iPad Just Another TV Set?

An anonymous reader writes "An iPad is just another TV set, and can be viewed just like an extra outlet. These are the words Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) has thrown toward content providers as demand for consumer viewing keeps shifting to more available sources like Roku, Apple TV, and the iPad, over providers like Netflix, and Hulu, and now Cable TV. Programmers are throwing down the gauntlet as more devices are able to stream video from a variety of providers."

Comments

Programmers, not what you think they are

[Vectormatic]

Schedule managers would be a more apt term

when first reading TFS, my first parsing suggested some random C-jockeys screaming "oh no it isnt" in a bid to prove the ipad isnt a TV, didnt make a lot of sense

Re:Programmers, not what you think they are

[Anonymous Coward]

Next they'll be telling us that "architects" design buildings.

They don't get it

[zule666]

I moved last fall and decided to try going without cable or satellite. Between Hulu and Netflix I really haven't missed cable other then the occasional sporting event. When are content providers going to get it? I don't want to pay for 110 channels I never watch.

Re:They don't get it

[GottMitUns]

Very true. Traditional TV has no future. It's 20th century tech.

Re:They don't get it

[Hijacked Public]

You'd think they would look at the death throes of the newspaper guys, and magazines, and Blockbuster et al, and record stores, and etc etc, and change their ways. But they won't.

Re:They don't get it

[bsDaemon]

Yeah, radio with pictures is played out.

Re:They don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

Change their ways to wat??

Re:They don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you want the shitty networks to succeed? If they all self-destruct then perhaps we'll get the better shows we've wanted for 30 years. Not ones defined by an oligarchy of 4 cable networks. If we can eliminate network hosts entirely then so much the better.

Re:They don't get it

[Shikaku]

To a pull system from a push content system. A push system is defined as something like television, where everything is pushed with a schedule at timed intervals. A pull content gives you a choice, instead of waiting and being forced to stay for a show.

For example, even on legal sites, you choose when and what to watch, availability withstanding.

DVR is a stopgap in that direction. Netflix, Hulu and Youtube are currently going in the right direction.

Re:They don't get it

[biryokumaru]

On the one hand, I like the variety and time-independence of modern media consumption methods (Netflix, Hulu, TPB), but on the other hand I feel sometimes I'm missing out on a shared cultural experience with respect to commercials. On the gripping hand, my only complaint is not seeing commercials.

Re:They don't get it

[vawwyakr]

Look at the terms this article uses "content hungry", "addicted", "crazed", etc. It's still portrayed as though people doing this are the super video hungry watching five screens at once out of control people. It's the exact opposite though! I made this switch and haven't looked back because I don't watch a ton of TV and when I do I want to just watch what I want to watch not whatever is on right now. When they envision people watching video over the net they get this vision of some cyber geek in the basement with neon lights all over and 20 TVs when they should be thinking about their bread and butter audience of moms, dads and kids.

Re:They don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

What... the fuck?

I fervently pray that Jobs takes another Flash stance and outright bans commercials. And I don't even own an iDevice.

Something is very wrong with your brain.

Re:They don't get it

[cyn1c77]

To a pull system from a push content system. A push system is defined as something like television, where everything is pushed with a schedule at timed intervals. A pull content gives you a choice, instead of waiting and being forced to stay for a show.

For example, even on legal sites, you choose when and what to watch, availability withstanding.

DVR is a stopgap in that direction. Netflix, Hulu and Youtube are currently going in the right direction.

Playing devil's advocate (even though I agree with you), do you think the general public can handle being able to choose their programming? Currently, I think a lot of people are used to watching what is fed to them by the networks.

Remember that too much choice paradoxically makes people unhappy!

Re:They don't get it

[GameboyRMH]

For every funny Geico or Arby's ad there are a million unfunny, stupid or even offensive ads that you wish you could un-see. I'd say losing ads is worth it overall.

Re:They don't get it

[GameboyRMH]

Exactly. If we're really lucky they'll take their damn industry groups with them, bringing about the end of the IP dark ages we're currently stuck in.

Re:They don't get it

[Hijacked Public]

As above.

If any of the TV providers who could reach me would offer an exclusively 'on demand' service I would probably prefer that over Hulu or torrents or the other current options. As it stands, in order to get access to 'on demand' service I have to also purchase a TV package filled with content I don't want. I care only for HD but I have to buy non-HD content to get to the HD 'add on'. If I wanted only HBO I can't get just that, I have to buy the basic package + the extended package, then I can get to HBO, then add HBO HD.

Fine grained choice is as big a part of what traditional content providers should be learning from the internet. The music industry was dragged there kicking and screaming, which should serve as a model for the others.

Re:They don't get it

[biryokumaru]

You might be surprised how many conversations at the proverbial water cooler center on some new television ad campaign. Of course, it's often easy to waylay those into more interesting topics, such as honey badgers.

Re:They don't get it

[Merk42]

Given iAds, that won't happen But hey I would love for everything to be ad free, then they'd be behind a giant paywall to make up for the cost that advertisers used to give them.

Re:They don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you honestly think that if they had to offer you ala cart service that the price would go down? You're living in a fantasy land.

Re:They don't get it

[Gilmoure]

Someone should do a t-shirt.

Re:They don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

...and you can always watch the GOOD commercials on YouTube if you want to.

Re:They don't get it

[welcher]

other then the occasional sporting event

This is crucial --- cable would have nothing if it weren't for sports.

Re:They don't get it

[drinkypoo]

You'd think they would look at the death throes of the newspaper guys, and magazines, and Blockbuster et al, and record stores, and etc etc, and change their ways. But they won't.

I think they still believe that they can legislate their own existence. So far they have done an admirable (though not laudable) job. Media producers like mass market media because it helps them push their garbage, and mass market media likes media producers with garbage to push because it's easy to sell. As long as MPAA and RIAA members continue to be appointed to key positions in government (which happened under the prior administration and continues to happen under this administration) the situation will at minimum remain fairly static.

Re:They don't get it

[b0bby]

Between Hulu and Netflix I really haven't missed cable other then the occasional sporting event.

For sporting events I pretty much only watch the Super Bowl, and that comes OTA. My wife misses a couple of shows, but they usually will show up on Netfix eventually. I'm really happy with my Netfix streaming Blu-Ray player & my Aspire Revo with USB TV tuners. If MS gets hardware acceleration working on Silverlight, I won't even need to use the Blu-Ray player much anymore. I must say though, Hulu has always been a disappointment to me. Lots of clips make it annoying to find an actual episode; I don't even bother anymore.

Re:They don't get it

[xaxa]

Playing devil's advocate (even though I agree with you), do you think the general public can handle being able to choose their programming? Currently, I think a lot of people are used to watching what is fed to them by the networks.

Remember that too much choice paradoxically makes people unhappy!

Your TV (computer) could choose for you, based on what you say you like, what your social-network-friends like, what's popular, what the network recommends, etc.

Re:They don't get it

[causality]

Playing devil's advocate (even though I agree with you), do you think the general public can handle being able to choose their programming? Currently, I think a lot of people are used to watching what is fed to them by the networks.

I think that constantly treating them like they can't, for the last few generations, has not only trained them to be the way they are now but also made everyone believe that this is normal. This is true for things a lot more important than TV. Few people have the individuality and the principles to do whatever they're going to do no matter how insultingly you treat them. For the masses, we tend to get what we expect.

A large population of passive people who hate introspection, do not want to develop refined tastes, and need an industry of marketers to tell them what they want is great if you're a multinational corporation. Then you can treat them as predictable units on a graph and cater to profitable trends, nice and dehumanized, neat and "individual just like everybody else". If you value any kind of intelligence or quality of life, then it isn't so great, not when so many are so artificially helpless and need to have basic things explained to them because they lost their drive and curiosity a long time ago.

Remember that too much choice paradoxically makes people unhappy!

I suppose it does when they are suddenly confronted with large amounts of it for the first time. The truth is that life is full of choices and always has been. It's just that many behaviors become so ingrained that we no longer understand they are choices.

Re:They don't get it

[penguin_dance]

Exactly. And that's not counting the pirate signals that broadcast things like major cable news stations that aren't on NetFlix or Hulu.

We also gave up satellite several years back when I was between jobs and having to work a lot of contract. It was an extra $60/month we just couldn't afford. Plus a lot of the channels that caused me to subscribed have been dumbed down to the point of not even being the original programs. Animal planet is running ghost stories. TruTV used to be CourtTV and now it's running more and more repo reality or "Jackass" type shows. And we all know what happened to TechTV.

Don't forget the original reason we were marketed cable is so we could watch commercial-free programming! That didn't last long.

These providers are going to get run down by Netflix, Hulu, et. al. I think if they let you subscribe to the channels you want, without all the 90% noise you don't watch, it could be viable, especially for news/live events. But with the ability to not only watch what you want WHEN you want, they're losing ground fast. The business needs to switch from a push technology to a pull one if they expect to be around in 10 years.

Re:They don't get it

[g0bshiTe]

I've often wondered why they can't just charge for channels we actually use. I mean 110 channels and say for argument you pay $60 it breaks down to like $2 a channel, well what if I only watched 5 channels? Why can't they just give me my 5 channels and charge me accordingly? When I purchase consumer goods I don't pay for things I don't want, I don't pay for services I don't need other than extra cable channels. Hell telephone and electric you only pay what you use. I realize there is a disparity between the last 2 comparisons as their service is on one fixed product and not multiple channels, purchased from whatever sources by the provider.

Re:They don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

As much as I hate overlaid ads (and I really make an effort to annihilate them all) I must grudgingly admit that there is a MASSIVE world of difference between ads plaguing my screen, and being forced to sit through 25 minutes of constant interruptions for a 1-hour show. Such twisted disruptions should be classified as a crime against humanity.

Also, I think it would be fantastic if TV shows moved to a $2/episode or similar subscription method.

Re:They don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

Alas, they're showing up before web video. I can't express how much I love watching a 30-second commercial before a 10-second web video. Well, I can't express it in mixed company, anyway.

Re:They don't get it

[Vanderhoth]

I have to agree with you. I tried to get rid of our cable to save $150/mo. It worked well for me and made me realize how little TV I watch. I mostly download the shows I like. The problem is I'm a highly technical person and spend a lot of time looking things (like TV shows and Movies) up for reviews and release dates and such. My wife on the other hand is the complete opposite. She'll watch a show I've downloaded and she'll say it was great, but she has no motivation to find her own stuff. When we got rid of the cable she just about went crazy because one of the people she works with would mention an episode of House, Bones, or talk about the next great show that's coming out this fall. I told her just to go download it, but she "couldn't figure it out" and wanted me to do it. There are only so many hours in the day, I have a lot of hobbies and not enough time for the things I want to do, let alone sit around looking for shows for her. So I broke down and had the cable hooked back up.

We just bought a new TV that came with Netflix, which we just got here in Canada and it's awesome. I can afford to pay the $8/mo they're asking and love the fact it's like downloading in that I can watch them when I want. I live on the east coast so most of what we watch we have to stay up until midnight to catch. That just doesn't work for me. I'd pay up to what we pay for our current cable if they had all the recent shows so I could make my wife happy and drop the cable in one felled swoop. We'll see what happens with the national usage based billing issue that seems to have sprung up right after Netflix came to town.

Re:They don't get it

[c0d3g33k]

I'd say you haven't thought this through, or you wouldn't have raised the point at all (and you should have used a more honest term like "the unwashed masses" instead of hiding your elitist and condescending view of people behind the "general public" label).

Of course people can handle this - they have always been able to do so. Just look at who is being dragged kicking/screaming into the future and who is doing the dragging. Hint: The "general public" are doing the dragging. Follow the sound of kicking and screaming to identify who can't handle the possibility of greater choice. This is about control, not the ability of people to choose for themselves.

Re:They don't get it

[Duradin]

To get one channel you liked in the $60 package the provider probably had to bundle in 5 crap channels or no dice on getting the good channel from the distributor.

Re:They don't get it

[daedae]

And in my experience, you can get most sporting events streaming as well. At least, most games I'm interested in I can watch on ESPN3 since Comcast is our ISP, and the local games that are blacked out are usually either streaming from a local provider like Raycom Sports or are on (gasp) broadcast TV.

Re:They don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd think you'd take the opportunity of not having a TV set to stop wasting your life watching TV.

Sadly not, it seems.

Re:They don't get it

[c0d3g33k]

Sturgeon's Law (90% of everything is crap) says it's not worth it. Ads are creative content (dare I even say "art") like everything else - they just have a specific purpose. What you're really bothered about is the fact that ads are forced upon you rather than chosen by you. You are therefore more painfully aware of the crappy 90%, since you can't control whether or not to watch them. Losing ads completely reduces the opportunity for the awesome 10% to be experienced, reducing the overall opportunity for good art to find an audience. The right answer is to find a better balance for controlling how and when you view ads ("skip this ad after 10 seconds" is one reasonable way to reasonably balance things). Even better would be a feedback mechanism that would *actively* assign negative value to the ads nobody wants to see and offer a greater incentive to produce the good stuff.

Re:They don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell telephone and electric you only pay what you use.
 
Really? My land line costs me over 30 bucks a month if I use it or not. We won't even get into my cellphone bill.
 
Best case scenerio is that the television content providers would charge you a base fee for even having a link to your home and you pay for anything on top of that. The average consumer would probably see a small increase in their cost while about 3% of you would actually stick to your guns and get 5 channels instead of 500 but you'd only save about 8 dollars a month.
 
And this is not to mention anything about those of you who pound your chests anytime net net neutrality is questioned... If you think you should only pay as you go with one type of content why not with any other? I bet you big money that if we ever see real pay-as-you-play style TV that will break any logical and legal arguements in the way of net neutrality.
 
The providers have you by the balls and there is no way the government is going to do anything meaningful to break their system. Your real world options are pay up or get out.

Re:They don't get it

[causality]

I'd say you haven't thought this through, or you wouldn't have raised the point at all (and you should have used a more honest term like "the unwashed masses" instead of hiding your elitist and condescending view of people behind the "general public" label).

