Looking for an alternative to your now obsolete shiny new HD-DVD recorder? Here's the DMR-BR500 from Panasonic, a Blu-Ray video recorder with 250GB of HDD. Now, if you're more “old-school” and don't really care about Blu-Ray, you'll still be able to record HD video on DVDs thanks to the DMR-XW320 (500GB) and the DMR-XW120 (250GB).On a side note, all our three new recorders support the AVC codec and will let you record full HD video in Mpeg-4 AVC/H.264, with a maximum bit rate of 8.6Mbps.
Source here
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Celrun TV HDD Hi-Def Multimedia Player
Looks like the Mvix MV780 is getting some competition in the unique space of hard-drive equipped HD media player/PC media streamers that also double as NAS devices. However, what sets the Korean manufactured Celrun TV apart from the crowd is that it also functions as a PVR with the ability to record to its 320GB hard drive from either an unencrypted cable (QAM) TV connection or over-the-air (ATSC) antennae signal, according to Akihabara News. But that’s not all… since the Celrun TV is powered by Sigma Designs’ SMP8634 chip, the device makes easy work of playing 1920×1080p HD video (HDMI out), outputs S/PDIF digital audio, and plays back a multitude of popular media files codecs/formats like H.264 MPEG-4/AVC, VOB, Xvid, WMV HD, MPEG-1/2/4, FLAC, OGG, AAC, MP3, etc. (full list below). The device even offers wireless 802.11b/g connectivity and USB 2.0 Host functionality.
Unfortunately, there’s no word if this product will make it to the states and for how much. But from the reaction this product has been getting in the blogosphere, I wouldn’t be surprised if that changes soon. MORE »
Source here
Saturday, February 23, 2008
ABI Research Says Streaming Online Rentals to Lead Online Video Growth
BI Research says that online rentals will lead the online video pay market in the years to come. According to ABI Research pay video streams online will grow from 215 million in 2008 to over 2.4 billion in 2012 with online video rentals accounting for half of these numbers.
ABI says a number of challenges remain for the online streaming rental market with poor rental terms that studios dictate to all distributors. Other competition will continue to come from VOD services offer by cable companies as well.
"Studios are locked into the same 24-hour 'once-started' viewing window and similar pricing for all online rental partners," said Michael Wolf. "We believe that over time they will begin to offer greater flexibility, in particular as DVD and other physical media continue to mature and new consumer Internet-to-TV hardware expands their audience of consumers."
Via ABI Research
Source here
Study Claims to Prove What TV Watchers Want in Interactivity
A new study has been released today that claims to prove what consumers want in interactive TV programming. According to the study from enseQuence 70% of TV viewers would sign up for another cable provider or satellite is it offered advanced interactivity at no additional charge.
I would bet a large portion of these same people would be willing to pay slightly more for the service, I know I would. The survey says that 72% of TV viewers now find programming to watch via the onscreen viewing guide.
The study also shows that 72% of reality TV watchers want to interact with the shows. 65% of those watching sports want to interact with the event, and 66% of viewers want to interact with commercials. An interactive TV commercial is an interesting idea that could get some of the DVR owners to stop skipping commercials.
Via enseQuence
Source here
Digital TV Set-top Box Sales Break 100M Barrier
IPTV Set To Become Fourth Major DTV Platform
London, England - 20 February 2008 - Worldwide sales of digital TV set-top boxes broke through the 100 million barrier for the first time in 2007, according to the latest research from the Strategy Analytics Connected Home Devices service. The report, "Digital TV Set-Top Boxes: Global Market Forecast," found that sales reached 102.4 million units last year, an annual increase of 12%. IPTV's market share rose to 5.9%, compared to 3.6% in 2006. Cable's share also rose, to 36.2%, while satellite and terrestrial shares declined. For 2008 the report predicts a surge in demand for digital terrestrial set-top boxes, driven by the impending switch-off of analog broadcasting in the US. By 2012 annual global sales of all digital TV set-top boxes will reach nearly 200 million units.
"We expect the Asia-Pacific region to overtake North America and Europe in 2008, accounting for a third of this year's 129 million sales," says Peter King, Director, Connected Home Devices. "Sales of digital terrestrial TV boxes in Europe have now plateaued, as consumers begin to transition to integrated digital TV sets, but this pattern is unlikely to prevent overall market growth across all platforms."
"The set-top box remains the key gateway to advanced digital television services around the world," says David Mercer, Principal Analyst. "Added value services such as high definition TV, digital video recording and Internet video are all set to drive further growth in this strategically important sector."
The report provides Strategy Analytics' latest global market forecast for digital TV set-top boxes, based on analysis of more than 200 digital television platforms and operators around the world. It includes 5-year demand forecasts for 22 countries across the principal geographies, and segmentation by the major access platforms DTTV, IPTV, satellite and cable.
Samsung See'N'Search
Several companies over the years have tried to bring web access to the TV and computerless web browsing. Samsung announced yesterday that it has new technology that allows for web surfing directly from the TV without the need for a PC, keyboard, or special content programming.
