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Television Media Technology

IPTV Revolution Put on Hold 180

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

IPTV Revolution Put on Hold

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  • you could have fooled me (Score:5, Funny)

    by croddy ( 659025 ) on Thursday April 07, 2005 @12:46AM (#12162885)
    all my tv content already comes through the internet...

    • Why not? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) * on Thursday April 07, 2005 @01:07AM (#12162984)
      I don't understand why the channels that shop themselves out to cable companies (like the SCiFi channel) do not join up with some IPTV provider and do the natural thing of selling TV episodes over the internet.

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

    • But is it... (Score:5, Informative)

      by ImaLamer ( 260199 ) <john.lamar@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Thursday April 07, 2005 @02:58AM (#12163393) Homepage Journal
      So do I, except it's legal [real.com].

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

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

      • Re:But is it... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by ImaLamer ( 260199 ) <john.lamar@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Thursday April 07, 2005 @03:03AM (#12163404) Homepage Journal
        Let me add this:

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

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

        Oh, and don't forget that under Winamp you can watch all types of "Internet TV". Family Guy, Sealab, pr0n, Seinfeld, all kinds of stuff. Look for the Salt Water Chimp stations.
      • ya know.. that has got to be the SKIMIPIEST pair of webpages I've ever seen for something that expects recurring fees of my entertainment dollar.

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

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

  • Then start with niche content (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Joe U ( 443617 ) * on Thursday April 07, 2005 @12:49AM (#12162898) Homepage Journal
    Start offering things like Anime or SciFi, they can use the expanded market. Once companies realise this is for real, more content will show up.

    • religeous content is HUGE!!! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by cheekyboy ( 598084 ) on Thursday April 07, 2005 @01:14AM (#12163006) Homepage Journal
      I know its in the 'wierdo' catagory and not 'sex drugs rocknroll' content.

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

      Right away you have 1.1 billion customers

      Im sure Mel would pony up a consortium
      • But christian tv etc... are BIG money, or at lest BIG audiences.

        Right away you have 1.1 billion customers

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

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

    • Re:Then start with niche content (Score:5, Insightful)

      by madfgurtbn ( 321041 ) on Thursday April 07, 2005 @01:24AM (#12163051)
      Start offering things like Anime or SciFi, they can use the expanded market. Once companies realise this is for real, more content will show up.

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

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

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

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

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

      The only thing left for the studios will be the $200M blockbusters, but those blockbusters will be competing directly against equally (or more)compelling content created for $200k by small independents or $2k by guys working in their basements.
      • There will always be a market for $200 million productions (as well as big-budget television shows). Why? Because with $200 million you can afford large numbers of people, each person working on a specific portion of the film. This (ideally) diverse group of people are a set of experts at what they do (including story development). Film-creation technology is improving, but unless the technology can actually replace a crowd of talented people, the home-made film (and mid-budget film) won't replace the big-b

      • Re:Then start with niche content (Score:4, Insightful)

        by kamapuaa ( 555446 ) on Thursday April 07, 2005 @02:41AM (#12163344) Homepage
        As a huge supporter of indie movies (and Indian movies, for that matter), I strongly disagree. Popular movies are massive undertakings that require large budgets and a lot of talent at getting people together. Sure a movie like "Primer" can get made in a basement, cheaply made anime is still popular, but such movies are no more than a niche item, and aren't going to become mainstream just because people prefer the distribution method.

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

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

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

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

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

        If you have $2K to $50K invested in video projection and sound your new reference standard for animation is

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

      Yeesh. You'd think porn would have taken care of this for us already.
    • Let's imagine for a moment that I thought that knitting was the coolest thing. Were I to say, "Start offering stuff like darning and crochet...", you'd laugh in my face. Big, loud, throaty laughs, too, I'd reckon.

      IP TV has the opportunity of satisfying micro-communities like anime and SciFi buffs (and, heck, knitting wonks), but to say that the 'big studios' will learn some sort of lesson from it is to completely misrepresent what they do and why they have so much money today. They don't care about narrowc
      • They don't care about narrowcasting because it doesn't get them where they want to be.

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

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

  • Well it is Interweb... (Score:3, Funny)

    by soimless ( 651224 ) on Thursday April 07, 2005 @12:52AM (#12162910) Homepage Journal
    Sence it is Internet you can loop a annoying but funny thing like another flash of the Numa Numa song and just call it TV...
  • Maybe Business Week should go back to reporting business.
  • I dunno why all these companies like to play hard ball when things can be so much easier.

