IPTV Revolution Put on Hold

prostoalex writes "Business Week says the IPTV revolution might be postponed. As telecoms are launching the new service, they are facing the problem of lack of content: "But improvements like these can happen only if content providers - media companies and movie studios like Disney - play along. So far, it seems, they're not. Disney didn't return calls from BusinessWeek Online seeking comment, and it hasn't signed with any outside distributor to provide its movies for video-on-demand. Most studios have agreed to only limited video-on-demand distribution, fearing it could cut into revenues from rentals and DVD sales - now generating bigger income streams than the box office itself." The solution just might be buying out content companies, like Mark Cuban does. In the retrospect the Comcast bid for Disney and AOL buying Time Warner start making sense."

Comments

you could have fooled me

[croddy]

all my tv content already comes through the internet...

Then start with niche content

[Joe U]

Start offering things like Anime or SciFi, they can use the expanded market. Once companies realise this is for real, more content will show up.

Re:Then start with niche content

[madfgurtbn]

Start offering things like Anime or SciFi, they can use the expanded market. Once companies realise this is for real, more content will show up.

Exactly. The studios will keep their heads in the sand until guys in their basements are making better content for peanuts.

From TFA: The Internet technology could transform home entertainment. Problem is, what's the point of unlimited channels if studios won't provide content?

The point is the major studios are looking over the precipice of irrelevance. Who cares if major studios take their ball and go home?

We're now in an age when the average home theatre built for a couple thousand bucks provide a better entertainmnent experience than going to a "real" theatre, and somebody is going to provide content to the home via the internet. If the major studios don't do it, someone else will. Likely it will be a distributed effort of many small businesses rather than a few large studios.

It does not take $millions to produce amazing animation or produce, edit, and distribute high quality content anymore. Therefore, the studios are also losing their monopoly on producing high quality content.

The only thing left for the studios will be the $200M blockbusters, but those blockbusters will be competing directly against equally (or more)compelling content created for $200k by small independents or $2k by guys working in their basements.

Re:Then start with niche content

[Anonymous Coward]

Joe Donkey does not care about your stupid Anime or SciFi channel. Until you can download and watch The Apprentice or The Great Race or The Nanny in real time on their 'puter then they do not care.

Re:Then start with niche content

[NanoGator]

"Start offering things like Anime or SciFi, they can use the expanded market. Once companies realise this is for real, more content will show up."

Yeesh. You'd think porn would have taken care of this for us already.

Re:Then start with niche content

[dimension6]

There will always be a market for $200 million productions (as well as big-budget television shows). Why? Because with $200 million you can afford large numbers of people, each person working on a specific portion of the film. This (ideally) diverse group of people are a set of experts at what they do (including story development). Film-creation technology is improving, but unless the technology can actually replace a crowd of talented people, the home-made film (and mid-budget film) won't replace the big-budget production.

Re:Then start with niche content

[kamapuaa]

As a huge supporter of indie movies (and Indian movies, for that matter), I strongly disagree. Popular movies are massive undertakings that require large budgets and a lot of talent at getting people together. Sure a movie like "Primer" can get made in a basement, cheaply made anime is still popular, but such movies are no more than a niche item, and aren't going to become mainstream just because people prefer the distribution method.

Look at the music industry. It's very easy for musicians to create top quality works in the home studio. Local concerts provide a way of getting the word out, that movies don't really have. People complain about the quality of popular music buch more than the quality of popular movies. Music compresses much smaller than movies, and even on a modem connection it doesn't take long to download. Still, indie music is probably less strong than it was before Napster came along. Why should movies do any better, when everything is working against them?

Re:Then start with niche content

[gl4ss]

bleh. just offer porno.

oh wait, that's already available in video thats transferrered through ip...

Re:Then start with niche content

[gl4ss]

when major studios own major nerd content such as stargate, family guy, simpsons, futurama, xfiles, star treks, farscape and whatever else you might think of wanting to snag couple of episodes off from then yeah, you might care if they don't want to play(in addition to that them having distribution deals for a lot of anime too).

Re:Then start with niche content

[vertinox]

Still, indie music is probably less strong than it was before Napster came along.

I think that is a matter of preception. Out of personal experience the internet has allowed me to be slightly successful as far as an Indie label goes. (see my link)

I think we've sold more cd's online than at shows so without the internet it would just be the CD's sold at shows or threw word of mouth which the internet of course helps.

The problem still lies in getting people to know there is other stuff out there.

The reason why indie labels still aren't on the same level of majors (besides the million dollar budgets) is that you still can't punch in a url to your car radio and pick up a radio station on the internet. You can't go to a TV and punch in a url and get a indie TV station either. I think it's a matter of effort by the consumer, but once one is easier as the next people will of course consume more "non corporate" material.

That or at least I won't have to listen to crap radio while I am sitting in the car.

Re:Then start with niche content

[westlake]

The point is the major studios are looking over the precipice of irrelevance. Who cares if major studios take their ball and go home?

It does not take $millions to produce amazing animation or produce, edit, and distribute high quality content anymore. Therefore, the studios are also losing their monopoly on producing high quality content.

Home Theater doesn't lower the bar for entry, it raises it.

If you have $2K to $50K invested in video projection and sound your new reference standard for animation is "The Incredibles," which can be purchased anywhere for under $20.

Re:Then start with niche content

[tre4lien]

Still, indie music is probably less strong than it was before Napster came along...

As a musician, a friend of many professional indie (and a couple major label) musicians, and as a music industry observer - I have to say that that is an absolutely bizarre statement!

The indie scene has exploded in the last decade (Relative to where it was pre-internet-era). I'm not saying it is because of the internet - but I'd definitely not rule that out. I think that the mainstream media has been forced to acknowledge the indie scene because of the internet; even if it was not the internet that drove the growth of indie music, it was likely the catalyst.

And in case in needs repeating for those who've never heard of "RIAA"; THAT is what all the hubub is about. The major labels are in attack mode because the rise of indie music and cheap distribution threatens thier control over radio play and mass markets. Since internet promotion, distribution, and sharing has boosted indie growth, trying to mimimize their effectiveness helps the Big Labels keep control overe what is popular.

This all brings us back to the movie parallel that you originally drew... I think that you may not be considering the fact that the reason big-budgets like "Miss Congeniality 2" are "mainstream" and popular is because a few large corporations have enough control over the "Distribution method" that they can simply choose (on our behalf) that it is a higher priority for us than films like "Primer". The reason so few films like "Primer" get popular, is because there is a "Distribution Method" (Read MPAA) working their ass off to prevent such things from happening.

Yes - I DO think that as more and more people realise how this small group is working to stifle our culture for their own profit, they will consider more movie (& TV) sources "just because they prefer the Distribution Method". (Just like they have begun doing for music)

Postponed is fine

[commodoresloat]

as long as it will not be televised.

Well it is Interweb...

[soimless]

Sence it is Internet you can loop a annoying but funny thing like another flash of the Numa Numa song and just call it TV...

Re:Well it is Interweb...

[NanoGator]

"Sence it is Internet you can loop a annoying but funny thing like another flash of the Numa Numa song and just call it TV..."

Kinda like CNN!

Re:Well it is Interweb...

[StikyPad]

Holy Crap. Lions!

Let's just leave it to the professionals

[QuantumG]

Maybe Business Week should go back to reporting business.

With or Without U

[Rac3r5]

I dunno why all these companies like to play hard ball when things can be so much easier.

These ppl have to realize that a huge populance download media content on their computers. By agreeing to deliver content, they can tap into a potentially huge revenue source.

Re:With or Without U

[mbsurf]

one word: money.. damn that was three.. do we count the.. ah nm

Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see why TV over IP is needed. The infrastructure to deliver TV via cable already exists. For people who have broadband via cable, they would just be getting what they already could. Seems like reinventing the wheel. And besides that, if it's streaming from a server, unlike standard cable all channels will not be sent at once in order to save bandwidth. And since it's a web server dynamically serving one channel at a time to you, it would be extremely easy for the IPTV provider to record what one watches. That's valuable information to advertisers, and could be much more accurate than Nelsien ratings. I really think at some point this will happen if this tachnonlgy becomes popular. I, for one, do not welcome our new IPTV voyeur overlords.

Re:Interesting

[Afrosheen]

You're missing the whole point here. There was an article earlier this week (NYT) that mentioned Southwestern Bell was trying to get IPTV into action so when they finish their fiber-to-the-curb rollout, they can provide television programming along with telephony and data services.

This article is just stating that Bell is going to have alot of trouble with their future if this kind of thing keeps up.

Re:Interesting

[DarkMantle]

You do seem to be missing a major part of this. It's Video on demand. So I can watch Simpsons whenever I want. I don't have to wait for it to air on TV. This would be very handy since I often don't get home from work till 10 or 11 o'clock and I've already missed the good stuff on TV. I usually download it and watch it the next day. If I could stream it when I got home that would be much better.