Samsung’s See’N’Search technology automatically suggests Internet content that goes along with TV shows that the user is already watching. Samsung says its device needs no special content ecosystem to work, which is what Samsung cites as a key to failure for other TV based Internet connectivity systems. The core vision for the system is to allow users to search the Internet just as they would search on onscreen programming guide.
"See'N'Search technology will revolutionize how consumers will see and use the Internet in the living room in the next few years" said Alan Messer, director of connected consumer technologies of Samsung's U.S. Research and Development Center. "By greatly minimizing the need to manually search for related content and special interactive content authoring, this technology enables consumers to directly watch or surf Internet content that is relevant to them."
Source here
Nielsen Reports DVR Playback Is Adding to TV Viewing Levels
Time-Shifting of Shows is Extending Prime Time to Later in the Evening;
DVR Users Comprise Three Distinct Groups Based on How Much They Time-Shift
February 14, 2008, Las Vegas, NV- Playback from Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) is increasing the amount of time people spend watching television, according to new data from The Nielsen Company. In comparing total television usage (Live viewing plus DVR playback) for persons 18-49 in November, 2007 to total television usage in November, 2005 (before Nielsen measured DVR homes and penetration was very low) Nielsen found that viewing had increased slightly throughout the day, and was three percent higher at 9:00 p.m. and five percent higher between 11:00 p.m. and midnight.
This has implications for primetime viewing levels in the future because as the number of DVR households in the U.S. population grows, DVR prime time viewing levels will likely rise as well.
Nielsen also reported that the traditional prime time period between 8 PM – 11PM was expanding because people are watching the shows they recorded later the same evening. In fact, by creating their own “personal television schedules,” viewers are pushing prime time as far back as midnight. Nielsen found that DVR playback peaks at 9 to 10 pm with eleven percent of viewers age 18-49 in DVR homes playing back recorded programming on their DVRs, while between 11:00 p.m. and midnight seven percent of people are playing programming back.
The information was presented today at Nielsen’s Client Meeting on Audience Measurement in Las Vegas, Nevada. The event is attended by more than 600 television, online, mobile, advertiser and agency clients from around the world, as well as by senior Nielsen management, including CEO David Calhoun.
“Consumers are increasingly making time-shifted viewing an important part of their overall television experience, and are beginning to change traditional TV models,” said Patricia McDonough, Senior Vice President of Insights Analysis and Policy at Nielsen Media Research. “DVR playback has added to TV usage, particularly during the most watched hours of the day, as viewers take advantage of their ability to watch their favorite shows according to their own schedules.”
Providing new insights into time-shifted audiences, Nielsen identified three distinct groups of DVR users based on how much they time-shift:
- Heavy Shifters are primarily middle income women, ages 18-49, who record and later watch nearly 26 hours of television– or about half of their TV viewing – a week. Males, 18-34, are least likely to fall into this group.
- Medium Shifters watch somewhat more television than the average person; and about a third of their viewing is time-shifted.
- Light Shifters, who represent nearly 70% of all persons in DVR households, watch less television than the average viewer. With incomes that exceed $100,000 and the most prone to own a high definition TV set, they spend only about 10% of their television time with time-shifted programming, watching shows they would otherwise have missed.
Nielsen also reported that time-shifting is not evenly distributed by forms of programs. As would be expected, most viewers prefer to watch news, sports and movies live. On the other hand, general dramas, such as House, Grey’s Anatomy and Heroes, are most often recorded and viewed later, and account for one-third of all time-shifted content.
Among other types of programming that is heavily time-shifted are talk shows like Oprah; soap operas like The Young and Restless; and reality television shows such as Survivor, The Biggest Loser and Dancing With the Stars.
Source here
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Multimedia Home Networking Growing But Still Not Mainstream
By NEWS RELEASE | February 20th, 2008 - Viewed 155 Times
We are in the multimedia phase of home networking that has begun to blend in networked consumer electronics (CE) devices, or networked media devices, reports In-Stat. The market has been trying to move past the early adopter stage, but this has not been occurring very quickly, the high-tech market research firm says. Although In-Stat’s consumer research shows that there has been progress, the majority of consumers still only use their home network for Internet sharing.
“Improvement is still needed when it comes to consumer awareness of the new breed of PC and non-PC network-capable media devices (Media Center PCs, CE media servers, digital media adapters, digital media receivers/players, and other networked CE devices),” says Joyce Putscher, In-Stat analyst. “To date, non-PC network-enabled stationary media devices have been dominated by game consoles. However, the vast majority of non-PC network-enabled stationary devices are not currently used to stream audio and video multimedia streams from room to room.”
Recent research by In-Stat found the following:
- Worldwide media server-capable device shipments will grow by a 43% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2006 to 2011.
- The worldwide market for basic media server shipments to be placed in home networks within one year is expected to grow by 62% from 2006 to 2011.