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

  • Interesting (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I don't see why TV over IP is needed. The infrastructure to deliver TV via cable already exists. For people who have broadband via cable, they would just be getting what they already could. Seems like reinventing the wheel. And besides that, if it's streaming from a server, unlike standard cable all channels will not be sent at once in order to save bandwidth. And since it's a web server dynamically serving one channel at a time to you, it would be extremely easy for the IPTV provider to record what one wat
      • Bittorrent sorta took care of that at the software layer (I know not as good). Why isn't anyone mentioning broadcatching [wikipedia.org]?
        Haven't we taken care of this problem already?
      • True multicast isn't really needed for something like this. If the cable companies were to deploy something like this, then they could automatically push copies of popular shows to one or two set-top boxes[1] in a neighbourhood, which could then stream over the local segment to other houses that required it. Less popular content would be sent in real-time. Each set top box could build a profile of the kind of content the owner wanted, and pre-fetch new things in that category once they became available.
    • You're missing the whole point here. There was an article earlier this week (NYT) that mentioned Southwestern Bell was trying to get IPTV into action so when they finish their fiber-to-the-curb rollout, they can provide television programming along with telephony and data services.

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

    • Re:Interesting (Score:3, Interesting)

      by DarkMantle ( 784415 )
      You do seem to be missing a major part of this. It's Video on demand. So I can watch Simpsons whenever I want. I don't have to wait for it to air on TV. This would be very handy since I often don't get home from work till 10 or 11 o'clock and I've already missed the good stuff on TV. I usually download it and watch it the next day. If I could stream it when I got home that would be much better.

    • Re:Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Jeff DeMaagd ( 2015 ) on Thursday April 07, 2005 @01:29AM (#12163077) Homepage Journal
      Of course, TV on demand has absolutely no benefits. Like the chance of offering content that wouldn't normally show up on even conventional cable channels. Not all of it will be good, but I think it offers opportunities for independents to distribute their videos without having to suck up to cable giants for limited air time at a time slot that no one watches.

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

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

      Don't tell me that Tivo doesn't record what you do, and they offer the ability to timeshift in a way that is similar to what IPTV might offer. They say they don't record such information if you ask them not to, but I don't trust them not to do so. I expect the cable-company provided PVR boxes to be even shadier.
      • "Of course, TV on demand has absolutely no benefits. Like the chance of offering content that wouldn't normally show up on even conventional cable channels. Not all of it will be good, but I think it offers opportunities for independents to distribute their videos without having to suck up to cable giants for limited air time at a time slot that no one watches."

        I'd like it if I could choose to only have that Victoria's secret commercials come down.
      • I would be quite happy for my TV to record what programmes I watch, and to let me know when other programmes with similar audiences are available. I would be more than happy for this information to make it back to the studios, so that they can be sure that there is a potential audience for new shows that I might like, rather than having to cater to the lowest common denominator all of the time.
      • I think I lot of people on this board haven't tried out IPTV to see its potential. I agree with this article that there isn't a lot of content out there (cable's merger with content producers is the main problem), but you guys have got to go give this a try. Who needs a PVR?

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

        Oh yeah, and stop with the tin-foil hats on statistics... no one is watching

    • Re:Interesting (Score:2, Interesting)

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

      Broadcast is dying, individualized content is the future. Why would you want some old men at NBC deciding what you are supposed to watch on a Tuesday n

      • Near VOD (NVOD) can be good too (Score:5, Insightful)

        by cheekyboy ( 598084 ) on Thursday April 07, 2005 @01:55AM (#12163184) Homepage Journal
        True, but sometimes people DO NOT want to choose down to that detail, they have had enough of 'choosing' all day at work with countless decisions, they want to relax and be supprised.

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

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

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

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

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

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

        I want my GTV (google tv)

    • Re:Interesting (Score:3, Insightful)

      by NanoGator ( 522640 )
      "I, for one, do not welcome our new IPTV voyeur overlords."

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

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

      Get a grip.

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

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

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

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

      I have ten dollars that says this guy has a massive porn stash he didn't think twice about downloading.
    • Sure, we can already get such media from the cable provider. But for the most part, people only have one choice for a cable provider. What this helps allow is the opportunity for competition. I would gladly drop my cable provider for the local internet provider for my television services if it'll be cheaper.

