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Cable TV has been around in the U.S. forever.

Or about 1948, if you believe Wikipedia.

As a result, everyone is accustomed to saying things like “cable channel” or “cable TV network” when referring to networks appearing on cable. But with the rise of IPTV, the notion of calling networks “cable TV” needs to change.

First of all, it’s inaccurate. For example, last year, the NY Times had a headline that read “NBC Purchases Oxygen Cable TV Network for Women“.  The addition of “cable” was unnecessary and not quite accurate since it’s also available to cable, satellite and IPTV providers. So why call it a cable network? It’s an outdated term for an age with multiple TV providers.

I don’t have anything against cable providers (although I am an IPTV analyst and editor of the IPTV Bulletin), but I’m just tired of seeing writers and editors still using that outdated term. Lots of industry folk say “multichannel service provider” when they refer to cable, satellite or IPTV providers. But, um, I don’t think that’s the right term for everyone.

Even regular folk not in the TV or media industries, tend to still say things like “I was watching cable TV” or “it’s on cable”. More often than not, people are subscribing to cable, over satelltie or IPTV. Cable is still the most popular way consumers get their TV content.

Old habits die hard, but I think it’s time for a change.

• Instead of cable TV, say just TV.
• Instead of cable TV network, just say TV network.

But maybe I’m just being a stickler.

It seems that cable companies are finally getting tired of competing with all the free TV shows that are streaming over the Internet. According to an article in AdAge.com, Time Warner Cable’s CEO Glenn Britt said that they do care when TV networks put their full-length content online and essentially bypass cable TV.

This is a fight that’s been a long time coming. Hollywood studios and networks are finally realizing that they want to reach the most number of people as possible and not be constrained by traditional broadcast TV models. For example HBO has hosted many full-length shows online, as have ABC (Desperate Housewives, Lost), NBC (Hereos) and others.

Studios are embracing this new “Hollywood 2.0″ mentality that they want wider options for their content, and different mediums rather than trying to keep everyone tuned into their TV sets. In fact, a Time Warner cable spokesperson said they are prepared to withhold some subscriber revenue from the networks.

“Our point of view is that there is a segment of our audience that is living more primarily online than they are living on other platforms,” said Erik Flannigan, exec VP-digital media of MTV Networks’ Entertainment Group. “As some of our actions have made clear, the consumer will have many places they want to consume content. As long as we’re putting forth that experience and getting the lion’s share of the advertising, everybody wins.”

I don’t think that it will come to that, however. Cable companies are scared, and are trying to say and do anything to make people understand that they feel threatened by the Internet. Broadcast TV is being threatened–by DVRs, Internet delivery and even DVDs. But any major change to the established broadcast cable TV systems won’t happen for many years.

Some cable providers, like Comcast, have embraced the Internet and have developed web properties (like FanCast.com). It seems that other TV providers will have to learn how to adapt in the face of the growing Internet menace.

[tags] FanCast, Comcast, Advertising, AdAge, Ad Age, Cable TV, cable [/tags]

Well, the NetFlix Player (by Roku) has been out for about a month now and I was wondering who out there has purchased one yet. I held out, but this weekend I decided to order it and test it out. After all, hands on reviews are the best way to go I think.

While I was writing a story on NetFlix for the subscription-based IPTV Bulletin that I’m editing, I did some research on the competition, namely Apple TV and Vudu. They are all set-top boxes designed to deliver movies and TV shows directly to TV sets, not PCs. It’s not a very crowded market, so I’m hoping to get hands-on with all of them in the future.

In the meantime, here’s the comparison table I did.

The biggest plus about the NetFlix Player is its low price. Just $99 means it’s an impulse buy and not something you have to consider stretching your credit card debt such as with Apple TV (up to $329). Plus, you don’t have to pay per download like you do with Vudu and Apple TV. Again, this lowers the overall cost proposition for consumers.

I don’t think the NetFlix Player will be a killer device, but I think it’s definitely changing the game through its low prices.

So, I’m wondering… Have you bought the NetFlix Player?  If no, why not?

P.S. Seems like NetFlix Player shipments are delayed about two weeks, so I’ll have to wait a bit longer than I thought. However, this may be good news for Roku and NetFlix since it seems like demand is outstripping supply.

[tags] Vudu, Roku, NetFlix, NetFlix player, Apple, Apple TV [/tags]

You’ve probably seen it by now.

What looks like a commercial for a new TV show or movie, turns out to be a commercial for a line of HDTV sets from LG called Scarlet. (Check out the video below if you haven’t seen it already.)

