VOD formats

VOD platforms have captioning requirements. 2002 MultiChannels issue.

HBO, Starz Encore and In Demand are using outside encoding houses, including California Video Corp. That unit of Warner Bros. has handled encoding work for the DVD market, and in many cases it has handled VOD content. A typical two-hour movie costs about $1,000 to encode.

But long-term, those three programmers plan to bring encoding in-house. Showtime has already brought SVOD encoding functions in house.

"It's going to help us with deadlines with late-arriving programming," Zitter said.

HBO also pitches content to affiliates before it appears on the user interface, which also requires a quicker encoding turnaround. Dealing with closed captioning and Spanish secondary audio program (SAP) feeds also led to the in-house encoding move.

The encoding should be shifted to HBO's premises by the fourth quarter, Zitter said.

Zitter said HBO has had to re-encode some early HBO On Demand content, since closed captioning had to be added. It takes about four to five hours to encode a two-hour movie, Zitter said.