Re:Interesting

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Of course, TV on demand has absolutely no benefits. Like the chance of offering content that wouldn't normally show up on even conventional cable channels. Not all of it will be good, but I think it offers opportunities for independents to distribute their videos without having to suck up to cable giants for limited air time at a time slot that no one watches.

And since it's a web server dynamically serving one channel at a time to you, it would be extremely easy for the IPTV provider to record what one watches.

That is a good point, but lots of webservers are already recording what they can of what you do. I suppose you could flush your cookies and never log into any site and such, but that's extreme.

Don't tell me that Tivo doesn't record what you do, and they offer the ability to timeshift in a way that is similar to what IPTV might offer. They say they don't record such information if you ask them not to, but I don't trust them not to do so. I expect the cable-company provided PVR boxes to be even shadier.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Think "what I want to see, when I want to see it". Want to see last week's episode of Seinfeld (or whatever is on TV these days)? It is there. Want to watch a movie, any movie? It is there. Channel surfing, wanting to watch the show you just found from the beginning? It is there. Want to pause the game so you can go to the bathroom. You can do that.

Broadcast is dying, individualized content is the future. Why would you want some old men at NBC deciding what you are supposed to watch on a Tuesday night? Then again, if you ask me, why would you want to watch TV on any night?

Re:Interesting

[NanoGator]

"I, for one, do not welcome our new IPTV voyeur overlords."

I'm going to die laughing if you have a TiVo.

Seriously folks, some of you are trying to enter this century kicking and screaming. "Oh no!! They know I watched an episode of Will and Grace!! MY PRIVACY HAS BEEN ABUSED!!"

Get a grip.

Re:Interesting

[NanoGator]

"Of course, TV on demand has absolutely no benefits. Like the chance of offering content that wouldn't normally show up on even conventional cable channels. Not all of it will be good, but I think it offers opportunities for independents to distribute their videos without having to suck up to cable giants for limited air time at a time slot that no one watches."

I'd like it if I could choose to only have that Victoria's secret commercials come down.

Re:Interesting

[Anonvmous Coward]

"And since it's a web server dynamically serving one channel at a time to you, it would be extremely easy for the IPTV provider to record what one watches. "

I have ten dollars that says this guy has a massive porn stash he didn't think twice about downloading.

Re:Interesting

[SerialEx13]

Sure, we can already get such media from the cable provider. But for the most part, people only have one choice for a cable provider. What this helps allow is the opportunity for competition. I would gladly drop my cable provider for the local internet provider for my television services if it'll be cheaper.

Re:Interesting

[quarkscat]

TV over IP is needed, if only by the telcos. Cable
already provides content, and broadband internet.
Cable companies are, as a rule, more responsive to
local/regional governments in providing service to
the broadest portion of the population -- for which
they are amply rewarded by being granted monopoly
status. The telcos are regulated by the states and
the Federal government. Ever since the breakup of
AT&T (aka Ma Bell), the regional telcos have been
more tightly regulated. The cable companies don't
seem to have much problem in adjusting their service
agreements, or of raising their rates. The only
way that the telcos can get into the same "profit"
pattern is by what they are doing now -- consolidating
the regional telcos, merging with wireless and
cell phone companies, and getting a "sweetheart"
deal from the FCC for bundling services. Only by
limiting competition (like the current spate of
state legislation regarding muni WiFi) can the telcos
approach the level of monopoly status that the
cable companies already have. The telcos cannot/
will not compete on the basis of best service at
the best price -- future FTTP is a pure BS "carrot"
they offer to their regulators as an inducement
for monopoly status. The telcos (generally) own
the infrastructure (POTS), and they will not
guarantee anything better than 24kbps (voice)
quality, regardless of distance from their COs
(Central Offices). The public (and the regulators)
are supposed to "buy" the notion that but for their
lack of monopoly status, they would be running
FTTP (Fiber To The Premises) everywhere. Be
skeptical; be very skeptical. Neither DSL nor
ADSL are much good beyond 18K feet from their
COs, but they still market the heck out of their
"broadband service" based upon crappy POTS
infrastructure. The regulators would do well to
hold the telco's proverbial feet to the fire for
providing acceptable up/down bandwidth over POTS
before granting the telcos any further monopoly
status (eg. "bundling" vs "bare" access). And
without decent broadband bandwidth based upon
the POTS they own, the telcos are putting the
cart before the horse when it comes to sinking
vast sums of money into "content" instead of
infrastructure. The telcos have a very long way
to go before IPTV becomes a realistic option.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

"what I want to see, when I want to see it" is desirable, but inefficient. Inefficient means it will cost you more.

Timeshift. If you're willing to give your device and your network some lead time, things will work a lot better (cheaper). Instead of "I want to watch Futurama right now", say, "I'd like to see Futurama within the next few days." Then you can take advantage of multicasting, weird downloading methods like bittorrent, etc. It can trickle into your local storage at one tenth realtime, and you'll still end up a happy camper.

Re:Interesting

[TheRaven64]

I would be quite happy for my TV to record what programmes I watch, and to let me know when other programmes with similar audiences are available. I would be more than happy for this information to make it back to the studios, so that they can be sure that there is a potential audience for new shows that I might like, rather than having to cater to the lowest common denominator all of the time.

Re:Interesting

[PhraudulentOne]

I'm not sure you understand how this stuff works, or maybe I'm not understanding this article. I view this as IPTV - for cable companies and telcos to deliver TV. This is not for a guy with an internet connection to go to a webserver and download a stream of a video - we do that all the time now. IPTV takes a bunch of channel feeds, encodes them into whatever codec that you want, multicasts it out to the customer and voila, IPTV. Normal TV channels will be multicasted so it is a single stream to each customer, not individual streams. Each channel would be on a different VLAN, and the set-top-box (STB) will switch VLANs every time you change the channel. There are also other technologies to help out multicast groups, such as multicast proxy which makes sure that not ALL of your channels are broadcasting to all your access points. If nobody in a neighbourhood is watching ESPN1-50, the multicast proxy box won't be requesting those channels from the head-end. This will result in less bandwidth throughout the network. The proxies also help from overloading your routers. The proxies take the majority of the multicast requests and only forward a portion of them to the upstream head-end - basically "send me this stream," or "stop sending me this stream." It then dishes that stream out to 50 people if they are requesting it. As for this helping advertisers... I don't know about that. All you see are multicast streams starting and stopping, but I suppose you *could* log that and attach it to a customer DB. Not that I care about any of that anyway ;) Oh yeah, and I also don't care if people know what I watch.. why would I?

Soooo, to answer your main point - IPTV is not needed. TV isn't needed either, but right now, IPTV can provide people with customized content and decent VOD services. I work for a telco and am currently on an IPTV commitee to figure out the best solution, and right now IPTV looks cool because we can encode whatever we want and offer it as a channel. Local highschool wants to encode their theatre presentations? We can do that. Do we want to offer a custom weather channel for the small towns around here? We can do that. Do we want to do internet support on TV? We can do that too. There are a whack of things which are possible on IPTV, and they aren't overly expensive either. For me, I want to start a TV show in my parents basement. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Re:Interesting

[PhraudulentOne]

Oh yeah, and to reply to my own post, IPTV is needed because a lot of cable plants can't handle VOD on a massive scale. There is not enough bandwidth due to how your average cable company designs it's cable plant. Moving to a fast, scalable IP network gives them the solution they require.

Re:Interesting

[evilviper]

I'm going to die laughing if you have a TiVo.

Can't speak for him, but I certainly don't... I happen to have built my own DVR, which was cheaper, and much more useful than anything Tivo has come up with.

Dish/DirecTV can't possibly send any data back to the providers if you don't plug-in the phone-line. Digital Cable can send back data, but it's rather simple to block that, as long as you aren't buying PPV. And analog cable TV can't send-back any info. So, at this point, just about everyone is watching TV in privacy right now.

some of you are trying to enter this century kicking and screaming. "Oh no!! They know I watched an episode of Will and Grace!! MY PRIVACY HAS BEEN ABUSED!!"

You may be happy to pawn off every last bit of privacy you have, to save a dollar, but many of us aren't, and you should be thankful we're around... Phone taps require a warrant, thanks to people who were kicking and screaming about privacy... Many intrusive laws have been thrown-out thanks to people kicking and screaming. And now with Ashcroft out of the way, the Patriot Act is being ammended because of fears it won't be renewed, thanks to people kicking and screaming.

Lack of content?

[weighn]

doesn't seem to be a problem with broadcast tv or Foxtel (in Australia pay tv = Frasier and Gilligan's Island repeats ad nauseum).

Or am I confusing lack of quality for lack of quantity?

-$135 BILLION "starts to make sense"??

[Ars-Fartsica]

AOL/TW resulted in the largest write-down in corporate history - $135 billion in losses. This is "starting to make sense"??

Re:-$135 BILLION "starts to make sense"??