    • Re:Interesting (Score:2, Interesting)

      by quarkscat ( 697644 )
      TV over IP is needed, if only by the telcos. Cable
      already provides content, and broadband internet.
      Cable companies are, as a rule, more responsive to
      local/regional governments in providing service to
      the broadest portion of the population -- for which
      they are amply rewarded by being granted monopoly
      status. The telcos are regulated by the states and
      the Federal government. Ever since the breakup of
      AT&T (aka Ma Bell), the regional telcos have been
      more tightly regulated. The cable companies don't
      seem to h
  • doesn't seem to be a problem with broadcast tv or Foxtel (in Australia pay tv = Frasier and Gilligan's Island repeats ad nauseum).

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

  • -$135 BILLION "starts to make sense"?? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Ars-Fartsica ( 166957 ) on Thursday April 07, 2005 @12:58AM (#12162939)
    AOL/TW resulted in the largest write-down in corporate history - $135 billion in losses. This is "starting to make sense"??

    • Re:-$135 BILLION "starts to make sense"?? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mabhatter654 ( 561290 ) on Thursday April 07, 2005 @01:53AM (#12163171)
      That was only because AOL's "play money" changed "value" versus TW's "play money". In the end, I'd stand by that decision too... the trouble with AOL/TW is that the TW suits didn't take the right steps for AOL to be independant in it's new niche. AOL was looking at the opportunity to span the spectrum of print/radio/TV/internet/movie offerings all properly paid for and offered... AOLs move is much the same as Apple's move to iTMS. AOL want's out of the "internet connection" business... it's thankless commodity work not worth doing.. honestly, the telcos can do it better. As long as there's an "equivelant evil" sized company to keep the information seperate from the hardware.

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

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

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

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

  • too useful to go to waste (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Peter La Casse ( 3992 ) on Thursday April 07, 2005 @01:02AM (#12162960)
    The technology behind Video on Demand is useful enough that even if the "on Demand" part isn't exposed to the customer, eventually it will become the backbone of the cable infrastructure. The idea of streaming shows off of a hard drive sitting at the head end and digitally inserting local commercials, etc. is a good one, and interactive commercials ("click here to purchase!" or "here let me run this ActiveX control on your TV") are the wave of the future, for better or for worse.
  • ManiaTV! [maniatv.com] broadcasts over the internet 24/7. Mostly music videos, but also short films and action sports clips. Decent site with a lot of viewer interaction.
  • Maybe "technology delayed" items like this need to name the backwaters where the tech isn't available.

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

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

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

  • Same complaint, new medium... (Score:5, Funny)

    by binaryspiral ( 784263 ) on Thursday April 07, 2005 @01:28AM (#12163070)
    65535 channels and nothing on...
  • "In the retrospect the Comcast bid for Disney and AOL buying Time Warner start making sense."

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

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

    (Disclaimer - I know little about business, share markets, or the AOL/Time-Warner deal. Feel free to flame me to a crisp if I've misrepresented the situation.)
    • "A company riding a sharemarket bubble exchanged some of its overpriced shares for a real company with real assets and real profits, and which had some synergy with the aquiring company."

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

      TSG

  • Yeah, right (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wyldeone ( 785673 ) on Thursday April 07, 2005 @01:42AM (#12163119) Homepage Journal

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

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

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

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

      Unfortunately for all, this really is the case. Its like hen everyone thought the internet would change the way that the record indutry worked. It di
    • They may not have made head way on the music side, but buying MGM [thestreet.com] sure reeks of a sure fire way to battle it's way on the Blu-Ray format. Want Singing in the Rain [imdb.com] or Gone With the Wind [imdb.com] in HiDef? Guess you'll be going the Blu-Ray route.

      I say if you build it, they will come.

  • you've got to be kidding (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bitspotter ( 455598 ) on Thursday April 07, 2005 @01:46AM (#12163138) Journal
    I must know all kinds of people who would love a platform to put all kinds of original video content out there. There's plenty of Creative Commons stuff - Why don't they just let people put up their own stuff?

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

  • Cartels strike again (Score:5, Interesting)

    by GrouchoMarx ( 153170 ) on Thursday April 07, 2005 @01:52AM (#12163165) Homepage
    But improvements like these can happen only if content providers - media companies and movie studios like Disney - play along.

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

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

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

    I didn't used to be opposed to copyright, but the more I see, the more I wonder if it causes more problems than it's worth.
  • and their is often as good as the megacorporations, especially if you want something besides movies composed of something besides computer graphics.

  • Bypass the bottleneck (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 07, 2005 @01:58AM (#12163194)
    The telecoms can't get content from the distributors, while most foreign or independent films can't get carried by American distributors at all. Something is fundamentally wrong here.

