The savvy guide to the Internet-TV connection

One would think that Apple would want to pump as much video material as possible onto iTunes as they promote Apple TV and launch a new and improved video iPod, but in a surprising turn, Apple announced that it would be cutting NBC programming from their lineup.

Apple claims that NBC refused to renew its contract after Apple balked at paying fees that would more than double the retail price of episodes from $1.99 to $4.99.

Cory Shields, executive vice president of communications for NBC Universal said “It is clear that Apple’s retail pricing strategy for its iTunes service is designed to drive sales of Apple devices, at the expense of those who create the content that make these devices worth buying.”

Their contract ends in December, but Apple has announced that it will not be selling episodes from the new fall season because it did not want to have to pull programs midway through the season. Old episodes will continue to be for sale until December.

This means that popular programs including “The Office” and “Heroes,” both of which rank in the top-10 list of iTunes sales will no longer be sold. Apple says that NBC content accounts for 30 percent of its video sales.

NBC has less reason to be concerned. They have been successfully streaming many programs including “The Office” and “Heroes” from their website, and in the fall NBC is planning on launching an online video portal called Hulu, which will feature some of NBC’s shows.

This dissolution questions the future of online video content. Apple may not be able to maintain its near monopoly on legal downloads.

“Apple must face the fact that charging flat rates for television programs of varying lengths and vintage will not resonate with an industry for which advertising is its lifeblood,” Allen Weiner, an analyst with Gartner Inc., said. “This is especially true with the number of competitors who are streaming the same programs for free.”

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Blogger Alan Pritt tells of helping his grandparents install a new TV in their house and how complicated it is:

Right now there are gaping holes in the market for products that are simple to use. Not just for Granddad, but for everyone that would prefer not to spend their vacation time reading instruction manuals.

The only hope I can see on the horizon is, yet again, Apple. The Apple TV is not yet good enough to replace my Grandparent’s complete setup, but I believe it will be in good time. It would just be nice if someone beat them to it. They need some proper competition. Maybe Sony are working on something in secret?

What, he hasn’t read the TVMama post about Sony Bravia’s Internet hook-up?
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Win an AppleTV at HungryFlix, a indie film and video content (pay) download site (Hint: You need a PayPal account).
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No DVD slot? He won’t buy an Apple TV.

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An iMac launch event discussion at Apple’s auditorium brought about a small news nugget for Apple TV fans. Steve Jobs said his company would “have some news” for the media hub soon but that a Mac-focused event was not the place for discussion.

Apple Fanboys quickly began speculating the news may be software related. If it’s software related, we would love it to mean more openness in the software that will allow us to watch streaming video from sites like Joost or aggregators like VeohTV or Miro, which would truly make Apple TV a set-top box worth using.

But could it be that the next-gen Apple TV’s will not require a live computer to be working at the time of use? We would love it if Apple TV became a computer-free box like TiVo, Digeo’s new line of Moxies or the (now-vaporware Vudu).

Another improvement many have asked for is a DVD slot. Sometimes we don’t want to have the computer turned on and just want to use a disk we have rented from the neighborhood store, or gotten from a friend or received in the mail from Netflix. Or even listen to a CD we have lying around (or our kids do when we have the laptop at work).

Why make us use another machine, Steve? Gather it all in Apple TV (After all, if Apple TV is really the “Mac Nano V.0.9,” then adding a CD/DVD slot should be a simple thing, no?

Whatever it is, we hope it will enhance a product with more potential than substance at this time.

Oh, yes, what about kicking up the picture quality to true HD? We’ve seen a lot of complaints about AppleTV’s poor picture quality, and the product has not been getting the best reviews.

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Earlier this week we ran comments from a variety of media professionals on how they use Internet TV and PC-TV devices (if any). These are real people in media businesses, so pay attention to what they are saying:

Andrew Nachison, President & CEO, iFOCOS, “a think tank and community of innovators committed to harnessing the power of media, communication and human ingenuity for the common good”: “The distinction between my computer and my TV is blurred. At home, my computer is also my TV - a Windows Media Center PC connected to cable and functioning like a TiVo. I don’t have a giant screen connected - just a standard 17-inch LCD. But I could go bigger if I wanted. So that computer might be used to watch YouTube videos; or it might be used to watch recorded television; or it might be used to watch videos from iTunes; or my own videos. Sometimes I’ll be sitting in front of the screen and using the keyboard; sometimes I’ll be sitting further away, on a couch, and using a remote.