[mabhatter654]

That was only because AOL's "play money" changed "value" versus TW's "play money". In the end, I'd stand by that decision too... the trouble with AOL/TW is that the TW suits didn't take the right steps for AOL to be independant in it's new niche. AOL was looking at the opportunity to span the spectrum of print/radio/TV/internet/movie offerings all properly paid for and offered... AOLs move is much the same as Apple's move to iTMS. AOL want's out of the "internet connection" business... it's thankless commodity work not worth doing.. honestly, the telcos can do it better. As long as there's an "equivelant evil" sized company to keep the information seperate from the hardware.

Even Microsoft is trying to do the same thing, just by ramming standards down and making everybody pay them for it. That's the whole point of M$ making such a big deal of MSN search... Google and Yahoo are ahead of the game because they are entirely independant, but don't have the media allies to back it up. AOL was just taking the "next step" about 5 years too soon.

darn!

[bLindmOnkey]

I just ordered Verizon Fios at 15mbps/2mbps hoping that soon IPTV would become available to use all that yummy bandwidth. Now it seems I'll just have way more bandwidth than what I'll know what to do with.

Welcome...

[aftk2]

To ZomboTV...
You love...ZomboTV
This is...ZomboTV

too useful to go to waste

[Peter La Casse]

The technology behind Video on Demand is useful enough that even if the "on Demand" part isn't exposed to the customer, eventually it will become the backbone of the cable infrastructure. The idea of streaming shows off of a hard drive sitting at the head end and digitally inserting local commercials, etc. is a good one, and interactive commercials ("click here to purchase!" or "here let me run this ActiveX control on your TV") are the wave of the future, for better or for worse.

Why not?

[SuperKendall]

I don't understand why the channels that shop themselves out to cable companies (like the SCiFi channel) do not join up with some IPTV provider and do the natural thing of selling TV episodes over the internet.

It's a market that is uttery ripe for the plucking.

Re:Why not?

[TheoMurpse]

It's a market that is uttery ripe for the plucking.

That sure would be mooooving a lot of data!

Re:Why not?

[loraksus]

No, it wouldn't
I think you're looking for udder.

Re:Why not?

[TheoMurpse]

In case you didn't notice, you spelled "utterly" "uttery", so I attempted to find a midway point and create some humor. I assure you, I know how to spell "udder", as I am from a farm in Texas ;)

Re:Why not?

[mattspammail]

Fitting response from a Texas Longhorn.

I was this close (imagine thumb and finger about 1 cm apart) to modding you down just for that alone.

Gig 'em.

Re:Why not?

[Drooling Iguana]

Saying that you know how to spell because you're from a farm in Texas is like saying that you're an expert pianist because you lost both hands in a woodmilling accident.

Re:Why not?

[TheoMurpse]

No, saying you know how to spell "udder" because you're from a farm in Texas is like saying you know how to spell "violin" because you make them.

Or did you not know what "udder" meant?

ManiaTV!

[RedWingsSuck]

ManiaTV! broadcasts over the internet 24/7. Mostly music videos, but also short films and action sports clips. Decent site with a lot of viewer interaction.

religeous content is HUGE!!!

[cheekyboy]

I know its in the 'wierdo' catagory and not 'sex drugs rocknroll' content.

But christian tv etc... are BIG money, or at lest BIG audiences.

Right away you have 1.1 billion customers

Im sure Mel would pony up a consortium

Re:religeous content is HUGE!!!

[Desert Raven]

But christian tv etc... are BIG money, or at lest BIG audiences.

Right away you have 1.1 billion customers

1.1 Billion might be christian, but I doubt even 10% would pay for premium content christian tv.

Lets face it, the odds-on favorite for the first major user will be the same one that has always pioneered new media. Porn.

Re:religeous content is HUGE!!!

[mcoko]

Even if it was just 1%, that's 10 Million viewers. That's a rating worth having.

A famous quote, modified.

[Tavor]

"The Revolution will be Televised... when we get around to it."

IPTV not available?

[Bushcat]

Maybe "technology delayed" items like this need to name the backwaters where the tech isn't available.

I've got TV over IP which takes 6Mpbs of my 100/33Mbps feed. I'll get the HDTV feed when, well, I get an HDTV. The STB is basically an rtsp client. I've got "over-the-air" TV, "cable", PPV, VOD and all the usual goodies for around $35/month, including the 94Mbps left over for surfing. There are competing services in the area with similar pricing points.

Sorry about the acronym burp, but you get the idea.

Re:IPTV not available?

[pavera]

If you don't mind me asking where do you live and who is your service provider?

Re:IPTV not available?

[Bushcat]

KDDI Hikari & SoftbankBB. I kinda collect internet connections.

Re:IPTV not available?

[jmcneill]

The BBTV set-top box is only an RTSP client for VOD-content; for broadcast TV, you're dealing with multicast MPEG-2 transport stream.

IPTV = been there , done that.

[zymano]

It's just internet technology. Don't we have a form of TCP/IP TV now ? I believe this is just a name game . Sure you can't get HBO or ABC on your computer but who cares with all the alternatives and pay per download movie sites.

ever heard of multicast???

[cheekyboy]

http://www.savetz.com/mbone/ch9.html
http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/674/4.html

broadcast IP

Re:ever heard of multicast???

[ashot]

Bittorrent sorta took care of that at the software layer (I know not as good). Why isn't anyone mentioning broadcatching?
Haven't we taken care of this problem already?

Re:ever heard of multicast???

[TheRaven64]

True multicast isn't really needed for something like this. If the cable companies were to deploy something like this, then they could automatically push copies of popular shows to one or two set-top boxes[1] in a neighbourhood, which could then stream over the local segment to other houses that required it. Less popular content would be sent in real-time. Each set top box could build a profile of the kind of content the owner wanted, and pre-fetch new things in that category once they became available. A few hundred gigs of storage space is quite cheap now, so there is no reason why the server couldn't use spare bandwidth to trickle potentially desired content out to people.

[1] This always seemed like a silly name, since they generally live under the TV set.

OK I'm curious now...

[OneInEveryCrowd]

What area are you in and who's your isp ? Maybe I'll move there.

Same complaint, new medium...

[binaryspiral]

65535 channels and nothing on...

Re:Same complaint, new medium...

[michaeldot]

65535 channels and nothing on...

Industry solution: "So that must mean we need to move to a 32-bit channel index!"

Re:Same complaint, new medium...

[warkda rrior]

Just wait till we move to 64-bit Video-On-Demand...

Re:Same complaint, new medium...

[binaryspiral]

LOL - if I had mod points you'd get one.

In retrospect?

[Michael Woodhams]

"In the retrospect the Comcast bid for Disney and AOL buying Time Warner start making sense."

A company riding a sharemarket bubble exchanged some of its overpriced shares for a real company with real assets and real profits, and which had some synergy with the aquiring company.

What is it about that which didn't make sense at the time?

(Disclaimer - I know little about business, share markets, or the AOL/Time-Warner deal. Feel free to flame me to a crisp if I've misrepresented the situation.)

Re:In retrospect?

[The_Steel_General]

"A company riding a sharemarket bubble exchanged some of its overpriced shares for a real company with real assets and real profits, and which had some synergy with the aquiring company."

Nope, that sounds like an honest and proper assessment of AOL/TW. Although AOL was a real enough company compared to some of the other dot-coms.

TSG

Yeah, right

[wyldeone]

The solution just might be buying out content companies, like Mark Cuban does. In the retrospect the Comcast bid for Disney and AOL buying Time Warner start making sense.

Yeah, because when a company has electronics/software components and media components they always work. What about Sony, who potentially lost its stronghold on the portable music player market because the media division wouldn't let the hardware division support the mp3 format on their players, fearing that their devices would just be used for the listening of their own pirated content. The content companies will come around eventually, just as they did for vhs, and as the music industry is starting to for digital distrubution. Buying them out will only cause problems (as it has for AOL/TimeWarner) and will serve little purpose.

Re:Yeah, right

[dubiousmike]

I readd an article penned by Ted Turner, the guy who started TNT. He eventually had to sell his media company becuase he was slowly getting driven out by competitors.

The single most important thing he said was that if you don't own the industry chain from start to finish, you're done. You need to own all parts of the chain and then you have total control.

Unfortunately for all, this really is the case. Its like hen everyone thought the internet would change the way that the record indutry worked. It didn't. Now everyone would like to think that they can have their own TV studio. Well you can, but it doesn't mean that anyone will watch it no matter how much you want them to. It doesn't mean you can be profitable with it.

Re:Yeah, right

[WareW01f]

They may not have made head way on the music side, but buying MGM sure reeks of a sure fire way to battle it's way on the Blu-Ray format. Want Singing in the Rain or Gone With the Wind in HiDef? Guess you'll be going the Blu-Ray route.

I say if you build it, they will come.

you've got to be kidding

[bitspotter]

I must know all kinds of people who would love a platform to put all kinds of original video content out there. There's plenty of Creative Commons stuff - Why don't they just let people put up their own stuff?