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

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

    There is no shortage of available content. However there does seem to be a bottlneck which needs to be bypassed. If the legacy media giants don't want to play, then just leave them behind in the dust.
  • The revolution will not be televised [bikesummer.org]!
  • But what does this have to do with Al Gore?

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

  • Start with us (Score:4, Insightful)

    by BobSutan ( 467781 ) on Thursday April 07, 2005 @02:29AM (#12163308)
    Geeks like us have always been the early adopters, which is why they should be focusing on us. Hell, we've been driving the PC hardware industry for years now starting way back with Doom. Here we are again at the advent of the IPTV industry with our downloads of Battlestar Galactica, chomping at the bit for legal downloadable content. Quite frankly its obvious there is a market, just nobody is willing to sell us the content in the format we would actually purchase (i.e. high-quality, DRM-free). Currently my on means of getting such content is through ripping my CDs and DVDs onto the computer. However, I'll give up the security and higher quality of an origianl copy if I can get a downloaded version of a movie or TV show at a reduced rate. Itunes figured this one out, although I believe their sales figures could be much higher if they'd set a lower pricepoint.

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

  • There is so much content outside of the US (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MemoryDragon ( 544441 ) on Thursday April 07, 2005 @02:58AM (#12163390)
    media MAFIA (Movie and Film Industry Association) the companies just have to look into other countries. I am not talking about bollywood here (which produces more movie than anyone else, but most of them have questionable quality) France also is a huge television and movie producer, germany produces most of its tv content itself, and italy also does, at least France and Italy have very high quality standards, whereals germany has high output (mostly soaps, soap related stuff and sometimes gems and good comedies in between and excellent cartoon movies which are on the rough side of humor)

    If those companies start to look outside of the US for content, they at least have some, and since most of this stuff produced outside of the US is sold only to one or two countries besides the country of origin they might be eager to hear about online distribution in the US or on a worldwide scale.
    • You forgot the Brits :-)
      British Comedy shows/movies are rated amongst the best comedy series/movies of the world.
      And some other [imdb.com] great movies too.

      I bet they can make some fun of the Movie and Film Industry Association too, and we can all have a great laugh!
    • "France also is a huge television and movie producer, germany produces most of its tv content itself, and italy also does, at least France and Italy have very high quality standards, whereals germany has high output (mostly soaps, soap related stuff and sometimes gems and good comedies in between and excellent cartoon movies which are on the rough side of humor)"

      But it's European! So they're all NAKED! :-)
  • IPTV is NOT on hold, check here XTV [xtv.com]

  • Belgium (Score:2, Interesting)

    by KiroDude ( 853510 )
    I'm currently working at Belgacom, Belgium's biggest telco, they'll be soon launching their IPTV system and offered everybody a demo of the system.

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

    Quality wise it is just as good as any other digital signal you can think of, satellite or terrestrial DVB, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. But as the article (or the summary, this is slashdot) says, the big problem is in content.
    They provide exac

  • [Sarcasm] (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Tom ( 822 ) on Thursday April 07, 2005 @03:38AM (#12163509) Homepage Journal
    Oh, really? Whowoulddhavethought?[/sarcasm]

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

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

    Remember, that was four years ago. Thinks have changed a little, and we're about to re-launch the service. Let's see how it goes this time around.
  • ...and it's called BitTorrent. Undoubtedly some folks will jump at the chance to eagerly fellate the industry by claiming that BitTorrent is 'stealing' and therefore evil, but I seriously doubt that's the case for most users. In fact, I'm willing to bet that most BitTorrent users already have cable and use BitTorrent to grab old episodes of a series they just clued into, or to find a show they missed or hasn't aired in their region yet, or even to do what I do: get a show *without commercials*. How this
  • What the content companies fail to understand is that the adoption of getting content over a new medium (The Internet) is the ultimate expression of a free economy. Whether the copying, downloading, or deploying of this content is legal or not, these companies are missing the boat. When the market place starts to move in a new direction, DESPITE your best efforts not to allow it to do so, the writing is on the wall for you. Either start to look at the new market place as an opportunity, or prepare to ge
  • It's pretty impressive the extent to which the movie industry is following the music industry's lead in ignoring technological advances in non-physical distribution channels. Of course, it's all about percieved control of properties, and a little caution seems prudent, but at the risk of turning down a potentially lucrative distribution deal ?

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

    Sure

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

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

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

    The only down side to all this is that it puts ma

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