Unfortunately the "unwashed masses" exist and they exist in numbers. As proof I submit the fact that marketing and PR are used because they work and are extremely successful at steering a discussion away from the actual merits of a thing. There is nothing elitist about admitting this fact of life. Celebrating it, exploiting it, and using it as an excuse to think you're better than someone else .. now THAT would be elitist.

Of course people can handle this - they have always been able to do so. Just look at who is being dragged kicking/screaming into the future and who is doing the dragging. Hint: The "general public" are doing the dragging. Follow the sound of kicking and screaming to identify who can't handle the possibility of greater choice. This is about control, not the ability of people to choose for themselves.

You're absolutely right that it's about control. The kind of control it's about is simple: many people have tastes, preferences, and viewpoints (even passionate ones) that they only believe are their own. The way it would ideally work is that you determine your own needs based on realistic assessment and the marketers merely make you aware of competing offerings among which you choose based on merit and value. By contrast, the real art of the salesman or the marketer is to sell you something you otherwise would have never bought or believed while convincing you that the whole thing was your own idea. That's what this dubious "craft" is about, what its practitioners are trying to do.

Since this is a pathological state of parasitism where one class exerts emotional and mental control over another for the sake of profit or power, of course people can handle its opposite and have always been able to do so. Its opposite would represent health and a higher degree of freedom. It only seems painful or difficult because the pathology has gone on so long and affected so many.

The ability of people to choose for themselves is the object of control. It's not just those who want unhealthy control over markets and decisions who will do the kicking and screaming. It's also those who have formed an unhealthy dependence on them like the crackhead to the drug dealer and are afraid of the staggering possibilities of freedom and choice. That this is changing is ultimately a good thing, just don't expect change to be painless when the system that is changing is so deeply entrenched. There will be much kicking and screaming, sort of like the RIAA is doing because it refuses to cope with the information age.

Yet it really is changing and that part is frankly overdue. Unfortuntely I don't share your optimism that it's changing because people know better. I want to believe that but any dealing I have with the general public shows me how unplausible this can be. I think it's changing because it was never sustainable to begin with. Its decline and replacement was inevitable.

Re:They don't get it

[mapkinase]

"110 channels" It used to be 13 in 1979. No wonder nobody was home.

Re:They don't get it

[MachineShedFred]

Time Warner would be fired tomorrow if I wasn't such a college football fan. ESPN3 is a step in the right direction, but needs to be much more comprehensive.

Re:They don't get it

[jedidiah]

Calling ads creative content is pushing things a bit.

Ads are a sales pitch and as such are driven predominantly by crass and callous motives and in the general case should not be called "creative".

This is the aspect of advertising that people find objectionable. They are disrespectful on a fundemental level that will always be in conflict with any means to grade them and filter out the most objectionable material. The general lack of consideration given by advertisers will always drive people to find ways to block ads completely if only to deal with the very worst offenders.

Re:They don't get it

[Patch86]

Easily fixed by the likes of "Featured Content" or "Most Popular" pages on content streaming sites. Or better yet, "channel" features of preordained content- just because content streaming allows for new and exciting features, it doesn't mean that it can't still replicate the old features.

Re:They don't get it

[Belial6]

Hulu already does this.

Re:They don't get it

[tlhIngan]

To a pull system from a push content system. A push system is defined as something like television, where everything is pushed with a schedule at timed intervals. A pull content gives you a choice, instead of waiting and being forced to stay for a show.

A push system is more efficient bandwidth wise, because you can broadcast it and additonal receivers don't impact much. Going to a pull system results in a linear bandwidth increase - for every extra viewer you have, you have to provide more bandwidth.

I don't see internet TV as taking off because of it.

Netflix and Hulu are popular, but they don't have 300M TVs using them 24/7.

In the end, what will happen is we aggregate the content at the ISP level and pull from it (the content comes in via broadcast/multicast), but that's just an ISP-level DVR in that case. All we've done is pushed the DVR into the cloud. And if your ISP doesn't have a content mirroring box, then you've pushed the DVR further up the cloud.

And right now, Hulu and Netflix really are cloud DVRs - Hulu gets programming from networks and lets people play it when and where they want it, after it's shown, like a DVR set to tape it. Netflix does the same, after the DVD's been released.

Re:They don't get it

[camperdave]

Remember that too much choice paradoxically makes people unhappy!

Probably true. Even though most cable and satellite boxes come with PVRs these days, so the concept of time shifting is already in most people's minds, and it's not too much of a stretch to go from that to picking "Littlest Hobo" or "Fear that America's Top Idol will Wipe Out while Dancing with the Stars" off a menu. The issue is choice. Most people plan their evening around what's on: "Oh, there's a good movie on tonight. Let's watch that.". Well, with On Demand "pull"-type services, there will be a good movie on every night, or there could be an episode of $show on every night. I have done the download-every-episode-in-the-series-and-watch-them-sequentially routine, and it becomes just that: routine. It lacks a certain spontaneity. Plus, it destroys water cooler talk. "Did you see what Quinn was wearing on Glee last night?" - "No, I was watching Lost. Michael just killed Libby and Ana-Lucia. I'll start on Glee in about three months - unless the new season of Breaking Bad starts up"

However, I think the main problem is that the infrastructure to move to a pull service just flat isn't there.

Re:They don't get it

[paintballer1087]

I just recently dropped cable, and ran into the same thing. I ended up building a XBMC box, and it's solved that problem. I have Hulu (through PlayOn) and Netflix, and for shows not on either, or for higher quality, I use Sickbeard. It interfaces with

<fightclub>SABnzbd and Usen...Umm, certain channels of the intertubes...</fightclub>

...to find the TV shows you're looking for, and will send the info to XBMC and update the library. Very user friendly, and simple. A definite lifesaver for keeping the wife happy.

Lifehacker had an article on it a month or so ago, and that's what got me on to it.

Re:They don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

Vanderhoth; see if your wife likes http://eztv.it/

Re:They don't get it

[TenDimensions]

Remember that too much choice paradoxically makes people unhappy!

I suppose it does when they are suddenly confronted with large amounts of it for the first time. The truth is that life is full of choices and always has been. It's just that many behaviors become so ingrained that we no longer understand they are choices.

This definitely is a chicken/egg problem, though, and I don't think it's all that clear.

Did humans evolve in a state that had a lot of choice? Has recent socialization caused our "choice mechanism" to atrophy? Definitely not cut and dry and I think when cast in the light of millions of years of evolution I have to fall on the side that too much choice/freedom for most people can cause unhappiness.

Granted these are all generalizations, but working under the assumption that self-introspection (needed to make choices of convenience) arose as a side-effect of a more complex brain aiding in survival - it's not "natural" to make use of that introspection for survival. For the purposes of survival what kinds of true choices really need to be made by our evolving ancestors on a higher conscious level? No choices your dog can make since that's all about raw survival. Even more complicated things like making tools tie back to raw survival - just at a higher complexity - hence the side effect of self-introspection and the capability of more complex choices like picking one television show over another. As near as I can tell throw a modern human into the wild where life is on the line and no real choices of convenience need to be made at all.

Therefore I'd propose that self-introspection and the ability to chose is much more a learned behavior and our natural state is to make choices only when necessary. Look at all the passivity in the world and how much resistance to change there is as additional proof of this.

It's funny to tie this all back to something as mundane as television watching, but I think that's precisely the point. If people are uncomfortable making choices for important things they'll certainly be more than happy allowing an algorithm to spoon feed them their entertainment.

Re:They don't get it

[mcgrew]

I think that constantly treating them like they can't, for the last few generations, has not only trained them to be the way they are now but also made everyone believe that this is normal.

It is normal. From the first time a human made music or performed a play, you had to show up at a certain time or place to see it. The invention of the gramophone changed this; people could choose their own programming from their limited personal collections, but there was no way to "pull" radio. When TV came it was actually a step backwards, as there was no consumer-affordable stored media until the VCR came around. The internet is just another step towards more choice.

If "too many choices makes people unhappy" then how did Howard Johnson get rich? Only a marketer or someone who's brainwashed by one (or someone in a hurry) would say a dumb thing like that.

Re:They don't get it

[cyn1c77]

I'd say you haven't thought this through, or you wouldn't have raised the point at all (and you should have used a more honest term like "the unwashed masses" instead of hiding your elitist and condescending view of people behind the "general public" label).

Of course people can handle this - they have always been able to do so. Just look at who is being dragged kicking/screaming into the future and who is doing the dragging. Hint: The "general public" are doing the dragging. Follow the sound of kicking and screaming to identify who can't handle the possibility of greater choice. This is about control, not the ability of people to choose for themselves.

First off, stop trying to pick a fight. You are putting words in my mouth, coming across as a douche, and also appear both condescending and elitist.

Secondly, I know personal experience that many of my co-workers and family members do not like to select their TV shows from an infinite list as they have told me that. They like to choose from a subset of all available shows... usually whatever is currently playing on the network TV channels so that they can feel connected to pop culture.

Thirdly, I am not the general public with regards to TV show preferences. I do not like reality series or hospital/doctor series. I abhor soap operas, talk shows, and the news. I only like a few detective series. I think that the PBS offerings are boring. The fact that these shows are being shown indicates that a good portion of the TV-watching public (defined as the "general public") likes them, or advertisers and networks would not sponsor them. Therefore, it is appropriate for me to consider myself different from the general public. Not better or worse, but different.

And finally, the implicit point in my last post was that many people are used to the network or pop culture controlling what they watch. Currently many people just use the internet to catch a network show that they missed earlier, but their choices are still governed by what is currently showing this season. An entirely "pull-based" TV system would revolutionize TV media. Networks would no longer have a stranglehold on what is produced. The variety of offerings would explode. And the users would have to find a way to parse all this information to select what shows make them happy. This will require a more active mindset than simply turning the TV on and flipping through less than 50 channels of interest.

Re:They don't get it

[m.ducharme]

Well, people choose their programming all the time, with the remote control. I don't think it's that much of a leap from channel surfing to on-demand programming.

Re:They don't get it

[TenDimensions]

I don't think it's condescending at all to discuss the natural limitations of the human mind. I posted elsewhere, but to sum up I just don't think we've evolved the necessity of making an awful lot of choices. Speaking in generalizations, people are resistant to change and they have demonstrated a lower degree of happiness when presented with too many choices.

Raw survival in the wild simply didn't require us to be wired up to make lots of choices. Our capability to do so is merely a side-effect of the extreme complexity of the minds we've evolved. We can definitely *learn* to make choices and I'm not advocating despotism or that we're happier like that. I'm saying after a certain level of survival needs are met (including freedom - not even a dog likes being chained up forever) - we just don't have a deep seeded need to make choices. Especially regarding something as unrelated to our survival as our free time.

Re:They don't get it

[What'sInAName]

I just ditched cable this winter. The hardest part for me wasn't giving up cable, but the nice MythTV DVR PC I bought from components and installed when it still meant something to install your own Myth box. (Not really bragging, I'm just proud of my accomplishment. Ok, so yeah, I guess that means I'm bragging, so sue me.)

Now I have an old Mac mini with Boxee on it hooked up to the TV (36" LCD 720p, nothing special at all) and can control it all with an Apple remote, which I like. (Well, I have a BT keyboard/mouse if I want to browse to something not available as an app on Boxee.) I also moved my home media collection to a smaller, quiet PC that also serves as the home Samba share, in another room. Not that the myth box was loud, but now my living room is super quiet.

So far, I really haven't missed cable, and I'm quite happy with the setup.

Re:They don't get it

[LostAlaska]

...so says the sports fan... =P

Re:They don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

I have Verizon FiOS just to get the high speed broadband. They have this nasty trap where the only way to get their fastest tier of network speed you have to get their HD Ultimate bundle which has 200+ channels. Recently I had to get a new DVR and had to manually copy the scheduled recordings from one box to the other. There were about thirty programs set up to record. Amazingly all of them were on only five channels. All I want is a fast internet and those five channels in HD. It's just amazing that I have to have a package with another 195+ channels I don't watch and pay close to $200 per month to get that!

Re:They don't get it

[jedidiah]

No. The general public are not doing the dragging.

They are the ones being dragged.

Most of this stuff is being driven by the "elitists". The unwashed masses can be barely bothered to pay attention. That's why stuff like Tivo and Macs become marginalized by the likes of MS-DOS and the average cable provider PVR. Our view of the entire situation is skewed because we are all relatively geeky early adopters. This even includes the Mac users that sneer at the idea of actually knowing what you're buying.

The interesting element here is the younger generation that are growing up with different expectations and experience with things like the web where everything is on demand.

Re:They don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

Ads are a sales pitch and as such are driven predominantly by crass and callous motives and in the general case should not be called "creative".

Except that crass and callous motives are not mutually exclusive with creativity, and can in fact act as a drive for creativity just as any other motive can.

Re:They don't get it

[Vanderhoth]

Sweet. I'll look more into Sick Beard when I get home. Thanks for sharing

Re:They don't get it

[Tetsujin]

To a pull system from a push content system. A push system is defined as something like television, where everything is pushed with a schedule at timed intervals. A pull content gives you a choice, instead of waiting and being forced to stay for a show.

For example, even on legal sites, you choose when and what to watch, availability withstanding.

DVR is a stopgap in that direction. Netflix, Hulu and Youtube are currently going in the right direction.

Playing devil's advocate (even though I agree with you), do you think the general public can handle being able to choose their programming? Currently, I think a lot of people are used to watching what is fed to them by the networks.

Remember that too much choice paradoxically makes people unhappy!

Sure, why not? I mean it may be different "networks" (Netflix or Hulu instead of the broadcast networks, cable networks, or cable companies), and a different form of "feeding" (using ads and hyperlinks, instead of the program schedule, to use one program to promote another) - but if a viewer is content to just consume whatever comes their way, then yes, there will be people willing and able to take advantage of that, feed these people content and reap the benefits.

Re:They don't get it

[biryokumaru]

Don't be absurd. That kind of reasoning can only lead to absurdities like a patent system, or a copyright system.

Re:They don't get it

[macs4all]

Playing devil's advocate (even though I agree with you), do you think the general public can handle being able to choose their programming? Currently, I think a lot of people are used to watching what is fed to them by the networks.

Remember that too much choice paradoxically makes people unhappy!