“But that’s just one screen. I spend more of my time with my laptop, which is not used as a PVR, but which is used for YouTube, iTunes - and good old fashioned DVD’s rented from Netlix. It’s a Mac - so it can not access the Netflix video-on-demand service. I can’t wait for that to work on a Mac, and I’m pissed it doesn’t now.

“I don’t have a video iPod and I don’t crave video on my phone. In time I’m sure I’ll have it, but it’s not a big deal to me. For mobile, good email with my Blackberry and phone calls everywhere are much more important to me right now.

“A key observation: behaviors are not uniform. Everyone I know has a personalized, unique set of viewing habits.”

(Editor: Whew. Andrew knows his stuff.)

Jeffrey Gluck, Director, New Media Communications, IBM Corporate Communications (Disclaimer: these are Jeff’s personal thoughts and do not represent official IBM policy): Apple seems to have the early lead with AppleTV. As has been pointed out, it certainly has flaws. However, I have to give them some credit for taking something technically difficult - moving video from your PC to your TV - and making it easy in much the same way they have done with music, while at the same time putting into place a business model that is legal and not based on what pretty much amounts to stealing the work of others.

“On the other hand, I’m a big believer in open standards. Apple’s system is more closed than it should be, and while that certainly brings advantages, I’d rather see some agreement worldwide on the base-level technologies. I don’t see the issue as being very different from standards in other areas, including highways, nuts and bolts, or electrical power systems. Let companies compete on higher-level products and services built on open standards.

“Internet video is way too hard to deal with right now, with many different file formats and resolutions, and as bad as it is in the PC world, the issues in the mobile device arena are even worse. Eventually, the marketplace and technology will sort out the issues, but it’s going to take some time. When that happens, I, like many others, can envision a world where content can move trouble-free from your PC to your TV to your cell phone anywhere in the world.

“By the way, we’ve upgraded computers a few times and I’ve had to move iTunes music libraries to new PC’s, which is way too hard. Steve Jobs is right about digital rights management technology: It’s a real showstopper for the industry, and for people who believe in the rights of intellectual property owners. People who want to steal are doing it anyway, and all DRM technology is doing is frustrating the folks who are trying to play by the rules.

Assaf Shilo, owner of Israel Sun photo agency: I usually drag whatever I download to a Disk on Key and plug it to my NIS 150 (Ed: About $45) DVD and watch on my 42″ LCD. Quality is mostly as good as the normal HOT or YES TV (Ed: Israeli cable and satellite providers). This is where entertainment is going.”

Charles Knight, editor, AltSearchEngines.com: I’m afraid I’ve never been able to switch to ‘watching’ my PC. I’m still 100% DVD + TV.”

Mark Glaser, columnist for Mediashift, a PBS project, freelance writer: “I watch TV on my TV at the moment, and web video and video blogs on my computer. I’m not a fan of long-form video on my computer, mainly because I work on a computer most of the day.

“I’d rather chill in front of a TV than a computer, if possible, and my DVR helps me watch what I want when I want it. If there
was an easy way to get web video on my TV I might consider it, though I doubt it would look good on an HDTV.”

 Zack Miller, Vice President, Investments at Profile Investment Services, Ltd., and contributor to Israel Newsletter: “I am not a heavy user of downloaded video content (audio is a different story). What I do download, I end up burning onto a DVD and watching it on my TV.” 

There you have it, folks. Serious commentary by savvy professionals. All in all, we’ve got a long way to go before making the PC-TV connection seamless and mass market.

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Apple TV may be able to pull content off your computer and put it on your TV, but it can’t do something far simpler: turn off.

In browsing the Apple Support Discussion forum, it is clear that many Apple TV users don’t like the lack of an on/off switch. Some are concerned that keeping it on all the time could hurt the device; others worry about the wasted energy and the consequent damage to the environment (not to mention their electric bills).