- Global home networks with at least one PC and at least one networked CE device will grow by about 100% in 2008.
Recent In-Stat research, Global Networked Media Clients & Servers to See More Competition From Traditional Entertainment Component Vendors (#IN0703464RC), covers the worldwide market for home networking. The focus of this research is multimedia functionality that bridges the gap between the network established for PCs and non-PC stationary CE devices in the home. Worldwide forecasts through 2011 for each market segment are provided, from consumer PCs to non-PC network-enabled stationary media devices. Non-PC forecasts provide network-enabled units and segmentations for wired-only and wireless. Included is the worldwide installed base of home networks and those networks with PC and CE devices. Details are provided for PCs with a Media Center-enabled OS, basic media servers, PCs with a Media Center-enabled OS plus TV, non-PC devices with embedded media servers (e.g., set top boxes, digital media adapters/digital media receivers, network storage, etc.), and total media server-capable devices. Consumer survey results related to digital home multimedia networking are also included.
For more information on this research or to purchase it online, please visit: http://www.instat.com/catalog/mmcatalogue.asp?id=99.Source here
HD-DVD/Blu-Ray player/recorder SoC runs Linux
Oct. 09, 2007
Horizon Semiconductors has announced a system-on-chip (SoC) targeting "low-cost" universal high-definition DVD players/recorders. The "Hz7220 HD-DVD/Blu-Ray" features a built-in Linux-capable applications processor, and is touted as the first DVD player/recorder SoC to enable true 1080/60p decoding of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray formats, along with legacy red laser DVD format.
Among numerous other functions, the Hz7220 SoC is said to integrate:
As expected in a modern DVD player/recorder, the Hz7220 also includes a "world-class" security processor (with one-time-programmable memory). This dedicated processor is claimed to enable "complete content protection in strict compliance" with HD-DVD/Blu-Ray standards such as AACS and BD+, as well as "numerous other CA/DRM schemes commonly used in the consumer electronics environment."
To assist developers of player/recorder devices, Horizon supports the Hz7220 with a "comprehensive" software development kit (SDK). Functions implemented include a software stack compliant with both Blu-ray and HD DVD specifications"; an API (application programming interface) that facilitates off-loading and accelerating application code to an internal coprocessor core; and universal optical disc (UOD) functionality that supports "legacy and advanced blue laser disk profiles."
Also available is the HzR7220 reference design kit, a "fully operational HD-DVD/Blu-ray development system" that comprises a hardware reference design, the aforementioned SDK, reference board schematics, and other documentation, according to the company.
The Hz7220 SoC appears to be available now, though pricing was not disclosed.
Source here
Horizon Semiconductors has announced a system-on-chip (SoC) targeting "low-cost" universal high-definition DVD players/recorders. The "Hz7220 HD-DVD/Blu-Ray" features a built-in Linux-capable applications processor, and is touted as the first DVD player/recorder SoC to enable true 1080/60p decoding of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray formats, along with legacy red laser DVD format.
Among numerous other functions, the Hz7220 SoC is said to integrate:
- A multi-channel AVC (H.264/MPEG-4 part 10), VC1, MPEG-2, and DV/HDV video decoder that supports resolutions up to 1080/60p
- A multi-channel multi-standard audio codec
- A 2D/3D graphics processor
- A multi-channel transport processor
- A high quality multi-plane HD display processor
- Dedicated still image, sub-picture, and Film Grain Technology accelerators
- A wide range of peripheral interfaces, including: IEEE-1394, 10/100/1G Ethernet; USB 2.0, IDE/ATAPI, SMPTE-292, flash memory controller, I2C, SPI/SSI, UART, "and others"
As expected in a modern DVD player/recorder, the Hz7220 also includes a "world-class" security processor (with one-time-programmable memory). This dedicated processor is claimed to enable "complete content protection in strict compliance" with HD-DVD/Blu-Ray standards such as AACS and BD+, as well as "numerous other CA/DRM schemes commonly used in the consumer electronics environment."
To assist developers of player/recorder devices, Horizon supports the Hz7220 with a "comprehensive" software development kit (SDK). Functions implemented include a software stack compliant with both Blu-ray and HD DVD specifications"; an API (application programming interface) that facilitates off-loading and accelerating application code to an internal coprocessor core; and universal optical disc (UOD) functionality that supports "legacy and advanced blue laser disk profiles."
Also available is the HzR7220 reference design kit, a "fully operational HD-DVD/Blu-ray development system" that comprises a hardware reference design, the aforementioned SDK, reference board schematics, and other documentation, according to the company.
The Hz7220 SoC appears to be available now, though pricing was not disclosed.
Source here
Monday, February 18, 2008
Toshiba mulls abandoning HD DVD
TOKYO, JAPAN - JAPAN'S Toshiba is considering abandoning its HD DVD format for high definition DVDs, as it is losing the battle for market dominance against rival Sony's Blu-ray format, an industry source said on Monday.