Your TV (computer) could choose for you, based on what you say you like, what your social-network-friends like, what's popular, what the network recommends, etc.

But then, you get situations like "My TiVO Thinks I'm a Pregnant Gay Man."

Oh, and before it starts, this is NOT an invitation for another round of puerile Apple "Gay" jokes. That meme's getting really old...

Re:They don't get it

[scot4875]

If you think you should only pay as you go with one type of content why not with any other? I bet you big money that if we ever see real pay-as-you-play style TV that will break any logical and legal arguements in the way of net neutrality.

Pay-as-you-play has jack all to do with net neutrality.

--Jeremy

Re:They don't get it

[Grizzley9]

When we got rid of the cable she just about went crazy because one of the people she works with would mention an episode of House, Bones, or talk about the next great show that's coming out this fall.

Those are all network shows broadcast free over the air. And available on Hulu. This had nothing to do with getting rid of cable as you can pick up all those stations (usually unless you live very rural) with a normal antenna or watch them online.
EDIT: I see you live in Canada. Surely you get a lot of over the air channels still but Hulu you'd have to likely go through a proxy of some sort.

Re:They don't get it

[c0d3g33k]

Exactly. We can quibble about whether a sales pitch is more or less crass/callous than other motivators to produce creative work that aren't 'artistically pure' like paying the rent or making car payments. (I don't really think a sales pitch is inherently more crass/callous, though many *dishonest* sale pitches are, but that's just me.) Labeling a particular form of art "crass" and "callous" is a personal value judgement that has very little to do with the level of creativity required to produce it, or the quality of the output. If you want crass and callous, consider how many musicians are motivated by the prospect of getting laid. That is considered a pretty low motive by many, but it still results in some great music.

People in the US look forward to the Superbowl ads every year (well, until they started to suck), and I'd argue the reason is because they represent (or used to) some of the finest examples of creative and entertaining commercial art.

Movie trailers are another example. They are clearly sales pitches, but they are also examples of very short form cinematic storytelling and can be quite artistic and creative. Heck, trailers are often artistically superior to the very films they are pitching.

Tell the countless musicians, designers and artists who write jingles, create beautiful layouts or appealing book covers that they aren't creative because they are trying to sell something. They would probably take exception to blanket condemnation of their work just because they like to eat and stay warm in the winter.

Re:They don't get it

[ThatMegathronDude]

Time Warner is already providing an ISP level DVR with a 3 day history of all their channels that you can access from your cable box.

Re:They don't get it

[mldi]

The only problem with a pull system is bandwidth. It takes significantly more to provide that than to simply blast a signal and continue to amplify and split it. Given that fact, when the cable company finally gives in to some kind of pay-per-view model exclusively, they'll still charge you out the ass citing bandwidth costs. Cable companies will only have a future if they provide that kind of programming at a cheap rate (since anybody can be a competitor now) or if they switch entirely to a pay-per-channel model. After all, many people still like to idly channel surf.

Re:They don't get it

[c0d3g33k]

Not trying to pick a fight, though I suppose in these days of polarized thinking anything other than fawning politeness and enthusiastic agreement is considered an attack. I took exception with the thinking implied by your brief original statement and commented on it while disagreeing with your point. (Notice I didn't accuse you personally of being a douche or picking a fight - thanks for that.) Your subsequent clarification of the reasoning behind your position gives context to your original statement, and I disagree less as a consequence. Well, I disagree differently. :-)

You're right. Pull-based ways of getting information *does* revolutionize things. The success of the internet is testament to that. The popularity of YouTube suggests the same (perceived quality of what's available there notwithstanding. There lies a whole other discussion of elitism vs. popular culture). I'd say the trend you hope for is already happening, though people don't recognize it for what it is because they associate content production with the traditional big players, so it's not real until they join the party. My argument is that we don't necessarily need big content on board to bring about the 'revolution' - it happened without them. They would certainly be welcome (big entertainment produces a lot of fine material). And people are already showing that they can deal just fine with an abundance of choices - that was my original point. As a matter of fact, they aren't just capable of dealing with a rich variety of content to choose from, they are quite capable of *producing* it as well. On their own, without the help of big content. This doesn't strike me as the vast wasteland of couch potatoes that people imagine. I'd go so far as to argue that cause and effect is reversed - the couch potato nation is the *result* of the stranglehold of big content on entertainment media and it's resulting homogenization, not because that's all people are capable of. My experience suggests that the vast majority of people are capable of quite a lot - it's just not always noticeable because people focus their energies specifically on what interests them - the resulting diversity is hard to categorize because it's ... well ... diverse.

Re:They don't get it

[Kelbear]

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Cablevision-Launches-Network-DVR-In-The-Bronx-112372

Cablevision has already been storing data at the ISP level.

Re:They don't get it

[R3d M3rcury]

Funny comment, but there's some truth to it.

Consider radio's current dodgy existence. Sure, it's great for news, talk radio, etc. But for entertainment purposes (eg, listening to music), it's having a hard time competing with internet sources (Pandora, last.fm, etc.).

One could argue that traditional TV is headed in a similar direction.

Re:They don't get it

[suutar]

Yep. They're both headed towards the niche where watching it live is worth dealing with the commercials (including those little 'only the bottom quarter of the screen' promos, channel logo bugs, etc). They're already in the niche where watching it before you can download it is worth commercials or having to manually skip through them, but that downloadability lag is getting shorter and shorter.

Re:They don't get it

[Vanderhoth]

We get three over air channels. Global, ATV and a French channel. We do get a few shows like house and bones I think on global. But it doesn't solve the issue that we have to stay up until midnight to see them. At least with our digital cable she can watch some of her shows around 10ish. I can get Hulu through a proxy, but I seem to get it to work for awhile. Then it craps out. I think it's my provider.

Re:They don't get it

[justthinkit]

What doesn't that shirt say "Killed My Television"?

The original bumper sticker, "Kill Your Television", was a suggestion to others. "Killed My Television" would say that the wearer acted on that suggestion. "Killed Your Television" sounds aggressive and PETA-like.

Re:They don't get it

[Gilmoure]

Killed Your Television is in a Quicktime video window. This shirt dates from early 2000's, before YouTube/Hulu/etc. Rather prescient on artist's part, I think.

Re:They don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

um. youtube will have any ad you want to see... for free... on demand.

Get a clue, Olde Skoolers

[grub]

You can make it easy for your customers to watch what they already pay for or they can just torrent it and watch with things like AirVideo which means no advertising revenue.

I've helped piles of "non-geeks" with BitTorrent and RSS feeds for TV shows. They don't care about movies or warez, just the latest episode of Glee in HD.

Re:Get a clue, Olde Skoolers

[xgr3gx]

"Throwing the gauntlet" worked so well for the music industry. They probably could have made so much more money, much more easily if they had embraced digital media from the onset.
Television needs to get on board with the digital age. If they fight it they are just going to fall behind as users find better alternatives to traditionally TV.
Perhaps it's time to offer ala-carte channel selection. Why should I have to buy a package from my cable company when I can just find what I want online.
The harder they fight it, the faster they will lose viewers. Especially now that TVs have Youtube and Hulu apps embedded, making it much easier for the average user to watch online content.

Re:Get a clue, Olde Skoolers

[grub]

No kidding! The music industry wanted people to buy shiny plastic discs at brick and mortar stores. Fast forward a few years and a non-music entity (Apple) is the largest music seller in the world.

The old timers don't get that their shit is just data.

Re:Get a clue, Olde Skoolers

[darjen]

Cable companies would offer ala-carte if they could. Unfortunately, the content providers are the ones who hold sway in this matter.

Re:Get a clue, Olde Skoolers

[biryokumaru]

+1 Perspective!

Amongst this community in particular, it often seems like the RIAA are doing quite well making up losses by suing grandmothers and school children, but in reality they've already lost. It really hits you when the measure of Rebecca Black's success is that she's climbing the iTunes charts instead of Billboard. The RIAA isn't going the way of the dinosaurs, they're already gone.

Re:Get a clue, Olde Skoolers

[Anonymous Coward]

And you old timers don't get that "just data" isn't cool now. We kids buy our music on large vinyl discs from brick and mortar stores in sketchy parts of town.

Apple doesn't care about my local band!

Re:Get a clue, Olde Skoolers

[gary_7vn]

And neither does anyone else. Vinyl is retarded. Literally. Oh, but it sounds so "warm".

Re:Get a clue, Olde Skoolers

[xgr3gx]

That's true. It's might also be in their interest to allow ala-carte pricing. But it is their content, and they can distribute it how they choose. Since they also distribute it on the Internet (barring any illegal content providers) they can pretty much offer it however they want on any medium.
The only way for them to fight illegal downloaders it to make legitimate downloads/streaming as easy or easier than illegal downloads. That would mean no DRM (or a least a good implementation of it) in a cross platform format consumable by all types of devices.

Re:Get a clue, Olde Skoolers

[Chris_Stankowitz]

A brick_and_mortar store is the largest music retailer in the world... Walmart. *Not* Apple.

Re:Get a clue, Olde Skoolers

[grub]

Apple surpassed Walmart in 2008 for the largest US seller see here and now sells more than Walmart and Best Buy combined.

I recall reading a similar boast for world-wide sales more recently.

Re:Get a clue, Olde Skoolers

[Karlt1]

A brick_and_mortar store is the largest music retailer in the world... Walmart. *Not* Apple.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2008/04/apple-passes-wal-mart-now-1-music-retailer-in-us.ars

Re:Get a clue, Olde Skoolers

[Anonymous Coward]

> The old timers don't get that their shit is just data.

And even the upstarts don't get that there's no need to "download" music when you can stream it on demand.

I used to buy songs from iTunes, but nowadays when I want to hear a particular song I just search for it on YouTube, Playlist.com or Pandora.

Of course, it doesn't work when your connection is down, or nobody uploaded the song - but then, there's a good chance your brick-and-mortar store didn't have the track you were looking for anyway.

Re:Get a clue, Olde Skoolers

[Chris_Stankowitz]

I stand corrected...

Re:Get a clue, Olde Skoolers

[amRadioHed]

It also really hits you when you consider that Rebecca Black has measurable success that maybe the big labels weren't entirely useless after all.

This is a about broadcast rights

[NixieBunny]

From TFA: "We haven’t negotiated rights for our programs to be viewed on anything other than a real TV. The question remains, what constitutes a real TV?"

I think the cable guys have their knickers in a twist because soon the only thing their cable will carry is TCP/IP.

Re:This is a about broadcast rights

[Archangel Michael]

THIS!

What is a "TV" is going to cause issues. Many TVs, and most of the big screen ones have a microprocessor and running Linux. Are they "computers" or are they TV's? BluRay and DVD players now have Netflix and other services embedded into them, clearly indicating some microprocessor for decode and an OS to manage the HW. Are those "computers" too?

Please define what is a TV for us, and then let us rip your description to shreds.

Re:This is a about broadcast rights

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Clearly, a TV is anything that we believe that we have licenced you to display our precious, precious 'premium content' on. We would be happy to adjust the number of TVs, for a price.

Re:This is a about broadcast rights

[ArhcAngel]

My new 42" Panasonic Viera has Netflix, Facebook, DLNA, Pandora, and several other apps. It also has an ATSC OTA receiver.
What about Sony's Google TV? I hope Sony Entertainment isn't one of the companies bitching about what a TV is.

Re:This is a about broadcast rights

[poetmatt]

The only reason to sign up for cable is because it makes the internet price cheaper. Powerusers/etc just stream internet tv back to their regular TV. What's the point of the cable TV plan? To watch more advertisements and not be able to choose when to watch the show you want to watch?

Re:This is a about broadcast rights

[somersault]

Here in the UK you only have to pay a TV license if you're watching live TV. iPlayer is free. So, we don't pay a TV license, and any time someone has mentioned a worthwhile TV program to me (which was.. one time this year!) I just looked it up on iPlayer.

Re:This is a about broadcast rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. iPlayer is just timeshifted broadcast content, that still cost money to make, funded from the TV "license", and they DO count a computer receiving it in any fashion to effectively be a TV. The only exemption is for a detuned TV with no aerial which is used purely as a console / DVD player / etc display ... and you have to dig down to paragraph 62,584 subsection Z in the terms before they grudgingly admit even that.

I would certainly agree that the TV "license" is far too expensive, and enforced in a misleading and menacing manner by a largely unaccountable organisation, so by all means go on evading it, but be aware that's technically what you're doing ...

Re:This is a about broadcast rights

[Anonymous Coward]

And more than that - as I have virgin (just the free service) i get all the catch up tv through a browser on the tv and on a PC i can go to catchup tv which recognises that virgin is a partner and lets me watch timeshifted tv from any channel i am subscribed to (so all the free to view ones) from anywhere on a pc / iphone / ipad for free and legally

Re:This is a about broadcast rights

[somersault]

It wasn't me who looked into it, it was my flatmate. He has a law degree, works with contracts all day, and an insane level of morality/conscientiousness, so I'd be apt to believe him over you to be honest! I'm quite happy to pay it if we actually need it. iPlayer does not require a TV tuner.

Have a look here. I wouldn't be surprised if they require you to pay a TV license for iPlayer eventually, but it doesn't seem that it's the case yet.

Re:This is a about broadcast rights

[spire3661]

Well TVs DO have some legal distinctions. They have built in tuners, support V-chip, and CC etc.These are all legal requirements to sell it as a 'TV' in the US. Any other screen without this stuff is a 'monitor'

Re:This is a about broadcast rights

[tepples]

Many TVs, and most of the big screen ones have a microprocessor and running Linux. Are they "computers" or are they TV's?

A digital TV is a display appliance on which the end user cannot install more applications after buying the device. So a computer isn't a TV (Steam, MSI sideloading, and compiling). Nor is a Nintendo DSi or 3DS (DSi Shop) or an iPad (App Store).

Re:This is a about broadcast rights

[Archangel Michael]

So, if I root my TV running Linux, and install additional applications, it ceases to be a TV?

Re:This is a about broadcast rights

[Svartalf]

Are they "computers" or are they TV's?

They're both. Have been for a while now. The big problem has been that the TV vendors hadn't figured out that little fact until recently.