Can't have the little people thinking they can be a TV station, I guess.

Re:you've got to be kidding

[ashot]

well, wether this is true is right now being tested. The means for distribution are already here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcatching

Re: The Porn

[Anonymous Coward]

Need I say more?

Cartels strike again

[GrouchoMarx]

But improvements like these can happen only if content providers - media companies and movie studios like Disney - play along.

Once again, we see the problem of media consolidation. We don't even consider the possibility that *gasp* someone other than Disney could provide content worth watching. There are only 4 media conglomerates left, and they're all in bed with each other. None of them is going to try and get a jump on the new IPTV (or other) market, because they've all agreed that they don't feel like it. That's what being a cartel means.

They, because they have been allowed vertical monopolies (AOL/Time Warner) and government-supported monopolies on content (copyright) are able to SINGLE HANDEDLY HOLD BACK TECHNOLOGY.

This is not Promoting the Progress of Science or the Useful Arts.

I didn't used to be opposed to copyright, but the more I see, the more I wonder if it causes more problems than it's worth.

Re:Cartels strike again

[stephenbooth]

The first mass market for lithography was porn. The first mass market for photography was porn. The first mass market for movie films was porn. The first mass market for VCRs was porn. The highest selling genre in writing (both electronic and traditional printed media) is porn. I think I'm seeing a pattern here.

Stephen

Re:Cartels strike again

[Anonymous Coward]

If we simply scaled copyright back to its original, well-balanced 14 years, there would be plenty of public domain content available.

Re:Cartels strike again

[Anonymous Coward]

Does Disney actually produce anything worth watching? I don't think they have come up with anything original for decades. That would explain why they support the neverending copyrights so they can continue to milk past successes (that were originally copied from stories in the public domain).

There are plenty of hungry independents

[Cryofan]

and their is often as good as the megacorporations, especially if you want something besides movies composed of something besides computer graphics.

Near VOD (NVOD) can be good too

[cheekyboy]

True, but sometimes people DO NOT want to choose down to that detail, they have had enough of 'choosing' all day at work with countless decisions, they want to relax and be supprised.

So, instead of a traditional ONE station of variety TV, you could have 1000 stations.

Station 1: Series 1 Simpsons Episodes looped
Station 2: All IMAX docos looped
Station 3: Stargate Atlantis looped

You can have NEAR VOD. eg as per foxtel.com.au , where it can have 4 channels dedicated to one movied with 30 min offsets to start times. Sure its a limitation of satelites, but once you get 100000 viewers on AOL, its better to multicast it otherwise your routers are going to burn. (couldnt be bothered with the maths but its huge)

I really doubt you could scale 1.3m users at 512kbits each, its just not worth it.

Eventually things will scale well, but when they dont, you have to choose the next best thing thats technically possible.

Now re PAUSING, you can still achieve that via multicast, your 'client software' can keep downloading but 'cache it up' on disk. You could pause the whole show and have a 'copy' on your local cache, that might 'expire' in 24hrs, but still thats just as good as 'live real VOD', you just cache it before you wish to view it on the multicast network.

I want my GTV (google tv)

Bypass the bottleneck

[Anonymous Coward]

The telecoms can't get content from the distributors, while most foreign or independent films can't get carried by American distributors at all. Something is fundamentally wrong here.

Solution: Create a new market. Go directly to the original content creators. Start with a mix of independent and foreign films, independent and foreign networks (including news), and round it out with free-to-air satellite channels, public access productions, and pay-per-view programming.

Normally I don't watch any TV, as it is 99% junk. I attend quite a few art films. So if an IPTV service came along with the above features, I would definitely subscribe.

There is no shortage of available content. However there does seem to be a bottlneck which needs to be bypassed. If the legacy media giants don't want to play, then just leave them behind in the dust.

The revolution will not be televised!

[Barlo_Mung_42]

The revolution will not be televised!

Too bad

[oncee]

But what does this have to do with Al Gore?

--
http://oncee.blogspot.com/

Start with us

[BobSutan]

Geeks like us have always been the early adopters, which is why they should be focusing on us. Hell, we've been driving the PC hardware industry for years now starting way back with Doom. Here we are again at the advent of the IPTV industry with our downloads of Battlestar Galactica, chomping at the bit for legal downloadable content. Quite frankly its obvious there is a market, just nobody is willing to sell us the content in the format we would actually purchase (i.e. high-quality, DRM-free). Currently my on means of getting such content is through ripping my CDs and DVDs onto the computer. However, I'll give up the security and higher quality of an origianl copy if I can get a downloaded version of a movie or TV show at a reduced rate. Itunes figured this one out, although I believe their sales figures could be much higher if they'd set a lower pricepoint.

An alternative to outright selling me downloads of movies or episodes of shows is to just sell me the stations via a la carte subscriptions. For years we've been waiting for this to happen in the Cable TV industry, but its just not going that route. With IPTV, TV stations/channels can tack on an extra $x per month and make their content available to broadcast subscribers (similar to how broacast radio also "broadcasts" online) both through cable TV and online, eventually rolling over to IPTV completely. Or better yet, all the downloadable content as a benny like many broadband providers to with traditional dialup (aka, an added feature). Come to think of it, for most mainstreme television going IPTV may be the best value added benefit to come along in years, especially for their customers. I just hope it catches on....

Yeah, right-What's in it for ME?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm amused by the "buy 'em" suggestion. For a group that's anti-business. They have no problem with even bigger megacorps as long as there's entertainment to be had.

Then start with niche basements.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Exactly. The studios will keep their heads in the sand until guys in their basements are making better content for peanuts."

And Slashdot will produce better content than all media outlets combined.

"The point is the major studios are looking over the precipice of irrelevance. Who cares if major studios take their ball and go home?"

Pixar looks over edge. Goes Wow!

"We're now in an age when the average home theatre built for a couple thousand bucks provide a better entertainmnent experience than going to a "real" theatre, and somebody is going to provide content to the home via the internet. If the major studios don't do it, someone else will. Likely it will be a distributed effort of many small businesses rather than a few large studios."

Is there some kind of timetable to this revolution? I'm getting really impatient, you know? American content consumer and all that.

"It does not take $millions to produce amazing animation or produce, edit, and distribute high quality content anymore. Therefore, the studios are also losing their monopoly on producing high quality content."

It does however take talent. Now how much is that worth to you? To the artist?

"The only thing left for the studios will be the $200M blockbusters, but those blockbusters will be competing directly against equally (or more)compelling content created for $200k by small independents or $2k by guys working in their basements."

What is it with geeks and their fascination with basements?

Basement Biz-Handmade Condoms.

[Anonymous Coward]

"These ppl have to realize that a huge populance download media content on their computers. By agreeing to deliver content, they can tap into a potentially huge revenue source."

Ok, let's review.

1-Big pentup demand.

2-Geeks that claim they have the "new and improved, with twice the spit" business model.

3-???? ---Lot's of this.

4-Profit?????

o well

[ashot]

we don't need em..

There is so much content outside of the US

[MemoryDragon]

media MAFIA (Movie and Film Industry Association) the companies just have to look into other countries. I am not talking about bollywood here (which produces more movie than anyone else, but most of them have questionable quality) France also is a huge television and movie producer, germany produces most of its tv content itself, and italy also does, at least France and Italy have very high quality standards, whereals germany has high output (mostly soaps, soap related stuff and sometimes gems and good comedies in between and excellent cartoon movies which are on the rough side of humor)

If those companies start to look outside of the US for content, they at least have some, and since most of this stuff produced outside of the US is sold only to one or two countries besides the country of origin they might be eager to hear about online distribution in the US or on a worldwide scale.

Re:There is so much content outside of the US

[sootman]

"France also is a huge television and movie producer, germany produces most of its tv content itself, and italy also does, at least France and Italy have very high quality standards, whereals germany has high output (mostly soaps, soap related stuff and sometimes gems and good comedies in between and excellent cartoon movies which are on the rough side of humor)"

But it's European! So they're all NAKED! :-)

Re:There is so much content outside of the US

[MemoryDragon]

Dream on... in European Free TV the naked tit, adverts start at midnight... But you can see a naked tit here and there, nobody really bothers. After all a naked tit so far has not killed anyone.

But is it...

[ImaLamer]

So do I, except it's legal.

Seriously, I tried this service a while back and it works really well. So far I belive it only works on Windows, although Real has released a DRM-enabled client for Linux for quite some time ago. I know you hear DRM and groan - the service is worth the cost however. I believe it's $13/month with unlimited viewing of as many movies as you can download. The movies "expire" but that is expected - but they offer a live feed of the Starz channel along with it.

Almost as good as Netflix or Blockbuster online. Don't even have to send anything back. When it expires, you just can't play it. I think HBO should offer the same type of service, but they are owned by Time Warner (my local cable provider). Shame too, they have the most content and offer the most channels.

Re:But is it...