Toshiba is reviewing its HD DVD business and 'a complete withdrawal is one of the options it is considering,' the source said.
The move came after top US retailer Wal-Mart on Friday drove another nail into the coffin of HD DVDs by announcing it would shift to exclusively selling movies on Blu-ray.
Weekend reports said losses for the company could reach tens of billions of yen (several hundred millions dollars) if it decides on the pullout.
The HD DVD camp also includes Microsoft, Intel, Universal Home Studios, and Paramount Home Entertainment. -- AFP
I Want My iTV
But I won't be getting it soon. While the technology is mostly in place, the players—from cable companies to film studios—can't agree on how to make it happen
It all started when my TiVo let me down. For years this little device has been like an old friend. It sat next to my big-screen TV to record shows and movies when I wanted, without a lot of questions, and with no judgments on what I wanted to see. But on a lazy late summer day, I came to view TiVo in a whole new light.
There's a collision, you see, between the boob tube and the Internet. TV is all about instant gratification. The Net is about me having control. Put the two together, and the result should be personalized TV, or iTV, which lets me watch what I want, when I want it. That sounds a lot like TiVo. The recorders, which the company claims deliver "television your way," also allow you to connect to the Net and do things like check freeway traffic before your daily commute, buy movie tickets from your couch, and listen to Web radio, all on your TV. In July, TiVo even became the first device that lets you search easily for programs from cable outfits along with movies and other content delivered off the Web from Amazon's (AMZN ) Unbox video service. 
So when my editors asked me to explain how TV and the Internet were intersecting, my first thought was to grab TiVo's peanut-shaped remote control. I had a hankering to see 1949's White Heat, the Jimmy Cagney flick where he plays gangster Cody Jarrett. Cornered by cops on top of a burning oil tank, he laughs maniacally and shouts: "Made it, Ma! Top of the world!" just before being obliterated. Calling up a neat bit of TiVo search software, I typed in the movie's name.
No luck. It offered me White Men Can't Jump on cable, or Single White Female off the Web. I tried typing in "gangster" to let TiVo troll program descriptions that might fit. There was the Gangsta Girls documentary or 1944's Gangsters of the Frontier to rent at Amazon. No... White... Heat.
IN SEARCH OF TV NIRVANA
Experiences like this just make it painfully clear how far we still are from having truly personal TV. All the technology to do this is basically in place: fast broadband connections, personal media recorders, instant Web-searching software, high-definition sets. So why can't I press a button or two and see whether the tribe has spoken, root for the next top chef, pull up a YouTube (GOOG ) clip of Ellen DeGeneres breaking down in tears over a dog—or even watch Cagney rise from small-time hood to the top of the world? I want to listen to music, have a box pop up on my screen telling me who's phoning my home, or watch a vacation-themed slide show before forwarding it on to bore my friends on Facebook—all while sitting in front of the set in my living room. No one has yet put this wish list together in one nice, easy-to-use package.
To find out why so many have tried and failed to deliver my TV nirvana, I got up off the couch and hit the road to talk to technology wizards and top industry executives. I discovered that Hollywood, cable, satellite, phone, and consumer-electronics companies are all screaming "Go! Go! Go!" as they lay out ambitious plans to conquer the market.
But what's holding up the transition from network TV to networked TV is that any company with a little piece of control in the way things work today is unwilling to jeopardize its power and revenues until it becomes clear how the new model will pay. Every time you hear about some product that sounds great but just has one strange limitation, follow the money to understand why. Hollywood worries digital downloads could lead consumers to stop buying $24 billion of DVDs annually, and broadcasters are nervous about the fate of the $185 billion-per-year TV advertising kitty. So studios and networks alike limit how long programs are available on Web sites or restrict the shows that play on various devices.
Cable and satellite providers worry that they will lose customer loyalty to the Web, so they impose tight controls on what content you see and have moved painfully slowly to offer advanced TV services. The people who make electronics gear fret that if they don't lock up agreements for exclusive music or videos, consumers won't pay top price. "You've got device manufacturers, content providers, service providers, networks, software makers, security providers all trying to sort out how big their piece of the pie should be," says former Comcast (CMCSA ) executive Kip Compton. He is now senior director and general manager of video and content networking at Cisco Systems (CSCO ), which is trying to merge TV and the Web.
Granted, I'm far more obsessed with this topic than the average couch potato. I've been testing electronics gear for nearly 10 years and have enough boxes and wires in my place to open a store. Comcast cables connect one room, Dish Network's wires snake through another, and DirecTV's are in two more. There are six digital videorecorders, four stereo receivers, an HD DVD player, a Blu-ray player, a half-dozen PCs and just as many Macs. So many high-definition TVs arrive during the peak holiday testing period that at one point a few years ago I had to shove one under a bed.