Re:This is a about broadcast rights

[Wingman 5]

I think the cable guys have their knickers in a twist because soon the only thing their cable will carry is TCP/IP.

This is why we need internet regulation! I need to use UDP for some apps!

Re:This is a about broadcast rights

[delinear]

And good luck proving all of the above, since the assumption seems to be that if you have a TV in the house you must be using it. The house I used to rent had a TV that was physically incapable of receiving a signal, but even then we eventually had to wrap it in plastic and dump it in the garage to stop getting hassling letters from them.

Re:This is a about broadcast rights

[takshaka]

A digital TV is a display appliance on which the end user cannot install more applications after buying the device.

Try telling that to Samsung.

Re:This is a about broadcast rights

[cashman73]

Sadly, most cable companies still wish that everyone had this.

Re:This is a about broadcast rights

[tepples]

You have a point. Please allow me to amend my definition of TV: "...or includes an HDMI input from which the display appliance cannot transcode or record."

Re:This is a about broadcast rights

[Anonymous Coward]

A "TV" in the sense we're talking about here is defined not by any characteristic of the "TV" itself, but rather by the source of the content. If you're watching video that is being delivered to you in a real-time, streaming format from a big-name, monopolistic cable company, with programming decided by an over-paid executive, then the thing you're using to watch that video is a TV. Doesn't matter if it is a dedicated TV, a computer with a capture card, an X-Box hooked up to a projector, or anything else you can imagine. "A real TV" means "We decide what you watch and when you watch it."

Re:This is a about broadcast rights

[MoonBuggy]

You are incorrect. From the official TV licensing website:

If you’re watching programmes on a computer or laptop as they're being shown on TV, then you need a TV Licence. However, you don’t need to be covered by a licence if you’re only using ‘on-demand’ services to watch programmes after they have been shown on TV. So, you need a licence to watch any channel live online, but you wouldn’t need one to use BBC iPlayer to catch up on an episode of a programme you missed, for example.

(emphasis mine)

Re:This is a about broadcast rights

[MoonBuggy]

Not an unreasonable definition, but I don't really see its value. Logically, what does one gain by classifying "devices which receive and display moving pictures" into the subsets of computers and TVs? I guess I just fail to see why it matters to regulators, content producers, or anybody else whether the device on which I'm watching this week's episode of House can also run third party software or not.

I know that this all stems from advertisers treating "web TV" differently from "real TV", but that just links back to my previous point: any boundary drawn is entirely arbitrary, so why choose to create one?

Re:This is a about broadcast rights

[Solandri]

From TFA: "We havenâ(TM)t negotiated rights for our programs to be viewed on anything other than a real TV. The question remains, what constitutes a real TV?"

That's the content industry and their artificial distinctions again. Like somehow a program you watch on your HDTV is different from the very same program watched on your 27" computer monitor.

The TV is irrelevant. What matters is that they have a show, and a customer who wants to watch it. Where, when, or on what the customer watches it is completely irrelevant. The content industry is trying to create this artificial distinction so they can charge each person multiple times for the same product. In their fantasy world, if you had a copy of a song on CD, on your laptop, on your MP3 player, on your home theater media station, and in your car's built-in MP3 player, you would need to pay them 5 times for the same song.

Re:This is a about broadcast rights

[Anonymous Coward]

So if I stick an HDMI card in my computer it becomes a TV?

Re:This is a about broadcast rights

[tepples]

Logically, what does one gain by classifying "devices which receive and display moving pictures" into the subsets of computers and TVs?

A "computer" is designed for more interactive use rather than largely passive viewing of moving pictures. Advertisers understand that the user of a "computer" is far more likely to be distracted away into switching from a TV show to an app than the user of a "TV", especially if the cliffhanger before a commercial break isn't strong enough.

Re:This is a about broadcast rights

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the cable guys have their knickers in a twist because soon the only thing their cable will carry is TCP/IP.

and maybe all that UDP that makes it all work...

Re:This is a about broadcast rights

[dublin]

The cable companies are perhaps the greatest example today (with the possible exception of the Chevy Volt and the Nissan Leaf) of companies insisting on providing something other than what their customers really want. (Most Blockbuster customers didn't really give a rip about BluRay, but they let the studios talk them into billions in content "upgrades" while RedBox and Netflix kicked their butts with cheap DVDs...)

Unfortunately, the cablecos control most Internet access, too, so you can't really fire the bastards, even if you want to - and I *do* want to. I'm a TimeWarner customer here in Austin, and the service is truly awful. Since "upgrading" to digital cable service, I'm wishing for my old analog signal, which at least made it *possible* to watch a ballgame without everything dissolving into a pixellated mess with every pitch. (Seriously, analog cable really was *way* better.)

And don't get me started about TW's execrable DVR (which NOTHING like the real TiVo I gave up ) - I can honestly say this is perhaps the all-time worst performing and most thoughtlessly designed piece of um, consumer electronics I've ever seen. The UI is a train wreck (the defaults are frequently "dangerous" - for instance, the first/default option when recording a show is stop/delete! It takes seconds to respond when it decides to at all. It has no clue that it just recorded the same thing three times, so there's no intelligent way to have it do the "season pass" thing without actually picking each future showing by hand. I could go on, but it's BAD - really, really bad.

Worse, the city council protects TW through onerously expensive regulations for competitors - they're forced offer all high-end, high-speed services first in East Austin, where the take rates are so low that they can't afford to wire out the rest of the city. As a result, the choices are TW (awful), AT&T (even worse, with DSL dog-slow net), and Grande, which most can't get for the reasons above.

If I had a decent high-speed IP connection that didn't require TW, I'd drop cable in a heartbeat, except for one thing: There's no way yet to replace the lost cable channels, especially for news and opinion. If Fox News, CNN, CSPAN, Discovery, History Channel, et al were on Roku (essentially giving me the a la carte channel lineup the cableco refuses to), then the cable companies would be down ten million subscribers before a year was out. (Some have said sports is an issue, and while it's true that covering many sports is kinda pricey, I could get by fine with just MLB TV and rabbit ears for the occasional network broadcast I care about.)

When will we get a real ISP (NOT a cableco) with the vision to build out highspeed IPv6 net access with routers that support multicast streaming, so all those Rokus/Boxees/AppleTVs don't kill the net? The tech to do this has been available for a decade, and readily affordable for a couple of years, so what are we waiting for? The cable companies can't die quickly enough for me...

Re:This is a about broadcast rights

[fractoid]

Here in the UK you only have to pay a TV license if you're watching live TV. iPlayer is free. So, we don't pay a TV license, and any time someone has mentioned a worthwhile TV program to me (which was.. one time this year!) I just looked it up on iPlayer.

This was the first thing that came to my mind when they said "it's just another TV set". Is this going to result in a bunch of non-TV-watching UK residents being forced to buy a TV license for any "television-equivalent media viewing device"?

Yes!

[Weezul]

Yes of course, it's just another television set in that its purpose is consuming. You cannot truly use an iPad for production, i.e writing, video editing, programming, etc.

It would be a mistake however to assume that iPad's are for purely passive media consumption, ala video, books, and music. Instead, iPads allow for interactive media consumption, ala games.

Re:Yes!

[localman57]

Yeah. It's funny to think that they're OK with data coming in over TCP/IP if it goes to a set-top box provided by the cable provider. Which then goes out, potentially, over HDMI. Now they're (perpetually) developing wireless HDMI. And this would presumably be ok. Yet, bringing it into a box provided by the cable company, then streaming it out over 802.11 isn't ok. Go figure.

This reminds me a bit of when I put up my own web page in 1996. I actually sent emails to some companies asking if I could put their logo up on my site (my favorites page) as an image link to their site. A few of them (Mr. Showbiz was one), said no, because they needed to keep control of their trademarks. I feel like that level of market understanding is where the cable companies are now.

Re:Yes!

[Albanach]

Yes of course, it's just another television set in that its purpose is consuming. You cannot truly use an iPad for production, i.e writing, video editing, programming, etc.

Do you have a basis for this? The original iPad was launched along with an iPad iWorks suite with word processor, spreadsheet and presentation software.

The iPad 2 was launched with iMovie and GarageBand. You have muti-track creation and editing of videos and music.

I have no doubt these are not up there with pro-level tools. Nonetheless, given the volume of sales, I believe there are a great many people using their iPads for content generation.

Re:Yes!

[xnpu]

While those apps were available, they didn't come pre-installed on my iPad. I still don't have them.

My 15 year old CRT however comes with Chess and some Tetris ripoff built-in.

Re:Yes!

[Anonymous Coward]

While I get your point about iPads not being for production, I'm finding that I am using far more productivity tools than I imagined I would.

I bought the iPad 2 expecting more of a "fun" experience, and while I do have that I'm also using Evernote, Numbers, Pages, Photoshop Express, etc. Certainly, the manner in which I'm writing/working is different than on a full blown laptop/desktop, but I would say it is very usable for productivity. Not to mention customized applications, such as the online menu and order taking at a local restaurant.

Just my $.02

Re:Yes!

[Anonymous Coward]

There are production use cases... art (Sketchbook etc.) and some of the music apps are being used to create tracks, score film, and for live performance. I agree the typing ergonomics are dismally bad. Need one of these sweet bowtie avatars to do the speech recognition: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGYFEI6uLy0

Re:Yes!

[sootman]

> You cannot truly use an iPad for production, i.e writing, video editing, programming, etc.

WRONG. Shot on an iPhone, edited on an iPad, shown on CNN.

Re:Yes!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nnnh, sorry but you're slightly wrong. iPad with pages and wireless keyboard is a perfectly acceptable word processor - and using dropbox I regularly review 100,000 word documents on it. Our IT guy uses it with logmein to maintain a network of servers in several countries - he says he only opens up his laptop once or twice a month now.

And of course, you're right too; last night my son was excited that itunes announced the latest episode of Sanctuary was available - so he downloaded it to his iPad and we watched it together on the TV - streamed to it wirelessly through Apple TV. That box is the computing equivalent of a swiss army knife - it may not be the very best screwdriver in the world, but its becoming ubiquitous.

Re:Yes!

[samkass]

You cannot truly use an iPad for production, i.e writing, video editing, programming, etc.

This is the conventional wisdom. It's not really true, though-- the production apps just have to catch up to the interaction metaphors. There are already people saying the new iMovie feels like what iMovie on the desktop was supposed to be. And Adobe seems to think Photoshop is going to be big on the iPad. Garageband is already augmenting the way some musicians work. While no one I know is coding directly on an iPad, it's certainly more than "consumption". I'd say it's wonderful for "augmented production", especially with the new I/O capabilities of the iPad2.

Re:Yes!

[Anonymous Coward]

YOU may not be able to program or write on an iPad, but many many people can.
This speaks more about your inabilities than the iPad's capabilities.

Re:Yes!

[node 3]

You cannot truly use an iPad for production, i.e writing, video editing, programming, etc.

Oh, really? Writing, like with Pages, the bundles Notes app, or any of the multitude of writing apps? Video editing, like with the built-in bare bones editor, or the full featured consumer editing iMovie app, which is a port of the desktop version?

You're (mostly) correct about programming, though. But that's an artificial (and ultimately misguided, IMO) security decision. There's nothing inherent to the iPad itself that precludes using it for programming. In fact, it's more powerful than developer machines from less than ten years ago. I don't recall people complaining that computers of the day could not be used for programming (or writing or video editing, etc.).

You're not going to generally use an iPad for high end professional work (although they have already found their way as an integral tool in professional feature film creation), that doesn't mean they "cannot truly [be used] for production".

It would be a mistake however to assume that iPad's are for purely passive media consumption, ala video, books, and music. Instead, iPads allow for interactive media consumption, ala games.

It's just as much a mistake to assume the iPad can't be used for open-ended content creation, and instead just limited to, at most, guided interaction, like with games.

Re:Yes!

[Patch86]

I used to play games on my digital television. Sky had a whole "interactive" channel dedicated to overpriced crappy quizzes, puzzlers, and classic clones. And DVR does take us part of the way towards active, personal scheduling too.

iPads (and other portable computers) aren't fundamentally different to modern TVs, they just do everything better.

Re:Yes!

[Weezul]

Aww, that's cheating, you've added a wireless keyboard. Yes obviously any sufficiently flexible computing device will get useful once you've added full speed input methods, i.e. a keyboard.

I've been meaning to wait for a MeeGo based tablet device with built in small keyboard, will I love the keyboard on my N900. You make an interesting case that I should consider Android or MeeGo devices that merely support bluetooth keyboards. Interesting. It's obvious the small built in keyboard beats the on screen keyboard, but if the bluetooth keyboard beat both by enough, that might make it worth while.

Re:Yes!

[Weezul]

An iPad's touch screen keyboard does not allow for any significant text input, that's fine if your writing "u drag'n @ clidez" and "y u ditch me?" Ain't ideal for more professional work. In particular, I would be very afraid of salesmen using their iPhones and iPads for company emails because they'll write more tersely than on a blackberry or laptop, respectively, increasing the risk they offend clients.

Another commenter pointed out that iPad users in his company carry bluetooth keyboards, which should resolve most problems, assuming software selection doesn't cause any problems. Imto, that's really the only sound argument for the iPad. You might worry whether people actually use the keyboard, or just write shitty instead, but whatever.

There are also lesser issues with iOS lack of an exposed filesystem, but they don't obstruct the iPad being used as a modern terminal like you describe. Btw, dropbox isn't a suitable professional solution since your data exists unencrypted on their server.

Re:Yes!

[paanta]

I easily spend as much time using my iPad for work as I do consuming media on it. It's not necessarily good for the sort of work we do on traditional desktops, but it's definitely become the tool I grab 95% of the time I walk out the door.

For my work it's like a very, very sophisticated clipboard or pad of paper. Drawing, note taking, marking up technical drawings during review sessions, etc. I take it with me in situations where I wouldn't dream of taking a laptop. You can't beat the battery life, unobtrusive weight/form factor, small personal space impact (laptops sitting on conference tables can be a little alienating...it's like throwing up a wall), time it takes to go from briefcase to usable, etc. Plus, it's very social in that you can pass it from person to person very easily which is maybe its killer ability in a corporate environment.

