Mevi: joeled:
Does anyone know what the Datacast model is used for?
Hotels and large organizations such as schools. 8 Tuners and the ability to multi-cast the TV out. You can also lock a tuner into a channel - say, 1 tuner = NBC. Any users in the building connecting to that channel use the same bandwidth and only 1 tuner.
Yep - this is also increasingly used for IP Ringmain TV viewing in offices where workers need to monitor multiple TV channels, and previously analogue RF ringmains were used to feed separate TVs. Classic example is TV Newsrooms - where journalists often have access to hundreds of video sources at their desk. (The classic analogue "ROLEC" system feeds a pair of RF cables to each receiver box, allowing twice the number of VHF and UHF channels to be viewed)
IP Ringmains can be a good solution for this - as they use the PC and existing IT networkd and don't require extra RF cabling and TVs.
However some operations are setting up their own DVB-T/-C internal ringmains and transcoding DVB-T and DVB-S off-air broadcasts instead (as cheap DVB-T/-C set top boxes or portable TVs can be used) - as in some cases a separate TV is easier to watch and manage - as some applications (like editing) don't work well with separate video monitoring windows - and adding a second PC display is often more expensive than a 7" DVB-T LCD.
HTPC 1 : Win 7 HP 32 bit - AMD 4850e - ATI 4550 (temp replaced by nVidia 8600GT for BBC HD) - 4Gb - 300GB - Nova-T 500 - Nova-S2 HD+DVBLink - Sony 40W2000 via HDMI
HTPC 2 : Win 7 HP 32 bit - E7300 - nVidia 9400 on-board - 4Gb - 1TB - Pinnacle 7010ix Dual DVB-T / Dual DVB-S - Sony 40W4000 via HDMI