Most regular people still haven't viewed their first TV clip on a computer screen. But a survey by the Conference Board-TNS shows that 16% of American households with Web access now watch full TV broadcasts online, double the number from a year ago. And visitors to parts of Europe and Asia can see how far behind we are in personalizing our TV experience. Speedy, reliable broadband access in those regions can deliver richer video service, and because providers face real competition, they have to add Webby services to television as a selling point. Today, some 60% of all households in Hong Kong watch programming delivered over the Internet to the TV, says researcher Parks Associates. From a hotel in Seoul, I can click to do my banking on TV. A couple of friends I know live on the frozen tundra of Canada; even there, I can play games or get onscreen score alerts of favorite sports teams.
The electronics industry has churned out dozens of clever workarounds to bridge the Web-TV divide: A device called Slingbox lets you take recorded or live TV shows off a box at home and "sling" them miles away on a laptop, smartphone, or other mobile devices. Apple TV indirectly feeds (we'll come back to this) a show you bought on the iTunes Web store into your TV. Kids are rigging their Xbox video game consoles to do a similar trick. Or, you can schlep the shows by hand with TakeTV, a pocket-sized memory stick from SanDisk. (SNDK )
Each of these solves one or two pieces of the puzzle, while never quite completing the picture. It's like we're at that junction in the early 20th century when you had your pick of electric, steam, or gasoline-powered cars, and the steering wheel might be on the right or left side.
PATRON SAINT OF GEARHEADS
The first stop on my journey was just a short drive down the road from my San Francisco home to the offices of SRI International, the former Stanford University tech shop that helped create the precursor to Wi-Fi networks and high-definition TV. There, CEO Curt Carlson, the co-author of Innovation: The Five Disciplines for Creating What Customers Want, assured me that the trick for companies facing tough choices in this period of transition is to look beyond the customer they have today and anticipate the needs of an even larger audience a few years down the road. In short, focus on what's truly important to people and be the first to deliver that. Simple in concept, but extremely difficult if you're constantly thinking of short-term profits, he says. "I'm a big fan of [Apple CEO] Steve Jobs," Carlson says. "The people who connect needs and ideas the best and fastest win, and that's where he stands out."
Ah, Steve Jobs, the patron saint of gearheads. He is everyone's first (and often only) example of someone who's managed to make sense of a fractious market like this and turn it into a money machine. Jobs and Apple reinvigorated consumer interest in music with the elegant combination of a device (the iPod) and experience (the iTunes Web store). He put the pieces together so that you don't have to.
But Jobs is also the bogeyman that has forced fearful media bosses to change their approach to Webified TV. In music, Apple turned the traditional model upside down by charging a premium for gear while setting a flat, low price of 99 cents per song download. Now Apple has amassed a cash horde of $15.4 billion, while the music industry is awash in red ink. No wonder Hollywood studios and broadcasters are hell-bent not to hand similar power to anyone else—and particularly not Jobs. "We know that Apple has destroyed the music business, in terms of pricing, and if we don't take control they'll do the same thing on the video side," NBC Universal (GE ) chief Jeff Zucker told an audience at Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications on Oct. 29.
Jobs actually did try the same thing with Apple TV. Amid all the hoopla over Apple's iPod, iPhone, and Mac, Apple TV is the one product that even Jobs concedes isn't a smash hit. It's a neat idea, a box that lets you buy videos off the Web and play them on a TV. But the business model is flawed: You can only buy what's on iTunes, 1,050 titles in all, vs. the 85,000 offered by Netflix. My whizzy $299 white, gray, and silver Apple TV box sits largely unused next to a big-screen television in my bedroom. The process is like running a Rube Goldberg contraption. Start with a Mac, where you download videos; wait for them to be transferred by wire or Wi-Fi to the somewhat limited storage on the Apple TV box. By then, you might as well have just watched the stuff on the computer screen.
As I visited technology workshops in Germany and Silicon Valley, I was struck by how many of these program-shifting products suffer from a simple but fatal flaw: set-top box fatigue. No one wants to take a science test in their living room, crawling into tight spaces behind the media center to run wires and spending hours on the phone with tech support pressing "1 for new customers, 2 for current customers." That's why cable and satellite companies typically roll a truck to the curb for installations, despite a cost estimated at $50 to $100 a home. Small companies have no such luxury. Many device makers are forced to partner with cable and satellite providers, incorporating their technology into the boxes those companies already have in customers' homes.
Box fatigue basically led Sling Media to sell out to satellite company EchoStar (DISH ) in September. The plan is eventually to build Sling's technology into Echostar's Dish Network boxes. The Slingbox has gained modest traction with professionals who are constantly on the go, for whom there's a certain attraction to a device that forwards TV programs to their laptop or smartphone via the Web. But here again you have that extra box to worry about, and one that's devilishly complex to set up—at one point you have to deal with opening ports on a wireless router to let the shows travel out. Company founder Blake Krikorian acknowledges most folks may be confused by the concept of shifting the time and place of media consumption. "People didn't understand where we were going when we started out as a standalone company. I'm doubly sure they have no idea where we're going to go with Echostar," he says.
Similar concerns led TiVo to explore how it can embed its features on Comcast and other cable boxes. My best guess is this fate awaits many products that offer halfway solutions—and this could be a turning point in resolving the TV-Web stalemate. Because cable companies are wired into nearly every home, they have a good chance over the next couple of years to incorporate innovative Webby technologies in their equipment, speed up broadband connections, and set standards that force others to line up behind them. They'll need to sign content deal with various partners and overcome a reluctance to spend more money to upgrade equipment. And they'll have to cede some control to the TiVos of the world.
OLD MEDIA GAMBLE
That leaves the challenge of getting media companies comfortable about setting programming free. Google's (GOOG ) YouTube terrified them by showing how an independent site could usurp their gatekeeper role and siphon ad revenues. But it's possible that as Google methodically extends its Web-search expertise to all manner of screens—computer, TV, phones—it could help media companies adjust to the new world.
The media giants recently took a step in that direction with Hulu, a Web site launched by NBC Universal and News Corp. (NWS ) Hulu is the networks' attempt to monetize their shows on the Internet. It offers TV shows and movies for free, with commercials online. The companies get their money, and I, the consumer, get control, or some of it. Much of Hulu's programs ultimately will wind up on sites such as Yahoo! (YHOO ) and MySpace. But to protect their DVD income, the networks have placed a big limitation on the service: You can't watch it on TV, only a computer.And you can't record the shows. They are streamed off Hulu servers each time you watch and can't be stripped of ads unless you buy a copy. Prime-time hits disappear from that season's selection after five weeks.
Will it work? I completed my journey fittingly, testing Hulu on my home computer screen. I was skeptical. Techies like me assume that anything put together by a committee of desperate Old Media dinosaurs is doomed (Hulu is derided on tech blogs as "Clown Co."). I'll admit, though, that after spending some time on the beta site I was impressed. The morning after the latest episode of The Office was broadcast on NBC TV, it was on Hulu, with a quarter of the ads. The site offers the biggest collection of premium content on the Web so far and is adding older titles daily. You can e-mail a clip to a friend or upload it to a Facebook or MySpace page. After watching one Office episode from a previous season, I clicked on a link that took me to Amazon to buy it for $1.99—a download that I could even send to my TiVo to watch on the big screen. "What works for consumers is that which removes the most friction," says Hulu CEO Jason Kilar. "The technology needs to be so good that it blends into the background, and nobody notices it."
All well and good, but let's cut to the chase: Can I get White Heat? Alas, there is no happy ending. Only few movies are available on Hulu, and you probably can guess why: The Cagney flick is distributed by Warner Bros., one of the studios that has not struck a content deal with Hulu. Of course, even if it did, I would have to watch Jimmy's big exit on my laptop.
Foiled again. Looks like my search for iTV continues.
Source here
It all started when my TiVo let me down. For years this little device has been like an old friend. It sat next to my big-screen TV to record shows and movies when I wanted, without a lot of questions, and with no judgments on what I wanted to see. But on a lazy late summer day, I came to view TiVo in a whole new light.
There's a collision, you see, between the boob tube and the Internet. TV is all about instant gratification. The Net is about me having control. Put the two together, and the result should be personalized TV, or iTV, which lets me watch what I want, when I want it. That sounds a lot like TiVo. The recorders, which the company claims deliver "television your way," also allow you to connect to the Net and do things like check freeway traffic before your daily commute, buy movie tickets from your couch, and listen to Web radio, all on your TV. In July, TiVo even became the first device that lets you search easily for programs from cable outfits along with movies and other content delivered off the Web from Amazon's (AMZN ) Unbox video service.
So when my editors asked me to explain how TV and the Internet were intersecting, my first thought was to grab TiVo's peanut-shaped remote control. I had a hankering to see 1949's White Heat, the Jimmy Cagney flick where he plays gangster Cody Jarrett. Cornered by cops on top of a burning oil tank, he laughs maniacally and shouts: "Made it, Ma! Top of the world!" just before being obliterated. Calling up a neat bit of TiVo search software, I typed in the movie's name.
No luck. It offered me White Men Can't Jump on cable, or Single White Female off the Web. I tried typing in "gangster" to let TiVo troll program descriptions that might fit. There was the Gangsta Girls documentary or 1944's Gangsters of the Frontier to rent at Amazon. No... White... Heat.
IN SEARCH OF TV NIRVANA
Experiences like this just make it painfully clear how far we still are from having truly personal TV. All the technology to do this is basically in place: fast broadband connections, personal media recorders, instant Web-searching software, high-definition sets. So why can't I press a button or two and see whether the tribe has spoken, root for the next top chef, pull up a YouTube (GOOG ) clip of Ellen DeGeneres breaking down in tears over a dog—or even watch Cagney rise from small-time hood to the top of the world? I want to listen to music, have a box pop up on my screen telling me who's phoning my home, or watch a vacation-themed slide show before forwarding it on to bore my friends on Facebook—all while sitting in front of the set in my living room. No one has yet put this wish list together in one nice, easy-to-use package.