The more I see and use tablets in the wild, the more I wonder if maybe laptops are the niche product. My laptop rarely gets used as a portable machine, and when I do it's usually to do stuff that the iPad excels at (web browsing, presenting materials, taking notes) rather than working with more hardcore tools like AutoCAD/ArcGIS/Photoshop/Excel. Those heavier pieces of software that work great on a 27" LCD all feel cramped and miserable on a laptop screen. I usually put off working with them on a laptop until it's plugged back into a monitor. A laptop never really feels right being used like a desktop, but a tablet feels great because it's not trying to be something it isn't. Sadly for Apple, I doubt I'll ever buy a $2000 MacBook Pro again when a desktop/ipad combo seems to be so much more flexible for my needs.

Re:Yes!

[thesandtiger]

Except you can truly use the iPad for production - just have to use it in a way that's different from the standard desktop/laptop user interface paradigm.

I borrowed a friend's iPad a couple of weeks ago and made some music while traveling around Chicago on the L and buses, recording various ambient sounds, turning them into instruments and sequencing them into tracks. Took photos during the process (and some video) and was able to tweak the photos & movies, post them to a website with the songs and sent links off to some of my friends.

Another project I did with it was with some kindergarteners. I asked them all to fingerpaint for me (on the iPad, using procreate, a drawing tool) and am currently working on turning those pictures into animation to tell a story that their class told.

It's a different way to do content creation brought about by a different interface, but it's absolutely possible to do some really neat stuff (and actually a lot easier to do some kinds of things) with this thing.

It's just as much a mistake to think they aren't for creation as it would be to think they are passive. I made the same mistake you made, then I used one.

Will most people create much on it? No, probably not - just like most people don't create with a desktop or a laptop and use them to consume.

Grandma

[xnpu]

Ask my grandma and she'll tell you anything that can display TV programs is obviously a TV of some kind!

One doesn't disagree with my grandma.

Re:Grandma

[Anonymous Coward]

Cringely, is that you?

Re:Grandma

[Anonymous Coward]

As silly as that sounds, that should be the way things count. If your average grandmother calls it a TV, that's how it should be licensed.

Re:Grandma

[Anonymous Coward]

If grandma bought a new "TV" today, it would come with an OS, wifi, a keyboard, apps, and porn. Sounds like a computer to me. Outside of the marketing value, I see no compelling reason to say the i word.

Re:Grandma

[Anonymous Coward]

your grandma can eat it

The TV is everywhere

[geekoid]

TV execs need to sit in the luxury spa for a day just contemplating what that means.

Too mean it boils down into the following opportunities:
1) An advertising outlet is in every persons pocket, computer, cable box. table.
2) More information on the locality of viewers.

I would work on inserting local adds based on .. well locality. Of course, global advertisers would still be there.
I would also create 5-8 minute shows when 8 second commercial. Get people who are commuting.
I would put every god dan piece of TV and movie I can online. with advertising. Like Hulu used to try to do.
Sell and advertising free subscription, but make all the content available every way. Get some ad revenues from Show that would in no way be viewed on broadcast TV anymore.

I would bill there service as a replacement for a DVR. they selling point being :No need to upgrade: don't need a different unit for different delivery methods; don't need to schedule; It's all online and easy

They need to really accept the fact the previous models of advertising where very wrong. That's OK, and expected. It started with no data, and the data capturing mechanism they developed pretty much ensured middle class 'white bread' families dictated what was on TV. Now that they are getting better data, they should accept it and develop models for it.

Re:The TV is everywhere

[CastrTroy]

I still can't believe that DVRs are so widely used. When most people who have a DVR have internet fast enough to stream video, it kind of seems like we are living in a backwards world. Why should I have to remember to record something, worry about overlapping shows, and worry about shows that start early, end late, or start late because of delays (due to sports), when I really should just be able to watch whatever I want, whenever I want. As long as I'm paying for access to it in the first place that is.

Re:The TV is everywhere

[SydShamino]

So you want to watch next week's shows today? Sorry, they haven't finished post-production yet. You'll have to wait.

Okay... now they're done. Let's have 25 million people separately download them? Waste of internet bandwidth? Yes. Maybe we can use P2P to distribute the bandwidth. No, wait, that uses the same amount of bandwidth, just spread over more uploaders. Hmm...

Maybe we can use a centralized broadcast that can transmit it just once, let anyone who wants it cache it, then use that broadcast's bandwidth to transmit other things? And then people who miss the centralized broadcast can get a copy separately later? Let's do it!

Re:The TV is everywhere

[Anonymous Coward]

If you subscribe to shows then they could be distributed en mass via multicast with a torrent like error correction algorithm. Ship it to everyone, most people get it all, some people lose a couple of packets and ask for it from the rest of the swarm. I would hope that shipping data to only the people that care would be easier then shipping all the data to every device everywhere regardless of if it cared or not.

Re:The TV is everywhere

[Duradin]

I don't think we (the U.S.) have the infrastructure to have everybody doing on-demand all the time yet. Yes, it works when some people do it, but to have all people do it would really overdraw our bandwidth capabilities.

That point rarely gets brought up and I am glad to see someone sees the point of centralized broadcasting.

Re:The TV is everywhere

[murdocj]

I still can't believe that DVRs are so widely used. When most people who have a DVR have internet fast enough to stream video, it kind of seems like we are living in a backwards world. Why should I have to remember to record something, worry about overlapping shows, and worry about shows that start early, end late, or start late because of delays (due to sports), when I really should just be able to watch whatever I want, whenever I want. As long as I'm paying for access to it in the first place that is.

Don't want to blow your mind, but I still use VCR tapes. It's cheap and easy. Why should I have to worry about bandwidth caps or finding the show on the Internet or the provider not putting up the show for two weeks or only having it online for one week, or having it look not so nice because I only get about 3mb, when I can just record and watch at my leisure?

Re:The TV is everywhere

[webdog314]

You are familiar with the concept of digital cable, yes? Short of literal broadcast TV, we are no longer saving bandwidth with multicasting. In short, we might as well have everyone doing a separate download of the program. At least that way, if they want to watch it a second time (or pause, rewind, etc...), it's already at their home. A torrent-type system would be fantastic for the content producers. They could pass the costs of distribution straight over to the "net"... which in this case would be the connection providers (cable ISP's). And we wonder why the cable companies are against this?

Re:The TV is everywhere

[MachineShedFred]

Maybe we can use a centralized broadcast that can transmit it just once, let anyone who wants it cache it, then use that broadcast's bandwidth to transmit other things? And then people who miss the centralized broadcast can get a copy separately later? Let's do it!

So, multicast streaming then?

Re:The TV is everywhere

[jedidiah]

No. The Internet is not generally fast enough to stream video at the same quality level and resolution as cable.

In a lot of places, it's not even fast enough to stream video badly. Never mind replacing an MPEG2 broadcast or h264 satellite feed.

My PVR has done all of "difficult" stuff you whine about since the first Series 1 Tivo in the 90s.

Re:The TV is everywhere

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe we can use a centralized broadcast that can transmit it just once, let anyone who wants it cache it, then use that broadcast's bandwidth to transmit other things? And then people who miss the centralized broadcast can get a copy separately later? Let's do it!

But then the ads might be out of date by the time they watch the cached copy. You're losing advertising revenue.

Re:The TV is everywhere

[SydShamino]

Actually, yeah, that's what I was thinking when I wrote that. Multicast seems like the natural successor to centralized television broadcast if the goal is to preserve interactive bandwidth for other applications.

/..gov.pr.stock.biz.gov; joined at the hype?

[Anonymous Coward]

that url doesn't resolve yet? stuff that really matters seems to be almost less than nothing (debt, destruction, repeat) now? gadgets.gov.story? fake.science.math.pr.religion.gov.story

mynutswon; let the 'market' (used to be fearless population) decide what matters?

there was never any such thing as wampum. nor were there ANY gods. no war. no hunger. no disease. no pollution. that was here. 400 years ago (teepeeleaks etchings). wake up?

Over-the-air & Cable TV are dead...

[Eggplant62]

The days of broadcast TV served at the expense of commercial breaks are over. I strongly dislike commercials and will avoid listening to/watching them, sometimes at extreme costs.

In October last year I got rid of the cable TV, kept the cable internet feed, and bought myself a Roku player. I rarely watch commercials anymore. I choose what I want to watch, and I can even stream stuff I've digitized and stored on disk on other machines on my network. And I'm paying far less, by orders of magnitude, for the couple subscriptions that I watch on the Roku as compared to cable TV.

How can broadcast/cable TV compete with this?

Re:Over-the-air & Cable TV are dead...

[Anonymous Coward]

How can broadcast/cable TV compete with this?

Legislation, of course!

Re:Over-the-air & Cable TV are dead...

[Hijacked Public]

What are some examples of the 'extreme costs' you accept in lieu of watching a commercial?

Re:Over-the-air & Cable TV are dead...

[rritterson]

Maybe they can't. But I would suggest:

-reduce the number of ads by an order of magnitude and increase the relevance of the remaining by the same factor. Some weekend movies have 8 minute commercial breaks for Christ sake! No wonder we hate them so much
-allow me to watch the content whenever I want, wherever I want. None of this 5 most recent episodes crap. None of this web only, no mobile viewing either.
-make the fee 10x less than cable, the fees for which are out of control.

-I'd also like to see a try at a crowd sourced patronage system for TV. I'd pay a lot more if I knew I was paying the director and cast directly, and then they could release the content under creative commons or something. Don't know if enough people would pay though.

Re:Over-the-air & Cable TV are dead...

[slyrat]

The days of broadcast TV served at the expense of commercial breaks are over. I strongly dislike commercials and will avoid listening to/watching them, sometimes at extreme costs.

In October last year I got rid of the cable TV, kept the cable internet feed, and bought myself a Roku player. I rarely watch commercials anymore. I choose what I want to watch, and I can even stream stuff I've digitized and stored on disk on other machines on my network. And I'm paying far less, by orders of magnitude, for the couple subscriptions that I watch on the Roku as compared to cable TV.

How can broadcast/cable TV compete with this?

Where TV can compete is with live showing of programs. I've found that if you are interested in watching sports the best option is through actual TV / cable. You get much better picture and if you hate commercials just start watching it 30 min to an hour after start and just skip through the commercials with a dvr. Almost all other types of TV shows / programs are just about as good without paying for TV. Another aspect that has happened is twitter commentary on live shows when the shows are going on. This also gives a good reason to watch live shows or first shown shows. These are good ways to get people back to watching actual TV rather than after the fact recorded TV. I'm not someone who watches any of the above, but I can see the appeal of it.

Re:Over-the-air & Cable TV are dead...

[Eggplant62]

Throwing physical objects and breaking the TV. Yes, it's been done.

Re:Over-the-air & Cable TV are dead...

[Wovel]

It is true (for now) because blackout restrictions in place soley to protect local broadcasters. This will change as MLB and others renegotiate contracts..

Re:Over-the-air & Cable TV are dead...

[GameboyRMH]

I have a similar system, but with bittorrent :P

I'd pay for reasonably priced DRM-free episodes though. Let me know when TV catches up with games and music.

Re:Over-the-air & Cable TV are dead...

[GameboyRMH]

Lemme take some guesses:

1. CSI Microsoft product placement
2. GM ad, especially one for OnStar (DURR DRIVING IZ HARD) or the ones where they just diss Toyota
3. Mac vs. PC

Did I guess right?

Re:Over-the-air & Cable TV are dead...

[Sloppy]

How can broadcast/cable TV compete with this?

They won't do it, but one way they could, would be to try to serve their customers while also using their superior technology. Broadcast is just plain more efficient than transmitting each identical packet n times where n is the number of users. More efficient means lower cost -- a competitive advantage.

In theory they could offer you everything you are getting right now, but either cheaper or better. If you're streaming for free, they could stream to you at a higher bitrate / less jitter / etc (or even "stream" at slower-than-realtime; i.e. not stream at all, and timeshift, getting you "perfect" bitrate and no jitter at all -- sort of like what bittorrent users enjoy, except massively more efficient). If you're streaming for pay (e.g. Netflix) they could offer it at a lower cost to you, because their cost would be lower than Netflix's cost.

Since they are neglecting the give-the-people-want-the-want aspect, though, they have a disadvantage that is more than canceling out their advantage. The catch there is that the disadvantage only applies to "critical" customers who think about what they're getting for how much money. I know people who still pay a month satellite or cable TV bill, and if you say those expensive services that also include many long of commercial breaks is "over," that's complete news to them. There's a lot of inertia out there, which typical Slashdot users wouldn't be able to identify with.

Geez, just look at the context of this. We're talking about fucking iPads, a product of the very same old school of thought, where you'll take what is offered rather than get what you want. People are still buying into the walled garden like it's a good idea, rather than horrifically retro. How is cable TV any different than that? Its days are over?! Maybe for you and me, but for many, it's not over at all.

Re:Over-the-air & Cable TV are dead...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been known to use a .38 caliber "Elvis" remote control.

Re:Over-the-air & Cable TV are dead...

[teh kurisu]

Regarding reducing the number of ads, maybe there's a case for charging a premium for a single two-minute ad that has a two-minute ad break all to itself. Think of the impact that ad could have, as opposed to a 5 minute break with 10 x 30 second ads competing for your attention.

Re:Over-the-air & Cable TV are dead...

[Anonymous Coward]

-I'd also like to see a try at a crowd sourced patronage system for TV. I'd pay a lot more if I knew I was paying the director and cast directly, and then they could release the content under creative commons or something. Don't know if enough people would pay though.

That's a cool idea, and would work for some stuff. I bet people would crowd-source a new season of Firefly, for example.

This will happen in our lifetime - you'll be able to pick the shows or the networks that you want to watch. You can kind of do it already via Hulu/Netflix, the rest is just details.

Re:Over-the-air & Cable TV are dead...

[scharkalvin]

The networks now offer some of their programming via streaming. If you want to see anything 'first run' you still have to watch it live over the air or on cable (and suffer though all the commercials). The streaming versions usually go on line a few days to a week after the live broadcast and have limited commercials (so an hour show can be viewed in about 50 minutes).