It seems like it was a successful campaign, in that it garnered lots of press attention including a red-carpet fake premiere with (fake) celebrities and lots of mentions on the Internet.

However, I’m more interested in the fact that this is one of the first TVs that are branded. And it’s about time. Everything else around us has branded names. Think of cars (Toyota Avalon, Ford Taurus), MP3 players (iPod, Zune), cell phones (LG’s Chocolate, Motorola’s Razr or the iPhone)–heck even condoms have brand names (Trojan, Magnum). So it’s about time that TV sets are becoming brands that consumers can identify.

LG’s Scarlet line of sets don’t really push the bar as far as new or advanced features, it just has a good brand name. And the back of the TV is red, too. So it doesn’t take much beyond lots of advertising dollars, an online viral marketing campaign, and a new product to begin promoting a new brand.

Why aren’t other TV set manufacturer’s doing this? I mean, Sony, which came up with Walkman, and Vaio, should have a good TV brand. Panasonic does have the Viera line of TV sets, but it reminds me too much of Good Morning America’s Meredith Viera to really have a brand impact with me.

Having a name like Scarlet, also makes it easy for consumers to find reviews and prices on the Internet. You don’t have to remember that the Scarlet is product number AZTX-4208, for example. (I just made that up.) Just Google “Scarlet” and TV and up comes results to help you shop and compare.

Brands. It’s what people want. People share with others what brand their new cell phone is. And consumer electronic manufacturers should realize that people want to show off their new HDTVs also. And let’s include DVRs also. Tivo has done pretty well as the top brand of DVRs, but distinguishing different product lines is kind of tricky. Tivo’s Series 2, or Series 3 DVRs are boring names. Why not the Tivo Magum? Or um, something like that.

[tags] Tivo, LG, Scarlet, branding, advertising, HDTV, TV [/tags]

DVRs are still a novelty to many people and it’s always interesting to see new users learn about DVR etiquette. At the Wall Street Journal, Jason Fry wrote about discovering the classic DVR faux pas: Revealing Facts About TV Shows Without Asking If They Recorded It. Fry says he revealed the final play of an exciting March Madness game to a friend. Oops!

He says he is discovering that not everyone is tuning into TV like they used to. “Today my TV is not your TV, and you can never assume the same people are watching the same thing at the same time or in the same way,” he writes.

No, TV is personal just like computers. Or cell phones. Or iPods.

But personal TV gets difficult to manage when there is more than 1 person watching. Do the kids watch their shows? Do you watch The latest UFC fight? Or let your wife tune into “Masterpiece” to catch the Jane Austen movies? Or perhaps sit together and watch “American Idol”?

The answer is whole home DVR, where every TV has its own DVR. Or at least access to the central DVR sitting in the living room.

According to research firm Pike and Fischer, over 100 million households will pay for HDTV by 2012. That’s about 47 million homes.

At the end of 2007, there were 17 million homes with HD service, so that’s a big growth.
The demand for HD will generate up to $2.6 billion in annual revenue for TV providers by the end of 2012.

I was reading this article from Electronic House about the future of media servers, and it got me wondering. When will media servers finally rule the world?

People have been touting media servers for many years now. Millionaires like Bill Gates have them. They put all their music onto hard drives, all their movies onto a central server and can access them from anywhere in their home. Want to watch “The Matrix” again? No need to pull out a DVD and use your DVD player. Simply pull it from your media server off a menu and start watching any movie in your library. In your living room or in your office computer.

I bought something that promises to do this. It’s a Buffalo LinkStation network storage device. It has 750 GB capacity so I can fit all my music and multimedia with lots of room left over for work files and other documents. It even has a USB port so I can connect external USB drives and provide additional storage, if I need it in the future.

The best part about my LinkStation is that it has DLNA certified, which means it can act as a storage server for a media device. Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) makes it possible to access and share digital content throughout a home network. It aims to connect PCs, peripherals and TV/consumer electronic devices using your existing home network.

So far, there are just a few DLNA-certified products out there. There are a few media extenders, storage servers and other products, but they are not very popular yet.