To find out why so many have tried and failed to deliver my TV nirvana, I got up off the couch and hit the road to talk to technology wizards and top industry executives. I discovered that Hollywood, cable, satellite, phone, and consumer-electronics companies are all screaming "Go! Go! Go!" as they lay out ambitious plans to conquer the market.
But what's holding up the transition from network TV to networked TV is that any company with a little piece of control in the way things work today is unwilling to jeopardize its power and revenues until it becomes clear how the new model will pay. Every time you hear about some product that sounds great but just has one strange limitation, follow the money to understand why. Hollywood worries digital downloads could lead consumers to stop buying $24 billion of DVDs annually, and broadcasters are nervous about the fate of the $185 billion-per-year TV advertising kitty. So studios and networks alike limit how long programs are available on Web sites or restrict the shows that play on various devices.
Cable and satellite providers worry that they will lose customer loyalty to the Web, so they impose tight controls on what content you see and have moved painfully slowly to offer advanced TV services. The people who make electronics gear fret that if they don't lock up agreements for exclusive music or videos, consumers won't pay top price. "You've got device manufacturers, content providers, service providers, networks, software makers, security providers all trying to sort out how big their piece of the pie should be," says former Comcast (CMCSA ) executive Kip Compton. He is now senior director and general manager of video and content networking at Cisco Systems (CSCO ), which is trying to merge TV and the Web.
Granted, I'm far more obsessed with this topic than the average couch potato. I've been testing electronics gear for nearly 10 years and have enough boxes and wires in my place to open a store. Comcast cables connect one room, Dish Network's wires snake through another, and DirecTV's are in two more. There are six digital videorecorders, four stereo receivers, an HD DVD player, a Blu-ray player, a half-dozen PCs and just as many Macs. So many high-definition TVs arrive during the peak holiday testing period that at one point a few years ago I had to shove one under a bed.
Most regular people still haven't viewed their first TV clip on a computer screen. But a survey by the Conference Board-TNS shows that 16% of American households with Web access now watch full TV broadcasts online, double the number from a year ago. And visitors to parts of Europe and Asia can see how far behind we are in personalizing our TV experience. Speedy, reliable broadband access in those regions can deliver richer video service, and because providers face real competition, they have to add Webby services to television as a selling point. Today, some 60% of all households in Hong Kong watch programming delivered over the Internet to the TV, says researcher Parks Associates. From a hotel in Seoul, I can click to do my banking on TV. A couple of friends I know live on the frozen tundra of Canada; even there, I can play games or get onscreen score alerts of favorite sports teams.
The electronics industry has churned out dozens of clever workarounds to bridge the Web-TV divide: A device called Slingbox lets you take recorded or live TV shows off a box at home and "sling" them miles away on a laptop, smartphone, or other mobile devices. Apple TV indirectly feeds (we'll come back to this) a show you bought on the iTunes Web store into your TV. Kids are rigging their Xbox video game consoles to do a similar trick. Or, you can schlep the shows by hand with TakeTV, a pocket-sized memory stick from SanDisk. (SNDK )
Each of these solves one or two pieces of the puzzle, while never quite completing the picture. It's like we're at that junction in the early 20th century when you had your pick of electric, steam, or gasoline-powered cars, and the steering wheel might be on the right or left side.
PATRON SAINT OF GEARHEADS
The first stop on my journey was just a short drive down the road from my San Francisco home to the offices of SRI International, the former Stanford University tech shop that helped create the precursor to Wi-Fi networks and high-definition TV. There, CEO Curt Carlson, the co-author of Innovation: The Five Disciplines for Creating What Customers Want, assured me that the trick for companies facing tough choices in this period of transition is to look beyond the customer they have today and anticipate the needs of an even larger audience a few years down the road. In short, focus on what's truly important to people and be the first to deliver that. Simple in concept, but extremely difficult if you're constantly thinking of short-term profits, he says. "I'm a big fan of [Apple CEO] Steve Jobs," Carlson says. "The people who connect needs and ideas the best and fastest win, and that's where he stands out."
Ah, Steve Jobs, the patron saint of gearheads. He is everyone's first (and often only) example of someone who's managed to make sense of a fractious market like this and turn it into a money machine. Jobs and Apple reinvigorated consumer interest in music with the elegant combination of a device (the iPod) and experience (the iTunes Web store). He put the pieces together so that you don't have to.
But Jobs is also the bogeyman that has forced fearful media bosses to change their approach to Webified TV. In music, Apple turned the traditional model upside down by charging a premium for gear while setting a flat, low price of 99 cents per song download. Now Apple has amassed a cash horde of $15.4 billion, while the music industry is awash in red ink. No wonder Hollywood studios and broadcasters are hell-bent not to hand similar power to anyone else—and particularly not Jobs. "We know that Apple has destroyed the music business, in terms of pricing, and if we don't take control they'll do the same thing on the video side," NBC Universal (GE ) chief Jeff Zucker told an audience at Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications on Oct. 29.