"Rights holders" = Feudal lords

[unity100]

For anyone vested in study of medieval law and renaissance, the behavior of these 'rights holders' are no different than how the feudal lords behaved at the wake of the renaissance. It doesnt matter where the reasoning for this 'right holding' stems from - when you give control of things/concepts/positions that majority of the population needs to a few, the result always ends up the same, regardless of the justification for it. Intentions dont guarantee a desirable result.

History repeating itself again, however lack of knowledge makes people unable to realize that they are seeing a movie that was made long before and shown repeatedly in theaters worldwide.

Re:"Rights holders" = Feudal lords

[Richard_at_work]

I'm pretty sure that the "majority of the population" do not need entertainment shows created by someone else. This isn't food we are talking about.

Re:"Rights holders" = Feudal lords

[psyklopz]

The fact is, our culture has been privatized.

When has that ever happened at all in history?

Re:"Rights holders" = Feudal lords

[localman57]

Yes, you need them. But it's just a higher level need. Just like you need social interaction. If all we needed was food, we'd be on the same level as animals. The ability to consume and contemplate information from outside of your immediate observation is fundamental to being human.

Re:"Rights holders" = Feudal lords

[bluefoxlucid]

If you "need" the Simpsons, something is wrong. We don't need media shovelware; culture is not from the media factory.

Re:"Rights holders" = Feudal lords

[Iamthecheese]

When books were sold. Before that is was when paintings were sold and musicians were patronized. Before that it was the joker in the castle and the busker on the streets. People have always paid for culture. The only thing that's changed is the medium.

Re:"Rights holders" = Feudal lords

[Richard_at_work]

I'm sorry, when did it become impossible for me to make up my own story and tell it to other people? Our culture hasn't been privatised at all, its just that you want someone else to do the work of creating and presenting.

Re:"Rights holders" = Feudal lords

[Richard_at_work]

No. You may need entertainment, but that doesn't equate to an absolute need for their entertainment. There is ample scope for other forms of entertainment - people managed it before TV existed...

Re:"Rights holders" = Feudal lords

[Duradin]

And yet we developed the TV and used it for entertainment.

Before that we had Bach. Before that Shakespeare. Before that bards, skalds and other storytellers that told the same stories and musicians that played the same music, developed by previous generations, over and over, because that's what the people wanted, a polished and practiced product not the lackluster crud they could come up with by themselves.

People have always wanted polished entertainment done by professionals. TV just makes the audience bigger.

Re:"Rights holders" = Feudal lords

[Anonymous Coward]

If you "need" the Simpsons, something is wrong. We don't need media shovelware; culture is not from the media factory.

Culture is exactly what the people want. Most shows are utter tripe, but they're watched by far more people than highbrow pretentious media that goes begging for handouts despite only appealing to the rich. That should tell you a lot about our culture, society and give future historians plenty to argue about.

Re:"Rights holders" = Feudal lords

[Anonymous Coward]

culture is not from the media factory

Yes it is. It just isn't exclusively from "the media factory". Pop culture is still culture.

Re:"Rights holders" = Feudal lords

[TheTyrannyOfForcedRe]

Yes, you need them. But it's just a higher level need. Just like you need social interaction.

I think you're on the wrong website.

Re:"Rights holders" = Feudal lords

[Anonymous Coward]

Chances are, your "own story" infringes on someone's bloody copyright and if they catch you, they'll sue. THAT is the problem these days.

Re:"Rights holders" = Feudal lords

[unity100]

i dont know whether youre a moron or not - but still ill answer.

im wondering whether youre a moron, because you are apparently unaware the fact that the people who you will reach with your own story will be limited with the money you have. even so, if the distribution channels do not want to distribute your story, you wont even be able to distribute it even with your money. no - internet is an exception, and they are already trying to 'fix' that.

so basically you can only produce culture as much as your monetary power.

if you think that in this climate, you are free, you are a moron. your situation is no different from a renaissance artist needing permission and patronage of a feudal lord.

Re:"Rights holders" = Feudal lords

[unity100]

you do absolutely need entertainment. search google for 'kaspar hauser' and learn what happens to people who grow with lack of such 'non absolute' cultural needs.

Re:"Rights holders" = Feudal lords

[Richard_at_work]

Ahh there we go, the "moron" attack because I don't agree with you - always a good defence when you can't stand someone elses opinion.

I'm sorry to break your delusion, but no big bad publisher will break down my door at 3am and threaten me if I self publish, no music industry rep will have words with me if I distribute my own music, and no movie exec will take issue if I package up and sell my movie.

The world you live in is a self made illusion, and I'm not sure why you are deluding yourself to that extent, especially as its so negative. There is nothing stopping me producing my own entertainment, and there is nothing stopping me from selling it to others.

Your post does reveal something about your attitude however - of course I expect to spend my money doing distribution, even marketing, and of course I realise that my means are limited. I don't, however, have any entitlement for someone else to spend their money on distributing and marketing my product - that is what the media companies do, they spend billions on it a year. But I'm not entitled to have a share in that, its theirs.

Of course I can only create as much culture as my own monetary power - its *my* monetary power, and *my* desire to create, I'm not entitled to force someone else to use *their* monetary power to do fuck all.

How about you get out sometime and actually have a look at how easy it is to get something distributed - its far from the chore that you seem to think it is, and it isn't going away.

Re:"Rights holders" = Feudal lords

[Richard_at_work]

Congratulations on not reading my post - I'm not disputing the fact that you may need entertainment, but it doesn't have to be their entertainment. Theres nothing stopping you from telling stories to your friends.

Re:"Rights holders" = Feudal lords

[Richard_at_work]

That still doesn't make it into an entitlement...

Re:"Rights holders" = Feudal lords

[unity100]

surely. however unfortunately, our friends have to work their asses off as the rest of the population and dont have time to work for our entertainment by coming up with stories, and the entertainment itself is oligopolized.

Re:"Rights holders" = Feudal lords

[unity100]

im calling morondom, because it should be too simple to see the connection in between money and doing things, in an environment where doing everything tied to the level of money you have.,

no, no big bad publisher will break your door at 3am and threaten you if you self publish - you just wont be able to even make a dent in their power with your 'self publishing', therefore, it wont necessitate anything.

and the ones that do create dents, like perpetrators of new technologies like internet, readers, non physical formats, WILL get threatened and repressed.

we are observing this since last 5 years in news in this site. to be able to not see that, one has to be either a moron, or a right wing brainwashed ayn randist.

since few are left that are too stupid enough to be the latter, i called moron.

Re:"Rights holders" = Feudal lords

[jackbird]

What are they going to do then? Connect with their families? Meet their neighbors? Get engaged in local and national politics? This is a nightmare scenario you're talking about!

I don't even have a "real" TV

[Cheech Wizard]

Yup - They're fucked. I haven't had a "real" TV in a couple of years. I do have Netflix (mainly to get DVDs), but mostly I just "find" what I want to watch online and watch when I want and commercial free. Then again, I don't watch TV very often other than The Daily Show and Colbert.

Re:I don't even have a "real" TV

[Pulzar]

Yup - They're fucked.

They're fucked because the guy who doesn't own a TV and doesn't watch any of it, wants to stream the occasional thing he does watch?

Hey, listen -- they don't care about you. They care about those who do watch TV and have TV sets, and they don't want to lose them. You don't matter to the TV world.

Re:I don't even have a "real" TV

[scrib]

I do that too, and I hope the people who produce TV shows figure out where they are going wrong.

To the TV viewer, the marginal cost of a TV show is $0. People pay for cable/internet service, but other than pay-per-view, they expect to be able to watch any channel at no additional cost. Sure, it costs money to make a show, but the consumer is conditioned for it to be free. It's time for show producers to figure out how to deliver their content for free...

How? Well, advertising. I download the versions of the show with the ads cut out, but only because (legal or not) those are the only ones available to download free. The show distributors could easily create the show with commercials already in it and release their own torrents and track the downloads to give advertisers a way to know about how many viewers there were. I would download a torrent from the actual producer WITH ads instead of the pirated copies with various local station logos and varying quality that you can find these days. (I've gotten torrents with local storm warnings etc in them.)

Another option is to look back to the Golden Age of Television and have the actors promote products themselves. If you want to cut out commercials, go with product placement. The quality of "DWTS" or "Survivor" would be unaffected by hawking a few products. Or, go with the soccer model and have ads on screen during the action.

Distribution by torrent is cheap, and if you run the tracker, you can keep reasonable distribution counts and charge advertisers accordingly.

Re:I don't even have a "real" TV

[Svartalf]

Actually, more and more are twigging onto things like TiVo, Hulu, Netflix, and Vuze. Cheaper. On their terms, NOT the networks'. The broadcasters should be worried about losing their precious watchers and figuring out a productive means to keep them than what in the heck they're doing right now.

It really IS nothing but data- and there's quite a lot more that're realizing this.

Re:I don't even have a "real" TV

[Em Adespoton]

The only problem with this is that the shows have to be static... which means the ads have to be static. Advertisers have gotten used to being able to switch their ads to fit the current climate, and distributors have got used to bidding wars on ad slots for primetime.

With torrents, this all vanishes. Once a show is torrenting, the ads are locked in, as you can't change the hash. This means that "Survivor: TiVo 2012" will always have the same already paid-for ads embedded, with no opportunity to re-sell that adspace. In 2016, those ads will make no money for the distributor, and they won't make much money for the advertiser either.

There are technical ways to overcome this, but the result would not be the current torrent system.

One idea is to do it with a dedicated client that would decrypt the torrents and use the ads as part of the decryption key. In order to decrypt the stream, you'd need the ad that was good for that time window, which you could torrent from the distributor. This isn't true DRM (everyone gets the key, so the ads only have to be watched once, and the content is available permanently), but if the player worked seamlessly enough, most people would just use it and not bother decrypting, editing, re-encoding and re-torrenting.

Re:I don't even have a "real" TV

[scrib]

I agree that the shows would have to be static, but I am skeptical that it is a big problem for the vast majority of shows. Most shows you watch them when they are current and never again. Especially shows like "Survivor" which are high on the watch-once list. In the model I'm suggesting, reselling the ad space becomes much more of a moot point. Broadcast stations could air local ads, the torrents would focus on large, national brands. There are plenty of companies that have out-lasted even the best sit-coms.

I don't like the idea of a dedicated client, though. Too often Linux gets ignored. Yeah, it's a marginal market, but I'm in it and I'm thrilled that many sites (ESPN) will stream to it quite happily. That's interesting having a dedicated decoder... Do you mean that you would get an encrypted file, and watching the commercial would decrypt it forever? I'm not sure that's better than just having commercials in a DRM-free file...

Some people would skip commercials, sure, but most people don't bother. The people who would rather skip the commercials and get annoyed by being forced to watch them are, I suspect, a poor market anyway.

Re:I don't even have a "real" TV

[Cheech Wizard]

I think the networks do "care" about me and people like me. Think about it... I, and others like me, matter because I'm one of the people they have lost. I'm 60 years old and I watched TV for years. They don't get my eyes any more. Worse, more and more people are becoming like me every day. We are people who did have TV and did watch TV. I'd probably watch some network TV, even w/commercials, if they streamed their programs. The networks have lost my eyes and as they loose eyes their advertisement revenue goes down.

Re:I don't even have a "real" TV

[4phun]

Yup - They're fucked. I haven't had a "real" TV in a couple of years. I do have Netflix (mainly to get DVDs), but mostly I just "find" what I want to watch online and watch when I want and commercial free. Then again, I don't watch TV very often other than The Daily Show and Colbert.

Both of which are on the iPad.

I just spent three weeks using only an iPad 3G without touching a computer, this being posted from the iPad too.
This really forces you to learn how to best use it and to seek out the best apps similar to using programs on a computer.

My wife wants me to put it down so she can stream Netflix in the kitchen! This iPad is being used almost 24/7!
The iPad has proven to have been a terrifically big bang for our tech dollar.

Re:I don't even have a "real" TV

[Keen Anthony]

Right. And they are hardly fucked. For every consumer getting over 70% of their broadcast entertainment from streaming media, how many more will continue to use a traditional television and cable subscription? Broadband isn't in every American household, and most broadband consumers are likely getting their connection via a cable subscription, one that couples their digital TV into a package . In time, perhaps a majority of Americans will stream their entertainment, but for right now and many year to come, they won't.

I see a tremendous future in this

[harrytuttle777]

As a member in good standing of the United American Evil Masonic Overlord's of the United States of America, I applaud this innovation. It used to be that we could only persuade the population while they were at home watching the tube. Now thanks to the iPad we can indoctrinate the hearts and minds of the populace wherever they are at given moment. HeheheHe Haahahaha. And even better yet, it includes an attached camera. This TV watches them while they are watching TV.

Seriously what is not to love. It is a brave brave new world.

Re:I see a tremendous future in this

[sandytaru]

So you're saying there are now fnords on the iPad?

Re:I see a tremendous future in this

[harrytuttle777]

There are what in the iPad?

    You did not fnord finish the sentence. You forgot fnord to supply the object of what was on the Ipod. Fnord what I am saying is that we will fnord create an all embracing and media control fnord complex, where people will not fnord be able to tell they are being controlled. It will subtly sneak in fnord on them and they will not be able to fnord recognize the all pervading prison that they are fnord surrounded by and controlled in with even fnord if it is directly pointed out to them. They fnord will deny it call you crazy fnord conspiracy theorist.

-Regards
-The Lodge

Er, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess I must be new here...The summary says they're moving away from Netflix and to Roku? Logical disconnect anyone?

Waiting for them to wake up...

[bsquizzato]

The only thing I want cable for is sports. More specifically, the one I care about most is NHL hockey. So, that's 1 or 2 channels out of however many hundreds I have to pay $60 for to buy in on HD/digital service. I would gladly rely on HD antenna for "general TV watching" and streamed media for the sports. I'm already paying for fast internet (from my cable provider, imagine that), why not make good use of it?

Well, thank God the NHL offers Gamecenter Live so I can watch NHL on my Roku! Oh wait, the NHL blacks out all my local teams games so that I either have to 1) go to the game or 2) buy cable to watch it. (yes, #3 option is a proxy. Which is against the service agreement, and is a big hassle in itself to get a reliable one unless I know someone with lots of bandwidth willing to run a reliable server in another city.)

