Is coaxial fat enough to carry HDTV channels?

[mbechak]

I know that Time Warner in NYC carries HDTV channels via cable. On NPR the other night, there was a great program about digital televisions, where a guest stated that Comcast in DC would begin carrying HDTV signals in 2003. My question:

Given that a digital HDTV signal would obviously require more bandwidth than traditional television, is it feasible to carry 50 - 60 HDTV channels on a standard coaxial cable?

How about carrying both the standard signals and HDTV during a cable transition period?

[Glenn]

No problem, the HDTV signal is designed to be transmitted over the air in the same bandwidth as a normal NTSC channel. It's compressed into that space and expanded by the decoder. It's a brilliant extremely advanced system that truly moves television into this century. You get widescreen, high definition and 5 channel dolby surround all stuffed into one channel's worth of space. And it was designed to be used (at least over the air) alongside the analog channels.
I am surprised that cable has any HD channels.

[57U]

Originally posted by mbechak
How about carrying both the standard signals and HDTV during a cable transition period? No problem. In Toronto, on Rogers Cable, we already have 8 High Def Channels, along with a couple hundred digital plus 80 analogue channels.