10:58 AM -- NEW ORLEANS -- How do cable companies really measure the quality of the picture they provide customers?

R. James Kelso, Cox Communications Inc. 's VP of video engineering, says there's not a single standard way that everyone in the cable industry uses. So Cox hires the best eyes it can find to help make sure the quality of the video is competitive.

One pair of those eyes on Cox's payroll belong to a Hollywood cinematographer with more than 300 films to his credit, Kelso says.

There are, of course, all kinds of factors that determine how good a picture you're seeing. It could be the way the cable company tunes its encoders. It could be the amount of bandwidth they use for video delivery.

Maybe comparing a telco network to a cable network is comparing apples to oranges. But you can always turn on a TV and look at the picture.

— Phil Harvey, Editor, Light Reading