to be back-pedalling on. Except that it's own HD promotion website still contains the text "De eerste uitzendingen in Nederland zijn de uitzendingen van het WK," which states that the first HD transmissions in the Netherlands will be of the WK, which stands for World Cup (I have screen grabs if this should change). This is a not a good example of joined up thinking between product planning, marketing, and press relations. As in the UK, cable misfires in Holland seem to inspire a special brand of disdain and venom, which is pouring forth in this user forum.

No comments: