LUS Fiber has announced a long awaited upgrade to its cable service: a new digital cable operating system developed by Microsoft touted as the answer to the state-of-the-art television features LUS has long promised. The upgraded software, Microsoft Mediaroom, is already being used in several other markets, serving more than four million consumers worldwide. The upgrade will require existing LUS digital cable subscribers to changeout their cable settop boxes, and in a press conference yesterday, LUS Director Terry Huval said LUS technicians are already calling cable subscribers and scheduling appointments to deliver the new system.
“During the deployment of our LUS Fiber system, a number of our customers asked us for more advanced video features,” Huval said. “Microsoft Mediaroom provides the platform that will deliver the features our customers want and, because it’s a web-based system, it offers us endless possibilities for future applications and expansion.”
Faced with mounting complaints over its digital cable interface and glitchy digital video recorders (DVRs), the upgrade comes at a welcome time as LUS prepares to complete its citywide fiber rollout next month. The new features Microsoft Mediaroom will bring includes whole home DVR, which links set top boxes in the home so you can record a program on one TV and watch it on another; instant channel change, which allows for seamless viewing while channel surfing; and advanced program searching, where viewers can search for programs by title or genre.
City-Parish President Joey Durel, who has been touting the new cable upgrade in recent public appearance, stated in a press release: “We are excited about the unique features of Microsoft Mediaroom and are moving as fast as possible to upgrade our existing customers to the new system."
Not to be outdone, LUS' chief competitor, Cox Communications, today announced the launch of nine new channels, including six new High Definition (HD) channels, a new interactive Music Choice Channel, a digital shopping network and a leased access channel. Channels launches for the market includes: Wize Buys (ch. 117), Leased Access (Ch. 195), Pay Per View (PPV) HD (Ch. 701), FSN Houston HD (Ch. 721), Fox Soccer HD (Ch. 783), Starz Edge HD (Ch. 798), Style HD (Ch. 789), We HD (Ch. 799), and SWRV (Ch. 900). With this launch, Cox now offers 81 HD channels in its Acadiana Market which includes all or parts of Acadia, Iberia, Lafayette, St. Martin, St. Mary and Vermilion Parishes.
MAY 24 Blogger Robert Mann posts this entry about the Baton Rouge Chamber's recent report on Louisiana's higher education system. It's critical to economic development, and yet our system is facing a "funding crisis" with no way to resolve it, the report says. The Chamber says control of tuition and fees must be returned to the higher ed governing boards.
MAY 24 Here's a NBC33 story about Tyrann Mathieu. He has signed with the Arizona Cardinals, inking a $3 million, four-year deal. He gets a signing bonus of $265K, but gets another, larger bonus if he doesn't get cut from the team for doing drugs. The deal reportedly includes mandatory tests and meetings for the player.
MAY 24 Jarvis DeBerry posts here about the redonkulus rhetoric that would have us believe NOLA is a safe city with a murder problem. Maybe the city's crime stats don't compare with its murder stats because you can't manipulate a murder, he says: a dead body's a dead body. It just doesn't make sense, he says, and his readers agree: a poll asks if they believe the city is safe, and more than 90 percent say no.
MAY 24 Jindal administration officials announced Thursday that the privatization of public health care is going to cost a lot more than they budgeted for, the Advocate reports here. "I'm so surprised," said no one. Anywhere. The cost they're projecting now is more than $1 billion - a lot more than the $626 million budgeted for it. And, it's more than it cost the state to operate those hospitals. So why are we doing this again?
MAY 24 Blogger CB Forgotston ridicules the recent PR campaign by the state GOP in the wake of a legislative auditor's request to both major parties. The GOP (apparently unaware that the Dems got the same request) started yammering about being targeted because it had "killed" a tax increase. CB finds that laughable, but it's also pretty funny that the GOP was comparing this episode to the IRS scandal (Because the President has so much to do with our state auditor. Right?).
MAY 24 Politico details some recent fund-raising efforts by Sen. David Vitter, which have raised the question of his future political plans. This time, it is a $5,000 per head "bayou weekend" that includes "Cajun cooking" and an all-caps "alligator hunt," the story reports. Funds raised go to a super PAC that can spend money to support Vitter in federal or state races, the story points out.
MAY 24 The pink building on Royal in the quarter was sold at a sheriff's sale Thursday, this Picayune story reports. An injunction that would have halted the sale wasn't enforced because the family failed to post a $150,000 bond, the story reports. So the owner of the mortgages on the building bought it, for nearly $7 million. Now the feuding family will have to negotiate with that company to get a lease on the building that has housed their business for close to 60 years.
MAY 23 This post in Louisiana Voice tells us about a bill by a Winnsboro lege that would require all public high school students to take at least one Course Choice online class in order to graduate. (What?) Blogger Tom Aswell says it's a monument to "waste and corruption," especially in light of the problems he's exposed with the program in recent weeks. Idaho had a similar program, but voters removed it by a 2-1 margin, Aswell says.
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