[ImaLamer]

Let me add this:

We've got a lot of television content online as it is. Not only does Real have a premium service, but AOL for broadband does the same. I tried AOL for free (thanks a lot Gratis Networks!) a while ago and was really amazed at the videos you get. All kinds of stand-up, nature, music and so forth.

When I canceled AOL the guy asked me how I liked it. He claimed that he was a Linux user so he couldn't use AOL - I told him I was suprised with all of the stuff they offered for free (you know, with the monthly service). It is almost worth it just for that.

Oh, and don't forget that under Winamp you can watch all types of "Internet TV". Family Guy, Sealab, pr0n, Seinfeld, all kinds of stuff. Look for the Salt Water Chimp stations.

Re:But is it...

[DashEvil]

A Sealab 2021 station is all I need, k thx.

Re:But is it...

[way2trivial]

ya know.. that has got to be the SKIMIPIEST pair of webpages I've ever seen for something that expects recurring fees of my entertainment dollar.

Why can't the include a 'now listed' near complete movies list instead of 5 headliners, (that aren't all headliners)

there is no real explanation of the method used to play movies... it's-- predisposed to failure- cause it's just NOTHIN THERE... I could even make better webpages, and I suck at making webpages.. but I've cruised porn free trials..-

Re:But is it...

[Anonymous Coward]

saltwaterchimp is a good service, and reasonably priced, but the quality of the video feeds is nowhere near the quality of what you SHOULD get with a more expensive pay based service. the main thing is quality of service.

Bad thinking strike again

[Anonymous Coward]

"I didn't used to be opposed to [1], but the more I see, the more I wonder if it causes more problems than it's worth."*

[1]

1. 
   Government.
   Business.
   TV.
   Radio.
   Nations.
   B logs.
   Myself.
   The Internet.
   Democracy, Socialism, Communism.
   Single Ply Toilet Tissue.
   Mimes.
   Slashdotters.
   Religion.
   Guys who wear dresses.
   

*In case you haven't guessed it by now. There's a difference between a bad idea, and a good idea abused badly.

Nose spites face. Foreign film at 11.

[Anonymous Coward]

"There is no shortage of available content. However there does seem to be a bottlneck which needs to be bypassed. If the legacy media giants don't want to play, then just leave them behind in the dust."

Ok everyone. The collection plate is going around. Cough up everything you got. Even you geeks with your basement condomendiums. I have it on good authority those foreign content folks will be asking for money. This is going to be some expensive "dust". But oh boy will we strike a blow for the freedom to be entertained.

Re:Nose spites face. Foreign film at 11.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is going to be some expensive "dust".

A naysayer, eh? You seem to have the old paradigm. Of course it wouldn't be dominant on day one. But IPTV is just as feasible as Internet Radio has proven to be. In 5-10 years time, there will be a LOT Of money involved in IPTV, and the landscape of big media players may look very different.

"Bravo" got started with art films, until they found out how few movies they can get away with playing while still sustaining their channel. IMHO they've faded into the status quo, because they can.

Anyway, a huge amount of content could be had for free. Free-to-air which I mentioned, is a classificaiton of satellite channels which includes a huge variety of stuff, most of which I'm sure would be easy to negotiate permission for free retransmission over IPTV.

I suspect that many other networks, especially those with commercials, would pay something for the additional media coverage. They would pay because the new IPTV vendor would be providing a service to the networks, increasing the number of "impressions", and the amount which the networks can bill for their ads. Early adopters are also a desirable demographic to have in your ad audience.

This along with subscriptions, pay-per-views and venture capital should provide a very interesting equation. Someone WILL do the math. Someone with business creativity will put a solution together, make it work, and become a billionaire in the process.

Not everybody wants to sit around with their mind rotting from watching Jerry Springer and Seinfeld and Cheers and Ricki Lake and General Hospital and Desperate HGousewives and so on, ad nauseum. Granted, a lot of people watch this crap, but not everybody does. There is a market for an intelligent alternative.

I am not alone; you should see the local crowds at some of these art films I go to, not all of which are foreign. Nature abhors a vacuum, so someone is bound to do it.

An IPTV service could be immediately deployed on a national basis. Success would not depend on local saturation. This is the Internet! It thrives on, and is fueled by, diversity.

IPTV not on hold for "niche" content

[Conspire]

IPTV is NOT on hold, check here XTV

Sally Struthers says,"give to a needy geek".

[Anonymous Coward]

"If those companies start to look outside of the US for content, they at least have some, and since most of this stuff produced outside of the US is sold only to one or two countries besides the country of origin they might be eager to hear about online distribution in the US or on a worldwide scale."

Sounds good to me. Were do I send the check, and what's the name of this new business?

Re:Sally Struthers says,"give to a needy geek".

[MemoryDragon]

You gotta talk with the local film producing companies there (local tv stations often produce that stuff themselves or hire the people) Then you have the problem of dubbing on your hands, but with enough money and if you are eager for content, you can resolve those issues.

And a new complaint...

[strider44]

"Theeee Siiimpss... Buffering"

Well shit.

Belgium

[KiroDude]

I'm currently working at Belgacom, Belgium's biggest telco, they'll be soon launching their IPTV system and offered everybody a demo of the system.

Well, I must say I really do not see how they'll ever make it happen if they keep it like it was shown.

Quality wise it is just as good as any other digital signal you can think of, satellite or terrestrial DVB, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. But as the article (or the summary, this is slashdot) says, the big problem is in content.
They provide exactly the same channels as you get on cable here, and belgium has a 99,99% coverage of cable (and the other 0,01% don't even get ADSL).

When I asked about the price their answer was "about the same as cable". The only 'real' advantage is the possibility of paying to watch recent movies, you pay 2,5 per movie and have the right to watch it during a 24hs period. This is exactly the same as if you rent the film on your video store, just that you do not have to move from home.

Also, you can only watch IPTV on -one- television at the time, as the signal takes approximately 3Mb/s of bandwith, which also means that unless you get a really high speed ADSL, you cannot use your ADSL for anything than watching TV while the TV is on.

Re:Belgium

[Anonymous Coward]

In the UK, there is Homechoice which has been running for a few years. It offers most popular cable channels, plus TV shows/movies (no Disney!)/music videos on demand for the same price as cable. It works using a 3Mb (i think) dedicated link for TV on top of your normal internet connection ADSL bandwidth. So now I watch all my TV over DSL and it works fine.

Re:Belgium

[Anonymous Coward]

well telenet (the competition) offers channels that are not on cabel atm

in a system they call pctv, i like it since they offer dicovery wich is nice in the background and it's "free" bandwith is counted we get 10GB month
both belgacom and telenet were fighting over who gets soccer rights. if they win they will get customers i guess some one won becauze i didnt read anything more about it.

the bandwith isue you rise well i guess thats where the extra bandwith from eurodocsys 2 or vdsl is going to go.

both telenet and belgacom are pushing the technologie my guess is that if both are doing it
it wont be a bust

Re:Belgium

[KiroDude]

I have Telnet (cable) at home which offers discovery channel, and it's over the normal cable not over IP, so I don't see why they will offer it via IP when they already have the cable structure implemented. Specially when you consider that cabe can be watched on N televisions at the same time while IPTV only on one.
About the soccer rights, are you talking about the Jupiler League or the european competitions? For the first one I do not know, for the second one, at least in the french side, was won by the usual cable channel (RTL), so there's no advantage there for IPTV.
And lastly, the Bandwith thing, it was the guy who made the demo who told me that IPTV is so demanding that probably it wouldn't be a good idea to use the internet and watch tv at the same time.
And to end, it is not because they believe in the technology that the technology will succeed... does Betamax ring a bell?

[Sarcasm]

[Tom]

Oh, really? Whowoulddhavethought?[/sarcasm]

I work for a company that launched an IPTV service about 4 years ago. Aside form lots of porn (come on, what is the #1 advantage of not having to go to a rental and face live clerks?) content was mostly B movies and stuff.

Funny thing is, it wasn't security or piracy the content providers were concerned about. They simply didn't think it would be a market large enough to "waste" their blockbusters on.

Remember, that was four years ago. Thinks have changed a little, and we're about to re-launch the service. Let's see how it goes this time around.

Re:[Sarcasm]

[jmcneill]

Curious.. who's the provider?

Re:[Sarcasm]

[Tom]

We are. We're a Telco.
http://www.hansenet.com/
(this is in Germany)

Re:[Sarcasm]

[jmcneill]

Do you mind if I ask whose middleware you're running?

Re:[Sarcasm]

[Tom]

Some custom-made crap from our (former) italian corporate mother. Most of it is Linux, except for the actual video streamers which run VxWorks.

The relaunch will be using something different, I think Alcatel made the run.

I don't believe it..

[amanox]

You forgot the Brits :-)
British Comedy shows/movies are rated amongst the best comedy series/movies of the world.
And some other great movies too.

I bet they can make some fun of the Movie and Film Industry Association too, and we can all have a great laugh!

