TiVo, AppleTV, Boxee, and the future of HD television delivery: Via Freedom to Tinker
I don't watch as much TV as I once did. Yet, I'm still paying Comcast every month, as they're the only provider who will sell me HD service compatible with my TiVo-HD. Sadly, Comcast is far from ideal. I'm regularly frustrated at their inability to debug their signal quality problems. (My ABC-HD and PBS-HD signals are right on the edge, in terms of signal quality, so any slight degradation makes those channels unwatchable through the MPEG block errors, which seems to happen on an irregular basis.) Comcast customer service wants me to sit around all day waiting for a tech to come out when the problem has nothing whatsoever to do with my house. When I've attempted to report the signal strength measurements I've taken and how they vary from channel to channel, I've found I might as well be speaking to a brick wall.
Yes, I know I could put an old-school antenna on the roof and feed it into my TiVo. That would do pretty good for the local channels, but then why am I paying Comcast at all? Answer: for the handful of shows that we watch from cable channels. More than one person has asked me why I don't just download these shows online and cut the cable. You can get Comedy Central programming from their web site. You can get all sorts of things from Hulu.com. All free and legal! read more... »
Internet Video Copyright Laws Recap: In light of the recent TVLinks shut-down in the UK, I thought we should take a look at the many other cases of lawsuits and shut-downs pertaining to copyright violations on video sites that we have covered here on WebTVWire.
Many sites which link to pirated and copyrighted material on the web have been threatened, and in most cases successfully stopped from the copyright violations they were involved in.
Here are a few discussions on the subject:- read more... »
KT to trial IPTV in Russia before Korean launch - IPTV News: July 31, 2007 - Korea Telecom (KT) is to trial and launch an IPTV service in Russia before doing so in its native Korea, according to latest reports from local daily the Chosun Ilbo.
During a news conference in Vladivostok held last Sunday, the President of KT, Nam Joong-soo said: "Trial service will begin in August in Russia's Maritime Province ahead of a full launch next year." The service is to be launched through its affiliate NTC, which will hold an 80% stake in the service in the province. read more... »
Joost IPTV Beta Reaches 1m Users | Full Launch Planned For Later On This Year:Niklas Zennström, the co-founder of Skype and Kazaa, claimed today that Joost, the IPTV start-up hatched by himself and Janus Friis, has lured over 1 million users since its beta launch in 2006.
This ties in with the lesser-known MyWaves, a cellular video service, which has just announced it has reached 1 million subscribers in a similar time period. Maybe the two companies should hold a joint party and invite me.
The figure was revealed by Zennström at a recent Skype press conference in Tallinn, Estonia, and is the first time that audience figures for the business, formerly codenamed ‘The Venice Project’, have been divulged. read more... »
Techbits: Online video use on the rise - Yahoo! News: "NEW YORK - One in five online Americans view video over the Internet on any given day, thanks to speedier Internet connections and a wider selection of clips, a study finds.
Young adults watch in greater numbers and often turn to humorous clips, while all other age groups use video predominantly for news, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
On a typical day, 19 percent of U.S. Internet adults watch some form of video. News ranked first and comedy second overall. read more... »
ABC Clicks On Online HDTV Test - 7/25/2007 12:59:00 PM - Multichannel News: "ABC.com Tuesday quietly kicked off a beta-test of its 'high-definition' Internet-TV channel with four episodes from the network's top-rated primetime shows -- but if your broadband connection and PC aren't fast enough, you won't see any difference over the regular versions.
In a cheeky disclaimer of sorts on the site, ABC promises to deliver the HD programming 'at the best quality and the biggest size allowed by law, or by your hardware.' read more... »
Pay and Ad-Supported Internet Video Flourishing as Total Online Viewers Reach Nearly One Billion by 2012 | Press Release | ABI Research: "Consumption of both ad-supported and pay broadband video will grow strongly over the next few years as direct and third party distribution channels proliferate to give consumers more ways to access the content, according to a new study from ABI Research. The growing reach of new distribution models will expand the total consumer base of Internet video consumers from roughly 300 million today to nearly one billion by 2012. This growth will create a demand for new and evolved monetization models that will help create a multi-billion dollar industry in coming years. read more... »
Wireless IPTV | Is it Viable?: According to a recent report by ABI Research, IPTV over wireless broadband is an attractive offering for consumers and carriers - but there are many challenges to overcome to ensure it can be delivered effectively.
Whilst IPTV can currently be delivered to homes over wired connections, its bandwidth hungry nature means carriers are constantly scrambling to upgrade infrastructure. Adding to this cost, they have to connect homes (generally via coax cable) to the main cable running down the street. read more... »
Variety.com - Now Hong Kong getting hi-def TV: "HONG KONG -- Now TV on Thursday will unveil Hong Kong's first high-definition broadcast channels when it launches Now Sports.
Company, which is part of tycoon Richard Li's PCCW phones-to-broadband-Internet conglom, will use English Premier League and Barclays Asia Trophy soccer to attract viewers to the premium price channels.
Service is believed to be the world's first commercial HD operation using Internet Protocol TV standards. read more... »
Building the Cable Company of the Future - Comcast - Brian Roberts: "The choice was obvious. The economy's nadir in the summer of 2001, as dotcoms continued to implode, wasn't the time to go on some wild Internet ride. But when Brian Roberts, CEO of Comcast Corp. (NASDAQ:CMCSA), had AOL and Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) "knocking down our door" to build a portal for Comcast's high-speed Internet users, his answer was no. Even though Comcast had just 948,000 broadband customers, he had at least an inkling that his nascent high-speed Internet business could eventually be valuable, and he didn't want to give it away. read more... »