Convergence for the rest of us
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Written by Atila on November 27, 2008 – 1:02 am
Hackers have been hacking away at AppleTV for months, opening up the box and claiming they have gotten AppleTV to work with Xvid and the like.
But from where we sit, we don’t think this is what is going to make PC-TV convergence a reality most people understand and use. In conversations with friends – reasonably tech-savvy ones, even – we have had a difficult time even explaining what TVMama is trying to cover, let alone the technical aspects of the whole thing.
What I mean is that this world is so far ahead of the average TV user (even one comfy with remotes, cell phones, cable set-top boxes and the like), that it is far from becoming mainstream.
We’re waiting for something simple and clean that will get a wide variety of downloaded and streamed content from our computer to our TV. We want to be freed from cable programs that cost us $hundreds a month, but we want live programming, breaking news, the Olympics, sports and the like on our TV.
So, why, for example, can’t we get MLB-TV on anything but our computer screen, and even then badly?
This is going to be what TV Mama harps on day in and day out until something comes forward. We’ve acknowledged that AppleTV is a first step; adding YouTube is a second step. Rumors that Google may buy Apple are another step.
Sony’s Bravia Internet product is a step backwards, as it is a closed system (Oops. There go the Sony ads we had hoped for.) Microsoft’s closed system on the xBox360 is a zero-sum game (Oh, oh, Microsoft ads, too.)
So, maybe it’s one step forward, two steps backwards.
But what TVMama wants is convergence for the rest of us – convergence for all of us. We don’t want it to be a niche effort for the hackers and geeks, but for the little people.
Anyone out there doing that?
