Posted on 01/02/2013 5:02:23 AM PST by chopperman
Won’t take legislation. Comcast, CBS Viacom and all the other owners of cable nets will just refuse to do business with Intel on an a la carte basis.
WD Live TV has wi-fi. It can connect your TV to Netflix, etc. (if you have a subscription), and to USB hard drives and networked computers.
I use it to view standalone video files via USB drive(s) and NAS wi-fi hard drive. WD Live TV accepts most common video formats.
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/homeentertainment/mediaplayers/
This is the future of home entertainment/information...ISP’s will dominate the scene.
You forgot, courtesy of IFC, “Watching Beards Grow”.
A lot of people are pointing you to streaming servers like Roku or Apple TV. They are great but you mention sports. You won't get that through these devices. They stream Netflix, Hulu Plus, HBO Go, stuff like that. Lots of archived content like movies and previously aired TV shows on demand but not live TV.
I'm assuming you don't have or want cable so you truly want to get over-the-air live programming but without cable. For local channels you can simply hook up an HDTV with an antenna and pull the local HD channels directly, no cable and no internet required. It's digital so quality will be either as good as you'll get wired or no signal at all; perfect or nothing. And it's free. You can do the same thing with a PC if you put in a HD video capture card. Then you can run the HDMI output directly to a HDTV (most have HDMI inputs).
It's hard to get live non-local channels over the internet. I saw a company called Aereo that apparently has a server room in New York City with a bunch of capture cards wired up to HD antennas and they are pulling the live signal off the air and streaming it for a fee. They appear to be getting sued to death by all the networks. Their defense for this at the moment seems to be to limit their service to NYC only, so basically they only convert live over-the-air local NYC channels to internet streams within the NYC itself (i.e. where people can get them for free directly with an antenna). So here it is just a convenience thing for people in New York City who want to watch already free New York City local channels on an Ipad instead of a TV. And still they are getting sued. If they win some cases, maybe they'll expand. In the meantime third party streaming of live TV is probably an area where the law will need to get settled.
They did not mention bandwidth requirements. I wonder how fast of an internet connection is required to watch an uninterrupted stream per channel? I’d be willing to bet that a standard 3 meg DSL connection would be overloaded with three TVs on watching different channels.
Which channels are actually going to agree to that? The big dogs love their bundling. We’ll have to see what actually comes out.
Get a ROKU box
Actually what’s more likely to happen is that Disney won’t sell a la carte. Same with all the other major players. The tier system exists not because the cable companies want it but because the networks do. And if Disney, Viacom, Discovery, A&E, and Comcast/ Universal decide they’re not selling to Intel this a la carte thing won’t have much audience.
It’s a good idea but ISP download caps will get in the way especially if your ISP sells television packages like most high speed internet providers do.
“Yet, our phone bills(land lines) are subsidizing fiber internet to a house with no electric and thousands who split firewood rather than surf the net. Go figger.”
Wealth distribution a.k.a. Communism.
What about Roku? anybody use that?
Most recent TVs have ethernet data ports. Plug your home router into the ethernet port on the TV. Voila.
I tend to be a binary thinker, which gets me into trouble with stuff like this. i.e. now that I have the equivalent of a large monitor hooked up to “the internet”, now what? No brouser. No mouse. No keyboard.
Don’t know if the ad revenue will support this.
Many ads are sold to networks, who upcharge by saying they will play on all their associated channels.
If your TV has data ports then it has apps. Usually they’re apps from places the TV company has developed a relationship with (like Netflix, everybody works with Netflix) and you use those. I don’t know if Intel’s plan is to work with everybody the way Netflix does, or find some way around the app barrier.
While this is what consumers want, it is not going to happen.
To start with, Intel cable would be reliant on existing ISPs to deliver content. They are already pushed hard on bandwidth because of streaming services, and would not be happy at all to have to shell out more money for some other companies bottom line.
Second, content delivery is controlled by the producers. They will absolutely not deliver ala carte content, because even if one person in 50 uses a crap channel to buy stuff, it is more profitable than even advertising on premium channels. This is why there are a dozen or more “Home Shopping”-type channels, and as many “Infomercial” channels, touting snake oil, and in the egg scramblers.
Intel makes hardware for the most part, and it is not either an ISP or a content provider, but it is planning to go head-to-head with an industry that has cutthroat competition, local monopolies, and a lot of practice.
I would give Intel a 1 in 10 chance for success.
I seriously doubt it. Wait until you see the price for the "channels I really want". It will add up to $80 in a flash. Great idea but I just don't think that the pricing will work out in the end.
But, fingers crossed and I hope it works out. I would give up DirecTV in an instant if it does.
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