I think consumers aren’t really thinking about their home networks too much and haven’t thought of the possibilities available with a home media server and storage devices. An inter-connected maquinas tragaperras webjugar interactivo portal internetapuesta dinero lineajuegos apuestas portales webjugar interactivo onlinevideo poker portalcasinos internacionales webganar premio paginas webjuego pagina internetmaquina tragaperras pagina webdescargar ruleta de la suerteonline casino listecasino online slotcasino websitecasino online texasonline kenoonline casino softwareonline spiel automatmultispieler spieleroulette spielregelcasino im internetgolden palace online casinoamerican slotscasino online wiesbadenonline slotmaschinen spielenbwin roulettecpayscom2 casino onlinebaccarat downloadcasino pc games,www casino games,casino gamescasino online livevideo poker onlinecasino slots games,casino slots,casino slots downloadonline casino testcasino automaten spieleslotmachines online spielenbaccarat spielenechtes kasinospielroulette spielregelncasino spiele decasino kostenlos spielencasino spiele downloadcasino online vergleichroulette gratis,roulette gratis spielen,roulette gratis downloadwww rouletteeigenes casino onlinemobiles casinoslots spielen gratisroulette trickskostenlose casinospiele,internet kasino spielen,casino spielecasino online mac home makes a lot of sense for people with lots of media assets. I think DLNA products are set to explode–maybe not this year, but soon.

I’ve already started encoding my CD collection onto my LinkStation and going completely digital. Then I can just hook up my iPod and take my entire music collection on the go.  No more fumbling for CDs.

As a bonus, I can also use my Buffalo LinkStation over any Internet-connected computer and access my files. When I log in to my home LinkStation, I can see anything that I’ve set up for sharing. Anything else is protected and invisible to me. I can upload files and save them for later, or access any of my shared files over the Internet.

My music folder is my favorite thing. I can log in anywhere and listen to any of my MP3s. I can even listen to folders of music right from my browser, since it comes with a built-in player. It’s quite dreamy–all my music, available anytime, anywhere.

Isn’t that what you want from the Internet?

[tags] Buffalo Technology, LinkStation, LinkStation Live, Media server, iPod,  DLNA [/tags]

A story from the AP says that cable and satellite companies may benefit when the digital transition happens next February. That’s because one of the easiest ways to get a digital TV signal is to get digital TV service.

Also benefiting will be retailers and TV manufacturers since consumers will likely buy DTV and HDTV sets as the February 17, 2009 date approaches.

A post from a few days estimates that there are still 13 million Americans that have analog sets and are not ready for the digital transition.

From the AP story:

All new TVs made or shipped after March 1, 2007, contain digital tuners, which are sometimes called ATSC tuners, after the technical standard used to make them (the analog standard was known as NTSC.) U.S. retailers, however, can still sell analog TVs from existing inventory if they are labeled as analog-only.

A report by Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. said that about 1.4 million U.S. households will probably switch to pay TV service as a result of the digital TV transition. This can be enough to boost the cable industry growth rate. However, it could also help out IPTV providers, like AT&T and Verizon.

The market for the converter boxes is likely to be about $1.4 billion (?0.95 billion), and for new TVs about $1.7 billion (?1.16 billion), for a total of $3.1 billion (?2.11 billion) ? still a relatively tiny part of the $150 billion (?102.22 billion) U.S. consumer electronics market.

[tags] Digital TV, DTV, Digital TV Transition, analog switch off, DTV Transition [/tags]

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On February 15th, TVCatchup.com, a website that recorded TV shows from U.K. broadcasters to allow viewers to watch them online, was shut down by its hosting provider.
A message on the website was posted saying in part:

“On 15th February, our hosting was terminated without warning and we presume this was at the request of such Broadcasters. Given that this will no doubt happen again, TVCatchup has therefore voluntarily suspended its services whilst the concerns of the Broadcasters are addressed.”

The website recorded the TV shows from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five and posted them on the Internet so anyone could catch up and watch shows whenever they’d like.  The BBC was onto them in December 2007, calling it a “personal online VCR”. (VCR, how quaint!)

Sounds like an, um, interesting–and ill-fated–business model.  TVCatchup supposedly had 5,000 test users and some advertisers on the website before it was forced to shut down.  Before the company fully launched, the CEO of TVCatchup, Adam Smith, said that they were acting within UK laws. Guess that’s not true.

Broadcasters saw this as a violation of their rights since they hadn’t give TVCatchup permission to record and stream their shows online. Plus, the BBC has been putting its shows online via its BBC iPlayer to let viewers catch up to shows they may have missed.

Finally, the broadcasters complaint was enough to have the hosting provider shut down the web site.

Fortunately, many of these shows (and lots more) are likely available for free anyway on BitTorrent.

[tags] BBC, TVCatchup, TVCatchup.com, BitTorrent, iPlayer, BBC iPlayer [/tags]