Well, guess what, I don't care *enough* to pay the extra $60 to watch my local games. And I'm not enough of a sports nut to watch all these other NHL teams play, and I'd guess I'm not the only one that falls into this market demographic. You could have our subscriptions NHL, but with these stupid policies you get $0.

Re:Waiting for them to wake up...

[chrisgeleven]

If they can get blackouts to end for local games, I'm done with cable.

Re:Waiting for them to wake up...

[2bfree]

That's why it won't happen; at least not unless they are forced to do so.

Location Blocking

[Sparrow1492]

Great. Now stop blocking content to it based on geolocation. I'm getting real tired of hitting Youtube videos in Germany where the "content is not avaialbe in your region." I'm actually willing to watch your ads if you'd just let me see the content without resorting to some sort of VPN or proxy solution.

Re:Location Blocking

[AlecC]

The trouble is that the advertisers don't want you. Either they are US only retailers, or the advertising is being paid for by the US branch or franchise. The broadcasters need to get their minds around location-appropriate advertising, and put German ads when you view. But broadcaster are very, very parochial. They are used to thinking only in terms of US distribution, and even limited areas within the US. Both their contracts and their minds are locked on to this model. If they couldn't manage location-appropriate advertising themselves, Google (and probably many others) could do it for them. But that would mean handing control of what they think of as their crown jewels, the advertising slots, to others.

It needs a generational change at the top of the major broadcasters before they will handle the Net properly. In fact, I would expect Fox, owned by Murdock who has fingers in many nations, to be more flexible than the "Big 3" who have lived their lives within the borders of the US.

Re:Location Blocking

[Sparrow1492]

The sad part is that even Facebook can do this already. Out here I get ads in German for local stuff. When I travel back to the US I get my US ads again. The modle is there, the distributers are just to lazy to implement it.

No....

[Anonymous Coward]

There's already people making music on tablets. It may or may not be good music, but the tools are there. And I don't see why you couldn't use the ipad for writing, although you'd want a handwriting recognition app or an external keyboard. It may not have the power yet, but I can imagine a day when tablets will support video editing.

It might not be the best platform for every type of creation, but there's nothing inherently blocking creativity, either.

Re:No....

[ahankinson]

You mean like this? http://www.apple.com/ipad/from-the-app-store/imovie.html

I just attended a concert and a workshop where one of the performers was using two iPads as control surfaces for electro-acoustic music. To me, the iPad (currently) is more like "Web 1.0", where, for most people, it was a medium focused on consuming. If you don't think Apple is going to make this work in the consumer space, and guarantee its success, you don't know Apple.

Re:No....

[somersault]

If you don't think Apple is going to make this work in the consumer space, and guarantee its success, you don't know Apple.

What? Is Steve Jobs god now? The iPod, iPhone and iPad have been pretty successful, but Apple have had plenty of misses over the years too. It just so happens that in arenas like MP3 players, phones and tablet computers, and online music stores, the options really sucked before Apple came along.

I was actually considering getting a Xoom for video editing. I can imagine a touch interface working really nicely for that. I know I'd much rather have 1GB of RAM than 512MB in that scenario.

Re:No....

[ahankinson]

No, he isn't God, but they've certainly got enough money to throw at this to make it stick. I would say they're off to a pretty good start too, wouldn't you? The key to establishing a platform is to make sure enough people buy it to make it self-sustainable. They now have millions of iOS devices out in the wild, so that keeps demand up.

Apple's misses have been somewhat minimized over the last few years. The last big "miss" they had was the G4 cube, and I wouldn't even really call that a miss -- just a bad call, but it really had no appreciable impact on their bottom line. The first iteration of the Apple TV was pretty lousy; the current gen, from all accounts, is selling pretty well. Their Mac division is growing year-over-year, their OS has proven it's flexible enough to make transitions between PPC, Intel, and now mobile chipsets. It's no Windows juggernaut, but it's pulling in pretty respectable numbers.

<blockquote>It just so happens that in arenas like MP3 players, phones and tablet computers, and online music stores, the options really sucked before Apple came along.</blockquote>

"All right... all right... but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Romans done for us?"

Can you name a "miss" that Apple has has within the last five years?

Re:No....

[node 3]

I was actually considering getting a Xoom for video editing. I can imagine a touch interface working really nicely for that. I know I'd much rather have 1GB of RAM than 512MB in that scenario.

Why, exactly? Even assuming all other things remaining equal (and things definitely aren't equal), there's no reason to assume 1GB of RAM is going to be appreciably better than 512MB of RAM. Once you have sufficient memory (and 512MB is more than enough for HD video editing), the software differences become ultimately important.

What good is 2x the RAM if you're using it to run inferior software?

Re:No....

[somersault]

I suppose it depends how fast the RAM to storage transfer is, I didn't imagine 512MB being very good for the software plus storage buffer. Though I guess now that I imagine how such a program might work, you could just stream everything directly off the drive while editing, and then only need to use a lot of RAM when "rendering" the video..

if the ipod is a extra outlet why can't buy cable

[Anonymous Coward]

if the ipod is a extra outlet why can't you buy the cable box like in canada. If the cable co wants to down that road they better open there system to any box that will work on it with out being forced to rent anything.

Instead of fighting it, they should embrace it

[sandytaru]

Have the ability to detect that your program is being streamed to an iPad and offer additional options on commercials. "After the show, tap this button to be taken directly to our website to learn more about this product!" Regular TV commercials are passive, but interactive advertising gives you direct feedback into the efficacy of the advertising campaign. Make it easy and seamless and legitimate looking, and bored people will happily click away.

Re:Instead of fighting it, they should embrace it

[the eric conspiracy]

Cablevision already has this feature on their commercials. Just hit a button on the TV remote and you are directed to a channel with an even more boring extended presentation.

Re:Instead of fighting it, they should embrace it

[dcherryholmes]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_TV_Binary_Interchange_Format

A TV That's Incapable of Displaying Porn

[bill_mcgonigle]

Some other tablet vendor will soon hit Apple's prices and the usability will be good enough, but the flexibility will close the deal. Apple's walled garden necessarily has a fixed size.

Re:A TV That's Incapable of Displaying Porn

[Anonymous Coward]

Why won't an iPad display porn? Just because there are no apps? The internet still works great on one, and last I checked was chock full of porn.

Re:A TV That's Incapable of Displaying Porn

[Anonymous Coward]

Some other tablet vendor will soon hit Apple's prices and the usability will be good enough, but the flexibility will close the deal. Apple's walled garden necessarily has a fixed size.

You are just visiting the wrong porn sites, just gotta find an iOS optimized one!

Re:A TV That's Incapable of Displaying Porn

[pympdaddyc]

There's nothing stopping you from watching porn on your iPad. Maybe what you're trying to say is that there is no native application that will stream porn due to the app store's policies?

There's a big gap between the former and the latter. I don't have any native applications on my desktop to watch streaming porn either. I either use my browser (which an iPad has) or I use a media player to watch saved files, which can be done with iTunes or other video players on the iPad. The whole iTunes ecosystem actually makes it very easy to have podcasts and porn sync'ed without any extra work. The closest thing to not being able to watch porn on the iPad is lack of Flash, but in the case of video there are apps to deal with that too.

It would be simpler if you just said "I don't like Apple" or whatever your personal stance is, rather than throwing pasta at the wall and seeing what sticks.

Re:A TV That's Incapable of Displaying Porn

[BigJimSlade]

youporn.com would disagree with you there. They're even advertising that HTML5 video works over AirPlay.

Or so I've heard. From my friend. Yeah, my friend...

Re:A TV That's Incapable of Displaying Porn

[bill_mcgonigle]

youporn.com would disagree with you there. They're even advertising that HTML5 video works over AirPlay.

Ah, I didn't realize that there were any jumping on the HTML5 bandwagon. Good news for all (except perhaps Adobe).

Content hungry?

[vawwyakr]

It's still portrayed as though people doing this are the super video hungry watching five screens at once "crazy" people. It's the exact opposite though! I made this switch and haven't looked back because I don't watch a ton of TV and when I do I want to just watch what I want to watch not whatever is on right now. When they envision people watching video over the net they get this vision of some cyber geek in the basement with neon lights all over and 20 TVs when they should be thinking about their bread and butter audience of moms, dads and kids.

Just include a TV function

[AmiMoJo]

They should just add a over-the-air TV receiver to the next version, then it would really be just like a TV. Japanese mobile phones have had that for years, although they tend to be limited to the lower quality 1seg broadcasts. 1seg reduces resolution and frame rate but increases reception so is ideal for portable devices, so for example most sat-nav / in-car entertainment systems include it now. IIRC Brazil also uses it.

Re:Just include a TV function

[xnpu]

I have TV on my Chinese cell too. They call it CMMB, but it's digital and pretty good. I'm sure the Chinese tablets will start having it sooner or later. Looking forward to it.

Uhuh...

[rickb928]

Imagine the joy when the early adopters figure this out.

And the joy when they get tired of haivng their TV in their lap all the time.

Tablets will, repeat, will be a fad. Then they will become a niche product.

Re:Uhuh...

[berashith]

maybe the niche can be avoided if the tablets get big enough to view from a greater distance. Of course, then you wouldnt necessarily want the multi-touch features, maybe just a magic stick that could remotely direct you through options.

Re:Uhuh...

[rickb928]

"big enough to view from a greater distance"

That's called a television. We have a multitude of remote control options that don't require multi-touch or even putting down the Diet Coke.

Re:Uhuh...

[berashith]

It would be like a television, but a flat one!

Re:Uhuh...

[painandgreed]

Tablets will, repeat, will be a fad. Then they will become a niche product.

Well then, book readers will also be a fad as there will always be people willing to pay twice the price for five times the functionality. Hell, all of the people I know buying Nooks are doing so to turn them into Android tablets. Then there are the people who are already using them and the distribution channels that exist to fulfill them. If that's all just a fad, then then I suspect we're all going back to dead tree books and CDs anytime now.

Re:Uhuh...

[R3d M3rcury]

I somewhat agree--not with the "tablet will be a fad" thing but the TV in their lap. If I'm at home--which the TWC & Cablevision apps require--I'd rather watch programs on my Sony Bravia TV. That's why I bought it, after all, and it does an excellent job.

Of course, this is just a set-up for being out and about. Next time these contracts with providers come around, TWC & Cablevision will be asking for the rights to send programming to individuals wherever they might be. So I can watch the same programs on the train, on the beach, or in the limo that I can watch in my house. This is where the portability of the tablet will make it worthwhile.

iPad is not always a media consumption device

[rubypossum]

GarageBand for iPad is pretty sweet and I use it to make music, not all of which sucks. Pages is pretty decent for putting together a letter or flyer, it's not as nice as Pages for Mac but you really could layout just about anything in it. I can't vouch for Keynote or Numbers because I haven't bought them for iPad but they're probably at least as nice as their Mac counterparts. MS Office app knock-offs abound, so many I haven't even bought one. For non-Apple apps you have Freeform which I like better than Inkscape for creating application icons (even if it doesn't support SVG.) I've written a few hundred lines of code/html using Textastic, it would be great if they polish it up a bit more. A few other production apps on my iPad are Sketchpad, Elance, oDesk, Photoshop Express, iOctocat and Remoter VNC.

I spend more time with my iPad playing World of Goo or watching Netflix than using any of these. But I don't think that will always be the case, I think the apps will just get better and better and will eventually be easier to use than the Desktop apps.

Re:iPad is not always a media consumption device

[Wraithlyn]

GarageBand is insanely awesome. A complete multi-track, multi-instrument recording studio, will brilliant use of the multitouch interface. For $4.99! I cannot stop playing with it.

GarageBand, and full video mirroring, were the factors that made me break down and get an iPad2. (GB does run on iPad1, but has to pause and "optimize performance" all the time, which I assume is pre-rendering the tracks for smooth playback)

iPad v. TV != iPad v. iPhone

[starglider29a]

Before I argue whether iPad is a TV, first tell me why my iPhone ISN'T? I recorded Butler v. UConn on my ATT UVerse so my wife would watch it on the iPad in the morning. Couldn't. Make that, 'was not allowed'. But I COULD have watched it on my iPhone. What is the difference between iPad and iPhone?

So, they're saying SIZE matters?

Re:iPad v. TV != iPad v. iPhone

[tepples]

So, they're saying SIZE matters?

Major producers of audiovisual works have always said that. For example, the United States has a law that TVs in public places can't be bigger than some specific diagonal measure due to MPAA lobbying.

Re:iPad v. TV != iPad v. iPhone

[Anonymous Coward]

The iPhone is a phone that happens to be able to do other things, but it's primarily a phone. The iPad is a laptop that's too weak to do any serious work, not small enough to fit in your pocket; it's twice as expensive as an iPhone, and can't even make a phone call. I'd think being able to say, "Well at least it's a TV" would be comforting for people who bought one.

Also, I pity your wife if she hears anything about that game and still wants to watch it. Worst hour of basketball I've ever seen.

They may have a point.

[SharpFang]

I never had an iPad in my hands so I don't know - I just wonder, how comfortable is it for producing content (vs consuming it)?
Which is the primary difference between TV (consume) and the modern media (participate).

I mean, I have Opera Mini for my Android phone. It provides superior browsing experience. It's fast, pages load fast, picking links is easy, windows switching is a breeze. But it absolutely sucks when it comes to creating content. Writing posts is difficult. Native language characters are not available. File upload - nada. Editing posts is an exercise in futility. And if you want to paste anything from an outside application, you better have it in the clipboard already - switching tasks kills current session, and you'll have to browse to the posting page anew from scratch.
Meanwhile the built-in browser, while much slower, with much more issues when it comes to viewing pages, slow and annoying, makes posting information on the net possible. Not exactly easy or comfortable, but quite doable, better by a landslide than Opera. So, Opera is information consumer app, watch but don't touch, while the built-in allows to participate.
So, isn't iPad another device to "watch but not touch" the content?

Re:They may have a point.

[pympdaddyc]

It depends on what kind of content, it seems like. Drawing has a lot of potential and people have been quite successful with it. It looks like music is shaping up to be useful as well. I find it very useful for short note taking and task management, though not great for something like writing a 10 page paper. Gauging from the note taking applications, I imagine making presentation decks or component diagrams is would be something to try.