Today's Sermon

[serutan]

I realize I could go online and download the song for free, but I won't do that. That's stealing. It's wrong. That's not to say I won't ever download for free. If I had already owned the CD and just wanted it to play and it was a matter of availability, I definitely would have downloaded it for free. I will also download music to sample it, but I won't keep it. I will buy the CD or erase the song.

Note to Mark:
GIVE!
IT!
A!
REST!

SBC partners with Satellite provider

[bkissi01]

I talked to an SBC employee who mentioned that they were testing fiber to the premise and he told me that they had an agreement in place with a Satellite provider to use all of their channels. It was a few months ago, so I can't remember exactly if it was DirectTV or Dish Networks but it was one of them. As of now SBC is doing some testing in south eastern Michigan in new communities.

Re:SBC partners with Satellite provider

[Snwbeast]

It is Dishnet. I was in an Echostar facility in Arizona a few weeks ago helping setup the network links between them and SBC Austin, they are going to be launching some trials there.

All knitting, all the time

[stutterbug]

Let's imagine for a moment that I thought that knitting was the coolest thing. Were I to say, "Start offering stuff like darning and crochet...", you'd laugh in my face. Big, loud, throaty laughs, too, I'd reckon.

IP TV has the opportunity of satisfying micro-communities like anime and SciFi buffs (and, heck, knitting wonks), but to say that the 'big studios' will learn some sort of lesson from it is to completely misrepresent what they do and why they have so much money today. They don't care about narrowcasting because it doesn't get them where they want to be. If IP TV had heaps of viewers, they would care, but it doesn't, so they don't. It's another stupid idea, driven solely by technology, that has arrived stillborn.

Re:All knitting, all the time

[TheRaven64]

They don't care about narrowcasting because it doesn't get them where they want to be.

They want to be sitting on big heaps of money. If narrowcasting allows them to sit on big heaps of money (and someone can convince them of this), then they will want to do it. Studios do not care about making quality productions (as a whole. Certain individuals may), and they do not care about ratings or audience figures, except as a means to an end. That end is, and always has been, sitting on top of the largest heap of money possible.

At the moment, the amount of TV bandwidth is fairly fixed - there are a constant number of channels, and there is a constant amount of space on each channel. If you want to make money, you have to make content that will appeal to the most people. If you can make content that will appeal to a tenth of the people, and cost a twentieth of the amount to produce, then you will not make money, because you can not sell it to anyone. With direct sales via IPTV, you could, and so this will become a valid business model.

Disney and Geocast

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Disney did try. They were in cahoots with a company called Geocast, who was looking to distribute content through terrestrial stations. It wasn't through IP, but the idea was similar.

we already have this...

[maxpublic]

...and it's called BitTorrent. Undoubtedly some folks will jump at the chance to eagerly fellate the industry by claiming that BitTorrent is 'stealing' and therefore evil, but I seriously doubt that's the case for most users. In fact, I'm willing to bet that most BitTorrent users already have cable and use BitTorrent to grab old episodes of a series they just clued into, or to find a show they missed or hasn't aired in their region yet, or even to do what I do: get a show *without commercials*. How this is any different than using a VCR to record a show and then fast-forward through the commercials (which is what I and just about every other person in the world who records a show does) escapes me.

BitTorrent is the ultimate time-shifter and commercial fast-forwarder all rolled into one, a system that (amazingly enough) works solely due to the kindness of strangers. And because the system works, and works well, do you honestly think I see any value whatsoever in paying for 'tv on demand' when I already pay for cable and whatever I miss/don't want to watch on TV/don't feel like recording that week I can grab off of BitTorrent whenever the bloody hell I feel like it, at no additional charge? I realize there are people who're actually stupid enough to pay several times for the exact same shit, but I'm not one of them and I doubt they comprise a large percentage of the viewing audience - who, by the way, already pays twice in the form of a cable bill first and having 20 minutes of every hour of programming dedicated to the ad industry second.

Can't really see the value in TV-on-demand so long as BitTorrent is around.

Max

Re:we already have this...

[spacefight]

If your BitTorrent client uploads the content (or chunks of it) you're downloading, it's most likely that you violate copyright laws. Some people can live with that, some not.

Don't rely on the existing incumbents for content!

[LinuxLuver]

Existing content providers have a vested interest in keeping their existing distribution models. The existing models give them a HUGE amount of control - and money. If you want somethig to watch in IPTV....then look for someone NEW to make that content. Yes, Mr. Telco....you may even have to invest some money to kick it off.....and then clip the coupons when your new content business dwarfs your earnings from telecoms.

Risk of Re-Regulation - Cartel dismantling

[Anonymous Coward]

Mmmm Compulsory licencing on fair and equal terms, and new taxes to discourage cartel like arrangements. That is a big business risk, and the congresscritters just might go for it when they want to calm hordes of angry unemployed come next election time.

Content?

[Tetra]

"...As telecoms are launching the new service, they are facing the problem of lack of content..."

Yeah, but this has never been a show-stopper for normal TV.
;^)

The first step is "kill all the lawyers"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Business Week says the IPTV revolution might be postponed. As telecoms are launching the new service, they are facing the problem of lack of content

That's the best punchline I've seen an article start with in a long, long time. Watching the entertainment industry get a clue is like watching a frog try to fly.

Re:Jewiish Propaganda

[thepunishert]

Are you joking

The only trouble

[Anonymous Coward]

The Real client really buggers your computer. I installed the Rhapsody client because its "free" with comcast, and it loads so many things on your computer, some of which look suspiciously like spyware, that its not worth it, particularly with the free alternatives (itunes, shoutcast) that have plenty of free music.

Anything from Real is suspect; their programming technique for their client is either bad or designed to f*ck your computer. And my repeated emails to their customer support went unanswered.

And *those* are the people you suggest I purchase through? Its the equivalent of playing Russian Roulette. No thank you. There's no content compelling enough *NONE* that's worth loading anything from Real.

Re:The only trouble

[ImaLamer]

Rhapsody is far from the standard Real Player application first. Second, I've never had a problem with any version of the Real Player client.

What does spyware look like anyways?

You just like to bitch. Really, iTunes has free music? Where?

Re:The only trouble

[recursiv]

Educate yourself

of course

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I agree there will always be consumers for quality entertainment, regardless if it costs $200, or $200M.

But with the emergence of high speed networking, and a significant portion of the population spending upwards of $15K to build a home theater, it appears there is a market for selling direct to consumer for first run movies.

When Star Wars episode 6 comes out in a few weeks, they could probably get $20 from people to sell direct to their homes in HDTV foramt.

The real question is "who will have the balls to do it?"

IPTV revolution not on hold

[JennIPTVbeliever]

It always makes me laugh when I see the mainstream business press get excited because one big named company latches onto a technology concept that has been been deployed and is being deployed around the world successfully. IPTV. If they took the time look, they would see that IPTV is rolling out EVERYWHERE in the world- Saskatel in Canada, Ringold Telephone in GA, British Telecom, France Telecom, Chunghwa in Taiwan, Magnet in Ireland, IVisjon in Norway and Fast Web in Italy have been rolling out IPTV to THOUSANDS of subscribers for years. In fact the first IPTV deploymetn ws in the UK with Kingston Communications in 2000 - so just becasue SBC is having trouble and Microsoft can't seem to make it work, doesn't mean that IPTV isn't working. And the reporters at Business Week and other mainstream business pubs cant do a little research to see the number of subsribers, content and general well being of IPTV around the world, then why do people even read them. I agree the US has problems with content, but that doesn't mean IPTV is dead.

Re:IPTV revolution not on hold

[quarkscat]

IPTV may not be on hold in the "Old World", but
it sure as heck is on hold out here in the "New
World", at least in the USA.

The hold-up in the USA is not "content", because
IPTV can be organized to give all the major
content providers their share of the cash "pie".
The hold-up in the USA is the widespread
availability of broadband internet service --
without that broadband "pipe", available content
is meaningless. The worst thing that could have
happened for the widespread availability of those
"fat pipes" was the break-up of AT&T (Ma Bell)
before their national monopoly went digital/fiber.

And fiber is the only way to go for the IPTV
"revolution" in the USA -- distances are too great
for reliance upon the archaic POTS copper infra-
structure for broadband service. The regional
telcos own the infrastructure, unlike many of the
broadband cable operators. And in many areas
of the USA, you cannot even get reliable dial-up
phone service -- it took a Federal mandate dictated
to a national monopoly to force telephone service
to many more rural areas. That mandate is gone;
the monolithic monopoly is gone; and the chance
for widespread adoption of broadband telco service
is also gone. Many brand new real estate developments
are being forced to do the "last mile" for broadband
service because the telcos will not. And the relaxed
regulatory structure for the regional telcos
provides no real impetus for the fabled FTTP
(Fiber To The Premises) broadband "nirvana".
Widespread broadband access such as is found in
Korea and Japan will never happen in the USA.

The telcos want increased monopoly power (and
their getting it from the FCC and the states),
but without the increased regulatory oversight
that would coerce them into providing near-
universal broadband service. It is turning into
a win-win for the telcos, and a lose-lose for the
consumers.

