Modern Cable Television Technology: Video, Voice, and Data Communications (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Networking) [Hardcover]

Walter Ciciora (Author), James Farmer (Author), David Large (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1558604162 | ISBN-13: 978-1558604162 | Publication Date: December 15, 1998 | Edition: 1st

NEW EDITION NOW AVAILABLE! ISBN 1-55860-828-1

Based on a tutorial workshop, this book overviews the technical details involved in a cable system. A complete descriptive reference of a cable television system. This book is the most up-to-date and comprehensive reference available on cable television technologies. It covers issues not addressed in any other book such as modern headend design, reliability calculations, modern architecture, and equipment interface.

* Summarizes key standards including DOCSIS, DVS, NRSS, DSWG, EIA-542, and IS-23
* Explains digital cable, analog cable, data on cable, telephone on cable, and headend practices
* Features distribution systems, from drops through fiber optics and covering everything from basic principles to network architectures
* Includes coverage of digital video compression, digital modulation techniques, subjective video quality expectations, and consumer electronic equipment interface issues

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This book is required reading for engineers and other technical readers interested in a career in telecommunications, which in the next millenium, will rely heavily upon a cable television infrastructure. It offers the best comprehensive look at cable television technology that I have seen. I congratulate the authors on a job well done.
—Dr. Richard Green, President and CEO, CableLabs

"During my 24 years in the cable television industry, I have not encountered more qualified engineers than Ciciora, Farmer, and Large. I have already learned much from them as colleagues. Now, this combined wealth of technical knowledge is available to everyone."
—William W. Riker
Vice President, Operations and Engineering, The Cable Center, Ex-President, SCTE

"Three of the great minds in the Cable Television Industry have come together to produce an extremely comprehensive and up-to-date reference book on Cable Television technology."
—Tony Werner, Executive Vice President & CTO, TCI

"Three of the brightest technical talents in the cable industry have joined together to write a reference manual on broadband technology. A great resource for training, teaching, or just staying current on technical issues of importance in the cable arena."
—Alex Best, Senior Vice President, Operations and Engineering, Cox Cable Communications

Book Description

Revision of bestselling classic book on cable television technology covers all the important changes. Best source on building and operating cable television systems. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 854 pages
• Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann; 1st edition (December 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1558604162
• ISBN-13: 978-1558604162
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.7 x 2.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #692,263 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent coverage of current cable issues., September 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Modern Cable Television Technology: Video, Voice, and Data Communications (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Networking) (Hardcover)

The text covers the subject of cable television from an introductory level up to engineering levels. I particularly liked the coverage of current issues in cable, such as Impulse pay per view. The chapter on modulation was informative. With my physics background I was happy to see the book has a good scattering of equations. An equation is indispensable in many situations.

9 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars comprehensive but major reservations, November 23, 2006

By 

Bruce D. Wilner "Bruce David Wilner" (Alexandria, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Modern Cable Television Technology, Second Edition (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Networking) (Hardcover)

This encyclopedic reference appears to do a good job of spanning the tremendous range of technology comprising satellite transmission and reception ("transception"); head-end organization; regional and "last mile" distribution; and set-top box technology, steering (unfortunately) way clear of the hardware, firmware, and software issues associated with providing modern unidirectional and bidirectional digital services atop multiple tuners in home network (including up-and-coming IPTV) environments supporting slavable hard drives. HOWEVER, being an electrical engineer and, therefore, having naturally started with the chapter on modulation and analog detection, I was WOEFULLY disappointed. It is fine to author mathematical treatments with a heavy hand ("It is imperative that one understand ...," etc.), but one had better know what one is talking about. This is clearly not the case. Where mathematics are presented as putative groundwork for some forthcoming exposition, they are erroneous and weak. Irrelevant theorems from high-school trigonometry are cited as if they are the be-all and end-all of signal analysis. The description of run-of-the-mill Fourier analysis is flawed and terminologically imprecise. The Nyquist theorem is casually referred to as "Harry Nyquist's rule" and cited as if it were a side-effect rather than a vital principle--a principle that is clearly way beyond the authors' understanding, insofar as I never saw any development of the sampling theorem or the expansion of bandlimited functions in terms of sinc (no, NOT sync) pulses. Now, when I studied communication systems, it was critical to have a crystalline understanding of how the signal and power spectra morphed as one proceeds from block to block throughout the (analog or digital) system. Yet, the authors are unable to do this, muffing through vague mention of "X Hz of single sideband and Y Hz of double sideband" and obfuscatory, misleading diagrams of time-domain phenomena accompanied with similarly vague notions of orthogonal this or quadrature that but--you guessed it--steering clear of any precise mathematical exposition (a la Hilbert transforms or diagrams that clearly indicate signal spectra, satellite spectra, aliased sidelobes, etc.) while fumbling through discussions of "two layers" of filtering that attempt to lump transmission "filtering" and reception "filtering" into one logical task without asserting or fully executing any conceptual paradigm whereby the one logically inverts the other. Where is the sampling theorem? Where is the fundamental mathematical expression of amplitude modulation? Where is a clear diagram that demonstrates how the I, Q, and L analog TV signals are multiplexed? Why is there discussion of envelope detection without any mention of the Schwarz inequality? "Constellations" of QAM, QPSK, etc., "signals" are diagrammed without the merest mention of what one is actually looking at, viz., message vectors in Kotelnikoff space based upon an eigenvalue expansion achieved via Gram-Schmidt orthogonalization. What really blew me away, though, was--brief though it was--the most nonsensical statement of all: The authors were discussing various directions in digital compression, and I saw a subchapter heading entitled, "Fractals." I said to myself, "Wow! That's great! I wonder what they've managed and how." Well, the "explanation" was nothing more than, "Fractals are really useful; the only problem is in figuring out the equations." That's like a math student telling his teacher, "I've got the solution to the problem! The only thing I'm missing is the detailed algebraic expansion!"

15 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars comprehensive, well organized, complete, a must have, December 3, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Modern Cable Television Technology: Video, Voice, and Data Communications (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Networking) (Hardcover)

Every technical library should include this easy to understand volume explaining all aspects of cable television. The authors have drawn from their years of education and practical experience in the Cable industry to produce an excellent reference guide for anyone interested in television and cable technology. Included are chapters on Analog TV, Digital Compression, Cable Data Transport,Headend Signal Processing, Coax, Fiber, Consumer Interface and Equipment Compatability, and other topics. Great minds have produced a fine book!