Jobs actually did try the same thing with Apple TV. Amid all the hoopla over Apple's iPod, iPhone, and Mac, Apple TV is the one product that even Jobs concedes isn't a smash hit. It's a neat idea, a box that lets you buy videos off the Web and play them on a TV. But the business model is flawed: You can only buy what's on iTunes, 1,050 titles in all, vs. the 85,000 offered by Netflix. My whizzy $299 white, gray, and silver Apple TV box sits largely unused next to a big-screen television in my bedroom. The process is like running a Rube Goldberg contraption. Start with a Mac, where you download videos; wait for them to be transferred by wire or Wi-Fi to the somewhat limited storage on the Apple TV box. By then, you might as well have just watched the stuff on the computer screen.
As I visited technology workshops in Germany and Silicon Valley, I was struck by how many of these program-shifting products suffer from a simple but fatal flaw: set-top box fatigue. No one wants to take a science test in their living room, crawling into tight spaces behind the media center to run wires and spending hours on the phone with tech support pressing "1 for new customers, 2 for current customers." That's why cable and satellite companies typically roll a truck to the curb for installations, despite a cost estimated at $50 to $100 a home. Small companies have no such luxury. Many device makers are forced to partner with cable and satellite providers, incorporating their technology into the boxes those companies already have in customers' homes.
Box fatigue basically led Sling Media to sell out to satellite company EchoStar (DISH ) in September. The plan is eventually to build Sling's technology into Echostar's Dish Network boxes. The Slingbox has gained modest traction with professionals who are constantly on the go, for whom there's a certain attraction to a device that forwards TV programs to their laptop or smartphone via the Web. But here again you have that extra box to worry about, and one that's devilishly complex to set up—at one point you have to deal with opening ports on a wireless router to let the shows travel out. Company founder Blake Krikorian acknowledges most folks may be confused by the concept of shifting the time and place of media consumption. "People didn't understand where we were going when we started out as a standalone company. I'm doubly sure they have no idea where we're going to go with Echostar," he says.
Similar concerns led TiVo to explore how it can embed its features on Comcast and other cable boxes. My best guess is this fate awaits many products that offer halfway solutions—and this could be a turning point in resolving the TV-Web stalemate. Because cable companies are wired into nearly every home, they have a good chance over the next couple of years to incorporate innovative Webby technologies in their equipment, speed up broadband connections, and set standards that force others to line up behind them. They'll need to sign content deal with various partners and overcome a reluctance to spend more money to upgrade equipment. And they'll have to cede some control to the TiVos of the world.
OLD MEDIA GAMBLE
That leaves the challenge of getting media companies comfortable about setting programming free. Google's (GOOG ) YouTube terrified them by showing how an independent site could usurp their gatekeeper role and siphon ad revenues. But it's possible that as Google methodically extends its Web-search expertise to all manner of screens—computer, TV, phones—it could help media companies adjust to the new world.
The media giants recently took a step in that direction with Hulu, a Web site launched by NBC Universal and News Corp. (NWS ) Hulu is the networks' attempt to monetize their shows on the Internet. It offers TV shows and movies for free, with commercials online. The companies get their money, and I, the consumer, get control, or some of it. Much of Hulu's programs ultimately will wind up on sites such as Yahoo! (YHOO ) and MySpace. But to protect their DVD income, the networks have placed a big limitation on the service: You can't watch it on TV, only a computer.And you can't record the shows. They are streamed off Hulu servers each time you watch and can't be stripped of ads unless you buy a copy. Prime-time hits disappear from that season's selection after five weeks.
Will it work? I completed my journey fittingly, testing Hulu on my home computer screen. I was skeptical. Techies like me assume that anything put together by a committee of desperate Old Media dinosaurs is doomed (Hulu is derided on tech blogs as "Clown Co."). I'll admit, though, that after spending some time on the beta site I was impressed. The morning after the latest episode of The Office was broadcast on NBC TV, it was on Hulu, with a quarter of the ads. The site offers the biggest collection of premium content on the Web so far and is adding older titles daily. You can e-mail a clip to a friend or upload it to a Facebook or MySpace page. After watching one Office episode from a previous season, I clicked on a link that took me to Amazon to buy it for $1.99—a download that I could even send to my TiVo to watch on the big screen. "What works for consumers is that which removes the most friction," says Hulu CEO Jason Kilar. "The technology needs to be so good that it blends into the background, and nobody notices it."
All well and good, but let's cut to the chase: Can I get White Heat? Alas, there is no happy ending. Only few movies are available on Hulu, and you probably can guess why: The Cagney flick is distributed by Warner Bros., one of the studios that has not struck a content deal with Hulu. Of course, even if it did, I would have to watch Jimmy's big exit on my laptop.
Foiled again. Looks like my search for iTV continues.
Source here
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)