Are people still using C64's and TRS80's?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think most computers will do more than 80 column character width. So why are you formatting this way?

What you say looks interesting, and yet it hurts my eyes to read it. So I read the first two sentences then I bailed.

Try again.

I've said this before: Tax "Property"

[Anonymous Coward]

If people insist on the fiction of "Intellectual Property", then tax it like "Real Property".

I pay taxes on my house and land. Why doesn't disney pay taxes on Intellectual Property. That would force them to distribute it.

After all, if they claim owning "Snow White" gives them an asset of $100M, then tax it, because they'll either sell it or force it to make money, or be honest and say "Snow White" has no value.

It would be mind blowing.

Why dont the telcoms...

[wschalle]

Why dont they start making their own content. God knows they've got the money to do it.

Not understanding what a free economy is

[warpSpeed]

What the content companies fail to understand is that the adoption of getting content over a new medium (The Internet) is the ultimate expression of a free economy. Whether the copying, downloading, or deploying of this content is legal or not, these companies are missing the boat. When the market place starts to move in a new direction, DESPITE your best efforts not to allow it to do so, the writing is on the wall for you. Either start to look at the new market place as an opportunity, or prepare to get slammed by illegal downloading, or better yet, legal companies that provide the service that consumers are yearning for.

Re:Not understanding what a free economy is

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you are missing their point. Content producers do not want a free economy. That would mean that they have to compete on their products merits instead of controlling the means of distribution.

Re:Not understanding what a free economy is

[warpSpeed]

I think you are missing their point. Content producers do not want a free economy. That would mean that they have to compete on their products merits instead of controlling the means of distribution.

I undersood the content companies point, what I am saying is that the content companies fail to grasp that they do not control the markent place anymore. People/companies will subvert their control when they do not offer a product at a reasonable price. By not putting up their content they are creating a black market or an opportunity for others to take that market away from them, leagaly or not.

Other IPTV around the world

[Anonymous Coward]

Just two countries who came (late) to the IPTV revolution.
France (Freebox and Wanadoo)
Italy (Fastweb)
These are examples of where IPTV is really booming. Others can point out to Korea or Japan who, as usual, have been the firt to jump into the fray, but in any case the implementation of these IPTV providers in these countries has by no means been hampered by the lack of content
If my experience with Freebox is any proof, any content can be shown, so if at three o'clock in the morning I am watching indiscriminately a show on the French gaming channel (yay Game One!) or discovering the intiricacies of rectal palpation of cows in Belgrade as shown on some eastern european tv which is in the free basic offer of my IPTV, I can assure you the lack of quality content is by no means the same as lack of content. IPTV will be filled with practically every useless tv show on earth

Comcast's ADVANTAGE owning the net

[bshensky]

"In the retrospect the Comcast bid for Disney and AOL buying Time Warner start making sense."

I can't fscking believe it took you that long to figure this out.

From January:
FSCK THAT! it's Comcast's ADVANTAGE owning the net

People - PLEASE GET A CLUE!

Rule 1: Blame customer first

[Anonymous Coward]

What does spyware look like anyways?

It looks like executables that run on your computer from a vendor with no explanation of what they do, and they keep trying to contact the Real with no explanation of why they need to do that. Repeated emails to Real have gone unanswered as to the purpose of what they're running on my computer.

You just like to bitch

Nope. I just wanted to take advantage of the free offer that comcast had. And Real decided it need to run 3 processes on my computer, even when the rhapsody client wasn't loaded. Doesn't that strike you as odd?

iTunes has free music?

yes

Where?

On the LH side, click on Internet radio. There's so much free music there to listen to, and unlike Rhapsody, it doesn't put "things" on my computer that monitor me and report back.

I've grown fond of atmospheric music. Go to http://somafm.com/ Although there are lots of top 10 stations. And they broadcast in CD quality (chortle). At least as much as Rhapsody does.

WinAMP does the same. Only its even less intrusive than than iTunes.

I also subscribe to Sirius (http://www.sirius.comfor/ my car so you understand I'm not opposed to paying for music. Sirius will also stream to my computer, and magically, they don't load a bunch of stuff that reports back to Sirius. It just plays. Imagine that.

You tell me what Real is trying to hide.

Different business models for different companies

[Wesley Felter]

That's called Akimbo. Offering niche content over IPTV is a great strategy for a small startup, but the big, conservative telcos won't be satisfied with niche content. It's replace cable or nothing.

Just a catchy Lede

[Ex Deo]

IPTV providers can buy programming from a coop or via deals w/ individual channels and holding companies. This article conflates VOD w/ the entire IPTV service package. The article's rational, that the studios are afraid of IPTV because they resent HBO, is a bit far flung. What's more likely is that they realize that they'd gotten a raw deal in their VOD agreements w/ cable MSO's and are looking for something better from the telco's. Cable is notorious for its one sided leasing/carriage/distribution agreements - you'll notice that we're about 7 yrs behind in ITV and ADTV services. Frankly some competitive pressure on cable could go along way towards improving this situation. So I doubt that the current situation will result in a significant delay of IPTV roll-outs. These are far enough along that significant delays would be very costly - it would make more sense to complete them and wait things out. Also IPTV does not use a single massive consolidated server farm. There are various topologies, and these tend to use regional headends.

Re:Just a catchy Lede

[hashbrownie]

You're exactly right, Ex Deo. Just because Disney doesn't return calls from BusinessWeek doesn't mean that they don't return calls from SBC.

Moreovoer, IPTV is not the same as Video on Demand. Expanded VOD is one of the possibilities with IPTV, but it's not necessarily going to happen. All IPTV entails is a server of content at a node connected to ~300 homes. You turn on your TV, and you want to watch CBS, and your cable box sends a request back to the node for "CBS". Because there's only one channel being streamed, you can use the bandwidth for lots of things, including VOD.

Disney et al would love cable TV competition, but they're a bit nervous about VOD. (Not just because of cannibalizing DVD, but also because of the effects on TV networks, syndication, etc.) I bet IPTV will happen soon enough, but not initially with a whole lot of VOD.

Screw IPTV

[skarphace]

Forget about IPTV, I just can't wait for 5mbps down and 2mbps up for under $40/mo. It will be amazing to have such a responsive connection at my house for such a great price.

iptv??

[sagekoala06]

i swear everytime i see iptv on the front page the first thing i think of it "what on earth did iowa public televison do that was cool enough to land it on slashdot?" then i click on and feel like a very large idiot.

The telecoms don't understand basic economics.

[Anonymous Coward]

Here they have a means of distributing highly tailored niche market content and they are wasting their efforts on razor thin margins distributing the SOS that can be had from umerous competitors.

The only winners in this game are the content providers and you can bet your bottom dollar they live in fear of the day the distributors (ISP's, satellite companes, cable companies) realize they can make better margins by distributing content from small niche market developers.

Bottom line, upload bandwidth should be unlimited.
I don't need 6mbps cable to download IP movies. I need 6mbps in the reverse direction so I can put an interactive cooking show on-line.

If the distributors had any sense, instead of paying the big daddy movie houses for content in order to attract more subscribers, they would let their subscribers content attract more subscribers.

go try it out

[sevinkey]

I think I lot of people on this board haven't tried out IPTV to see its potential. I agree with this article that there isn't a lot of content out there (cable's merger with content producers is the main problem), but you guys have got to go give this a try. Who needs a PVR?

Go into your local computer store, find a MediaCenter PC, and go to the Online Spotlight and just check out Reuters or something. This is pretty cool stuff.

Oh yeah, and stop with the tin-foil hats on statistics... no one is watching you specifically. Nobody cares what you are doing individually.

Re:Don't rely on the existing incumbents for conte

[Anonymous Coward]

Ur right.
The just don't get it.
In fact they are fighting their best chance by charging so damn much for upstream bandwidth.

I don't use 6mbps down but could certainly fill 6mbps up and many people would enjoy the content (live interactive cooking show).

IPTV Revolution Put on Hold

[chrisnewbie]

What about bandwith fees and internet congestion?I'm notsure about this but the people who are going to watch t.v on the net, i just cant imagine the cost each month.
cable= 30 to 40 $ a month 10 gig download 10$ each extra gig. plus the service for ip tv =x$$
I think it's going to cost a bundle of money to the unsuspecting heavy downloader,unless they either compress or lower the resolution so it doeant eat up all that maximum download.

Re:IPTV Revolution Put on Hold

[Ex Deo]

These nets support fragmentation and service levels - ie. they can ensure that the DTV content gets the bandwidth it needs. Internet derived media will be handled under a 'best effort' policy. IPTV is like streaming video, not store & forward. This is one reason that people are concerned that telco's may deliberately over-provision for DTV knowing that it'll enable them to crimp on bandwidth available to unaffiliated media. expect to hear complaints of this in the near future :P

winamp tv = not legal

[Anonymous Coward]

winamp tv = not legal, unless the people streaming it have made a deal with the copyright holders, which I doubt.
I prefer non-streaming stuff anyway.