Late 1940s

[JackSpratts]

I think it was around that time, as stereo sets began moving from the lab to the living room, that the head of the musicians union threw down the gauntlet, demanding double the pay for new recording session, reasoning that each loudspeaker was a separate performance deserving of a separate fee. He wouldn't budge either, until a clever record company exec explained that listeners would want new stereo versions of their mono favorites, leading to a huge increase in session work and paychecks to match for union musicians re-recording the old hits. Crisis averted.

TV on iPad = Good for the industry!

[sglewis100]

Nice to see some cable companies waking up. It would be nice to see the TV channels wake up as well. Here's a hint: If your cable company has an app that lets you watch live TV in your house only, on an iPad or iPhone, you are PRESERVING your status quo. It's an INCENTIVE to me to NOT ditch cable. To KEEP my satellite. To CONTINUE paying $100 a month. Thanks to AirPlay, I can beam it right back onto my TV, and not worry about that one room that doesn't have wiring for satellite or a receiver sitting inside already. It's a reason to keep them, so when my wife watches those garbage reality shows, I can still be in the room watching the game, courtesy of a pair of headphones and an app that hooks into my service. Let it be like that crappy DirecTV Windows only app, too, and let me tap into my already recorded DVR programs. It's one less reason to think about trying to switch to Hulu Plus & Netflix for 1/5th the monthly cost.

son.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a son who is mentally handicapped, and just learning to read (about kindergarten level). We cut our cable 2-3 years ago when they raised the rates above our viewing habits. We have an old computer re-purposed to drive the HDTV from Hulu and Netflix and burned DVD's (every movie on there has physical disk locked in our cabinet), along with an xbox, and antennae to pick up local sports.

My son was not happy when I wanted to watch something on the main tv, turning off his cartoons. Five minutes later he was sitting in a chair, watching the same cartoon from Netflix on his sisters iPad.

For all practical purposes... the iPad is just another TV

cord cutting

[mu51c10rd]

As some other posters mentioned, I too cut the satellite tv and went with an OTA antenna, Dlink Boxee, and WD TV Live. I haven't looked back and neither has the family. I even added Playon for good measure to stream anything neither device has. I have Hulu Plus and Netflix subscriptions for TV and movies. Overall, for a one time cost of 280 dollars, and monthly recurring costs of 17 dollars, I replaced my 80 dollars a month TV with a much better option. The Cable/Satellite companies really don't get it. They are going to be phased out of existence. I am much happier with TV over the internet and think it very viable upon my anecdotal evidence.

The Irony Stylings of Time-Warner Cable

[ZipK]

"The enthusiasm of our customers and the programming partners who have embraced the app, rather than those who are solely focused on finding additional ways to reach into wallets of their own viewers, has convinced us more than ever that we are on the right path." --Time-Warner Cable

Indeed - having a programmer and a cable provider reach into your wallet at the same time would be really uncomfortable.

Companies want money

[Anonymous Coward]

This really isn't about what cable companies/channels think in the abstract. In private, many of the players would likely admit that there isn't a difference between watching TV on your iPad, your computer, or your TV, but their goal isn't to make consistent, logical sense. Their goal is to make as much money as possible - and if they can trick cable providers or end users into paying twice, three times, one million times for the same content they will.

That's why Hulu treats the PC (free Hulu) as different than a ROKU or iPad (Hulu+$$). That's why channels want an extra chunk of change to stream to your iPad. That's why the RIAA wants to figure out a way to extract money from Amazon for their music storage service.

They do get it (where it is sporting events)

[tepples]

Between Hulu and Netflix I really haven't missed cable other then the occasional sporting event. When are content providers going to get it?

Today I offered to save the other people in my household $40 per month by switching from cable Internet+cable TV to cable Internet+Netflix on my Wii console. They turned it down: one didn't want to give up MSNBC, and the other didn't want to give up ESPN and Versus.

Re:They do get it (where it is sporting events)

[vawwyakr]

The Wii gives a rather limited view of the internet's content. Another walled garden. Try a media center pc and then see if you can sell it. With an HTPC you can watch ESPN3.com and get a large amount of sports, and watch msnbc shows on their site along with Netflix. It seems like everyone is over looking the obvious choice trying to use the latest wizbang (apple tv, google tv, etc etc).

Re:They do get it (where it is sporting events)

[IANAAC]

They turned it down: one didn't want to give up MSNBC,

I don't have cable and I watch TRMS every night pretty much at the same time it would be broadcast in my timezone (central US). She airs at 9pm ET, By the time 9pm CT rolls around they've already got it up on their website.

Well, everything's stolen nowadays...

[xmason]

...Why, the fax machine is nothing but a waffle iron with a phone attached!

Live programming

[tepples]

What's the point of the cable TV plan?

Live programming such as MSNBC and ESPN are things that Hulu and Netflix don't currently handle, as far as I know.

Re:Live programming

[poetmatt]

You can get ESPN and MSNBC online. Do you not know what google is? Do you know how to search? A search for "watch MSNBC online" and "watch ESPN online" showed up in the first and/or first few results.

Granted, this probably won't run on linux due to codecs, but it will run otherwise.

Re:Live programming

[tepples]

Do you not know what google is?

Yes, but others in my household can't tell the difference between the address bar and the search bar. They keep asking me: "do you have to use capitals?" "do you have to use spaces?" and forgetting the next time they sit down. Besides, "that screen's too little." Not everybody wants to buy another computer to watch such video from the couch (I can cite seven comments by other Slashdot users if you wish), while Netflix runs on common game consoles.

Sports

[Anonymous Coward]

Broadcast sports are the only thing regular tv has left. Once there are decent streaming options for this, the game is over.

They already do

[SuperKendall]

Playing devil's advocate (even though I agree with you), do you think the general public can handle being able to choose their programming?

You mean like getting movies from Netflex and playing them when they like?

Or using Netflix streaming to play what they want whenever they want?

Or buying TV shows on iTunes and playing them back when they wish?

Or buying movies from a hotel TV screen?

All of those options are used widely by MANY people already. People (and I mean NORMAL people) already chose the "programming" they want to watch every day. Even the most non-technical user can handle this; look at a list and choose what they want.

Re:They already do

[cyn1c77]

Playing devil's advocate (even though I agree with you), do you think the general public can handle being able to choose their programming?

You mean like getting movies from Netflex and playing them when they like?

Or using Netflix streaming to play what they want whenever they want?

Or buying TV shows on iTunes and playing them back when they wish?

Or buying movies from a hotel TV screen?

All of those options are used widely by MANY people already. People (and I mean NORMAL people) already chose the "programming" they want to watch every day. Even the most non-technical user can handle this; look at a list and choose what they want.

But, those services are typically used to augment TV watching. A lot of people choose the shows they want to watch from watching TV advertisements and network programming (movies aside).

Now imagine if the ability to passively watch network TV went away completely. You are sitting down with a quick dinner and want to watch TV for 30 minutes, but you can't just turn the TV on anymore you have choose something. Some people will like this, but others will have a hard time with it because it is too active a task. (I know this from personal experience within my family.)

I am not saying that people are going to cease to watch programs or just up and die. But it will require a distinct mental shift for many individuals.

Re:They already do

[SuperKendall]

But, those services are typically used to augment TV watching.

Not with most people I know. For most people it's basic cable ( to get internet and sports on broadcast) and those kinds of things.

The point though is that people already use them quite easily; you were claiming that people would not be able to handle using such services. But they already do, en masse; and when it becomes possible to watch more sports over said services (that logjam has just broken) then people really will not need traditional broadcast.

You are sitting down with a quick dinner and want to watch TV for 30 minutes, but you can't just turn the TV on anymore you have choose something.

My family already does that; we just pick something off the queue that we have pre-selected. Or if we have subscribed to a season of something it will be automatically downloaded and we know we can expect to watch that on night X if we choose.

Some production will never be possible on iPad

[tepples]

I think the apps will just get better and better and will eventually be easier to use than the Desktop apps.

Most of what I do on my netbook on the bus ride to and from work involves programming. Let me know when there's Xcode or even IDLE (basic Python IDE) for iPad. It won't happen any time soon: the App Store TOS bans programming applications, and Apple pulled a compilation of C64 games from the app store specifically because the user could press a key and reboot the emulated C64 into the the REPL of ROM BASIC.

Rooted TV becomes not unlike an iMac

[tepples]

So, if I root my TV running Linux, and install additional applications, it ceases to be a TV?

Correct. It becomes a computer with a built-in monitor, not unlike an iMac or a big tablet.

Re:Rooted TV becomes not unlike an iMac

[drinkypoo]

I think it can be a computer and a television at the same time. It's a television if it can display television signals. A computer is not a television even if it has a TV card unless it has an integrated display; then it is both. Just having a video input, however, doesn't make it a television. It needs a tuner, whether analog or digital. If it has no tuner then it's just a monitor. No video inputs, just a computer. Right up until you attack a USB TV tuner/capture device...

Obligatory Bill Hicks quote

[Sonny_Jimbod]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo

What about the neighbors?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps they are worried about the neighbors' iPads.

original content from new era distributors?

[LodCrappo]

Would it not make sense for Netflix and the like to simply start creating their own content? Cut out the middle man entirely.. either partner with a network that's read the writing on the wall and wants to move forward, or get some VC and hire some writers and actors.

ZincTV is a perfect example of iPad TV

[poyntek]

I agree iPad is another TV, ZincTV is a perfect example of iPad TV, whats great is it works in the cloud, I really like it, here is more about it... http://www.tech-adventures.com/2011/03/new-zinctv-brings-internet-tv-virtually.html

110 fig leafs

[ThatsNotPudding]

Either right before or in conjunction with yet another price increase (mainly due to premium channels and ESPN), the cable company proudly announces you will be getting new exciting offerings such as The Balsa Wood channel and Test Pattern HD en espanol.

What media center PCs?

[tepples]

Try a media center pc and then see if you can sell it.

The installed base of media center PCs is embarrassingly small, according to several other users who have posted comments. Apparently, PC makers can't sell it, or there'd be more of an installed base.

With an HTPC you can watch ESPN3.com and get a large amount of sports

Provided you happen to 1. know how to build, set up, and maintain an HTPC and 2. live in an area whose ISP subscribes to ESPN3.com.

and watch msnbc shows on their site along with Netflix

Good luck teaching a 66-year-old how to navigate MSNBC.com.

It seems like everyone is over looking the obvious choice trying to use the latest wizbang

If it were entirely up to me, I'd try just that. But I'm not exactly crazy about a solution that works only for me. I would prefer one that I can recommend to friends and family members.

Re:What media center PCs?

[vawwyakr]

Any PC with with HDMI out and a TV to attach it to is poof a HTPC. You can work your way up from there, want TV signal? Get a USB TV tuner and plug it in (Win 7 comes with media center, if you refuse to use windows there's LinuxMCE but that breaks from your easy for anybody criteria). Not sure what else you really need to make this work, that's all I did. If you don't want to build one and want something other than a desktop get a Dell Zino or Asus EEE Pc or any number of other cheap options out there. Ok you got me on the ESPN3.com thing, I didn't think about how there was some sort of ISP interaction there...I don't give two $h!ts about sports so don't really use it much except for family members.

That's not a good reason

[name_already_taken]

You might be surprised how many conversations at the proverbial water cooler center on some new television ad campaign. Of course, it's often easy to waylay those into more interesting topics, such as honey badgers.

Wow.

You know, you can watch many commercials on Youtube.

Practical problems with media center PCs

[tepples]

Any PC with with HDMI out and a TV to attach it to is poof a HTPC.

Provided your TV has HDMI in. My aunt's boyfriend's living room TV is a pre-HDMI 1080i CRT projection TV. It takes component in but not HDMI in. The rest of their TVs are SDTVs.

Not sure what else you really need to make this work

For one thing, the PC and the TV have to be in the same room. I'm under the impression that most households have the family PC at a desk, far from the TV. They also don't care to buy a second PC just for the TV room, especially if they have to keep it updated on Patch Tuesday and the like, and not everybody likes to use a mouse and keyboard from the couch.

Blackmagic Design Intensity Pro

[tepples]

an HDMI input from which the display appliance cannot transcode or record

So if I stick an HDMI card in my computer it becomes a TV?

I assume you're referring to products such as Blackmagic Design Intensity Pro (roughly $200). That turns your PC into a DVR, not a TV, because it is designed for recording. Otherwise, please name the HDMI card to which you refer.

Distraction

[tepples]

It's a television if it can display television signals.

But to advertisers, a device is a computer if the end user can be distracted away from a video showing on the device as easily as on a computer. With TV, one can switch to other channels, but with a computer, one can Alt+Tab to entirely different modes of interaction.

Right up until you attack a USB TV tuner/capture device

That turns it into a DVR, and advertisers would treat it as such. For example, video on demand services aren't intended to work with DVRs.

I totally agree.

[Holi]

The iPad is just TV 2.0. Mobile and with added features.

Re:Uhuh.. my captcha is defecate.shitty comment :/

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple should come out with a 40 ot 50 inch ipad. I'm tired of having to hold my stupid ipad. I just want to lay on the couch and stare at my ipad from across the room.

question

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello,

i want to say thank you for a great job you've done on your blog.
I have a software download website and I also write articles for people to help them with their computers and software. Is it possible to place this article on your blog as a guest post?

Regards,
Andy G.

Hulu Plus

[mu51c10rd]

Have you looked at Hulu Plus for your wife? That was the route I went for my wife and it worked out well.

Re:Hulu Plus

[Vanderhoth]

I'd love to use it. The issue being Hulu is a US only service; I live in Canada. I've tried setting up a proxy to use it before and was successful, but after awhile I get an error message. I believe my ISP starts blocking the proxy after they catch on to it.

As I mentioned Canada just got Netflix and my wife and I just bought a TV last week that came with a free trial. The quality isn't great, but it's not much worse then what I might get if I was downloading a show. My wife seems to be very happy with it at the moment so I'll give it a couple weeks to see how much she uses it, then I'll spring the dropping cable question on her again.