No, you are incorrect

[Ars-Fartsica]

That was only because AOL's "play money" changed "value" versus TW's "play money".

This is incorrect, the acquisition was paid for by shareholders, and that amount of written off. This is a loss. It is borne by shareholders. Don't substitute your opinion for fact.

Re:No, you are incorrect

[Anonymous Coward]

It is borne by shareholders.

The shareholders paid for the loss in stock equity. That is the same "play money" the GP was referring to. You may want to think of a stock's value as being real but it isn't.

Re:Near VOD (NVOD) can be good too

[Anonymous Coward]

I really doubt you could scale 1.3m users at 512kbits each, its just not worth it

Lets see...

1,300,000 X .5Mbs =
81250 MBs = 81.25 GBs

T3 = 45Mbs =5.625 MBs
81250/5.625 = 14,444 T3s

T3 @ $2800/month
14,444 X 2800 = 45 million/month

It takes DTV 7000+ employees to maintain their network.. so assuming it takes
10,000 employees@60K/year
50 million/month

Total for monthly operation = 45+50=95 million/month

The would also need some servers :)
and if they go the any movie ever made anytime route they would of course also need about 375MB per 1.5 hours of movie@ 441,088 movies(http://www.imdb.com/database_statistics) = 165 Terabytes of storage to store all movies

1,300,000@$75/month = 97.5/month
They just might have a market (maybe..)

At 13,000,000 subscribers and 20K employees and 144,000 T3s and 10X server their costs will be tremendously reduced :)

Re:Near VOD (NVOD) can be good too

[merky1]

How about an expansion... publish a multicast schedule and create a client to queue these up and store them locally for a viewing window. Kind of like how people use Tivo today, except it would be over VOIP. The only drawback for the consumer is the use of bandwidth.

Legal? Oh my

[Anonymous Coward]

If technology waited for "legal", there would be no such thing as "hollywood".

The whole reason Hollywood exists in California is because film makers were avoiding the copyright police.

Don't believe me though...google is your friend.

Copying the music industries mistakes...

[javaxman]

It's pretty impressive the extent to which the movie industry is following the music industry's lead in ignoring technological advances in non-physical distribution channels. Of course, it's all about percieved control of properties, and a little caution seems prudent, but at the risk of turning down a potentially lucrative distribution deal ?

I think their profit models are assuming I'm going to buy their DVD myself, when really, I'm going to rent it from NetFlix ( or, if it's on satellite, TiVo it ).

Sure, they have a deal with the satellite provider, too... but I'm not sure I see the reason why, as a provider, you wouldn't have distribution deals with Comcast, DirecTV, *and* Verizon. Even if they all have pipes to the same doors, you're still making more money from several deals than you would with one, right? Where's the business logic on the content provider's part? Are they afraid of on-demand eating the margins of their less popular content? I'm not sure I understand the studio's thinking.

The most important thing they're missing is that withholding content does nothing but promote file-sharing. If I can't buy a copy of Sleeping Beauty, nobody but Disney loses when I borrow a copy, rent a copy, or download a copy. Having a product people want and not offering it for sale makes no sense, especially when reproducable copies exist outside your control.

Execution : Texas :: _________ : /.

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn! This is exactly the sort of problems we expected when they removed the analogy section from the SAT!

Re:Don't rely on the existing incumbents for conte

[man_ls]

Upstream bandwidth is largely a technical problem more than a billing/political one.

Take a cable modem.

It listens for a powerful, high-SNR signal from the head-end. This signal is, IIRC, modulated as some variant of QAM...64QAM sounds about right. There's a lot of bandwidth to be had here.

The return, however, is a relatively weak signal, transmitted by relatively cheap equipment, and using modulation which emphasizes error correction and reliability over raw speed (QPSK). It certainly is *possible* to have more upstream bandwidth, but the equipment needed to do so is a lot more expensive, generally, because it has to be able to transmit at a higher power. And, its not offered, because the existing infrastructure is set up such that the source transmits loudly with expensive equipment, and is very sensitive, allowing the clients to be cheap and weak by comparison.

I'm sure your telco would be willing to sell you a 6mb symmetric line...for $1k a month, and requiring Cisco equipment to use.

Done it.

[Juice-DP]

Over five years ago I established an ISP, Partnered with a Television Station, and began a collaborative effort between the two now known as Backspace Communications, LLC. We have been broadcasting LIVE Television over broadband for over four years now and have been quite successful. Two years ago we made the decision to go after the entire Cable/Satellite lineup and started knocking on the doors of every major and minor network and channel out there. NBC Universal, Turner, Newscorp, Viacom, Disney, Discovery, AETN, you name it, been there done that. In these past two years we have seen every one them make the shift showing their allegiance, to themselves, not to any one form of delivery. Our lineup is pretty much complete as is our end-to-end system. We couldn't tell you how frustrating it is to watch all of the Johnny come lately's like SBC, who parenthetically we broke off negotiations with about 9 months ago when we heard they were talking to Microsoft about their solution, talk about what they're going to do when we are already doing it. I digress. The reason for my writing is to offer you the chance to get up close and personal, if you should have burning to do so, with a company that has been at this for quite some time and who is far ahead of the pack with respect to IPTV Solutions. We've slain Content Acquisition, Encoding and Broadcasting. We've conquered Conditional Access and are a Microsoft Certified DRM Licensing Server. We've laid waste to Asset Management, Subscriber Management, Interactive User Interface, Set Top Box Hardware with Macrovision copy protection and High Speed Internet Access. In short, we're not coming soon, we're done, launched, in production, Now Playing ! So again, should you desire the real scoop on IPTV we'd love to bend your ear. Go look at us at www.backspace.tv. -Juice

BBC in UK doing trials - have open source codec

[Anonymous Coward]

The BBC have been beta-testing IPTV in the UK for a few months now. BBC
They are also developing their own open source media codec called Dirac.DIRAC
Unfortuneately it seems they are using M$ IPTV, hopefully this is just for the trial but it is all very internal politics and the BBC love to pay for crap - witness the pointlessness of their REAL media very low quality radio shifting.
They have also had repeats of The Sky At Night with Sir Patrick Moore as low res Real Media streams for the past few years but the Real codec sucks so much they are all but unwatchable.SKYATNIGHT
But I think it is important for public institutions to have rubbish easily crackable DRM formats...other wise well...er...

Re:Don't rely on the existing incumbents for conte

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't know that hole in the ground from your ass. The requirements are dictated by the media, not the endpoint hardware. The media doesn't know one direction from another. It's just a dumb old piece of coaxial cable, fiberoptic conduit, or twisted pair.

ALSO

There is nothing in the DOCSIS spec that results in greater cost for upstream than downstream.

I've read the spec and I've talked to the COMCAST engineers. The limitation is strictly one of channel allocation. There are more downstream than upstream channels. This is a business model decision and 99% political. Yes, they will have to buy additional equipment to add upstream channels, but it's nothing special, just more of the same. However, if you've a late model DOCSIS box at your end you will not have to purchase any additional hardware to take advantage of additional channels.
Comcast could easily tun my existing box up to 5mbps up to match the 5mbps down. They don't because the buildout is planned based on aggregate usage with a greater limit applied to download than upload. Purely political aside from some added, more of the same, equipment costs.

Telco transmission power levels are limited by crosstalk for wire or fiber. All the hardware, home or telco, is designed to accomodate the maximums.

Revolution won't be ...

[porky_pig_jr]

IPTelevised!!!

Re:Near VOD (NVOD) can be good too

[Anonymous Coward]

Then how about caching everything at the ISP level and make it a value-added service of the ISP rather than directly from the source?

Then rather than sending your programming to millions of people, it would instead be to hundreds of ISPs

silly people

[St. Arbirix]

Remove the telecoms.
Remove the cable companies.
Roll out the BPL.

Seriously, the power grid is already universal and can easily make telephone and cable redundant. Imagine getting IPTV and VoIP through the power companies.

Also, every home should be getting the standard 110VAC wall jacks as well as 12V or 24V jacks. Imagine the savings when you can replace several dozen wall-warts as well as computer power supplies with a single home-wide AC->DC converter.

The only down side to all this is that it puts many markets completely out of business. Only a developing country could do this at the moment.

hacked iptv receiver

[Anonymous Coward]

i can't wait. if microsoft built this as smartly as their xbox -- then just imagine a tv tuner with 15 meg connection to the internet drawing content from anyones server they can dial up. Content will be free no moatter how much you try and drm it!

No content providers

[radu124]

If publishers won't shift toward Internet distribution willingly, maybe the increasing rate of piracy will convince them.

By the way, how much would you pay to download a movie? If they do it like with the music and ask you for the full price of the dvd they can just forget about it.

Those guys don't understand that I'd rather download a movie than get out of the house and go rent it? What's the difference to them?