AppleTV does have a standby mode that can be activated by holding down the play/pause button, but the amount of time the button needed to be held varied from unit to unit, causing some confusion amongst forum participants. Furthermore, even in standby mode many users were still concerned about the amount of energy the device wastes.

“Even in standby mode AppleTV remains quite warm to the touch, almost hot. It absolutely must be drawing a considerable amount of power in standby mode. I’m surprised Apple didn’t design this thing to be more green (what with Al Gore on the board), and I’m very disappointed,” said one post.

However, it appears that the heat generated by the device owes more to a lack of a cooling system than a waste of energy. One forum participant claimed the Apple TV uses a maximum of 48 watts when on based on the device’s specs, while another claimed that he measured that his unit used 17-19 watts while in use and 13.8 watts after having been in standby mode for a couple of days. Apple TV may not qualify for an Energy Star rating, but leaving it on all the time certainly consumes less energy than leaving on your computer or refrigerator.

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In the past decade, Apple’s specialty has been creating user-friendly products. The iPod popularized mp3 players even though others were already on the market, and Mac users are more loyal than users of any other computer brand.

No one is surprised that Apple TV is the most user-friendly PCTV convergence product on the market. Optimists had hoped that the advent of Apple TV would usher in a new era in which even more TV options (like we don’t have enough already) would stream seamlessly from the home computer to the television by means of a device as easy to use as your television’s remote control.

Instead, Apple TV is being dubbed “the least successful Apple product this decade.” Read the rest of this entry »

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I had an interesting conversation with a Microsoftie at BlogFerence the other day. We got to talking about the core mission of TVMama, which is to help people get their online content out of the small box (their laptop or desktop) and onto their big box (that yummy 42-52″ plasma set hanging on the wall of their media room) or onto their really tiny box (iPod or Archos 604 or something).

The first part of the conversation went well. The Microsoftie was explaining to me how he watches cable, satellite and over-the-air TV without having cable or satellite or even a good antenna. He pulls it all in through his Microsoft Media Center and uses a Media Center remote control. But wait. That only works with a handful of TV shows and stations that are optimized for that.

So, for everything else, he has to use his Media Center keyboard and he has to have the computer itself in the room with the TV.

“It is a computer,” he said. (Right, and a noisy one at that, so I am told.)

But then he can do anything (well, except what it says you have to add or buy - see these Microsoft Windows Vista footnotes….

OK, I said, so, how much does it cost (if you can even find one to buy. Did anyone other than Microsofties buy them after they came out in 2005?) In Israel, a good price is about $1,000.

I see; that’s not so bad. How much is AppleTV? $299 - less than one-third of the price - or $399 with 160GB hard-drive. And the Apple remote has four buttons on a wheel and the Microsoft remote has how many???? And how many has Microsoft sold?

Don’t take my word for it. Old GigaOm himself went over this in some depth more than a year ago, and concluded “that ease of use is what Microsoft did not think about….Microsoft lost the plot, and did too much with the platform, which was truly made for early-early adopters. They should have seeded the market with a simpler product. They could have convinced a lot of people to start using their platform, because it was a virgin market they could have simply owned. Microsoft in my opinion, overreached.”

I don’t get the impression that Media Center has been a big hit. Am I wrong? It may be a favorite toy of a handful of geeks and those who have drunk Microsoft’s Kool-Aid (see our Microsoftie above), but it’s not the media streamer/media extender/ PC-TV convergence device we want. Is it the one you want? Tell your TVMama.

Update: A real “build-it-yourself” techie says the new Media Center software is “downright seamless, even elegant.” But it still requires a computer in the living room. In fact, this guy (Scott Taves) loves it so much, he says you should put it in the HTPC (home theater PC) he tells you how to build in the aforementioned article. It’s only $1,648, he says. How does that compare with Archos TV+ or Apple TV?

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What, you don’t have iTunes? You don’t have new iTunes 7.3? What are you waiting for. Get it here.

OK. Now that you’ve got it, here are some new things you can do with it: use it to work AppleTV. You’ve heard of, right? It’s that media streaming thingie made by the people who used to make computers and now make cell phones. Actually, Apple Inc. still makes computers only: iPhone is a “Mac Nano” in disguise, and AppleTV is the cheapest Mac Mini.

The 7.3 update (Apple propaganda follows) “can now activate iPhone service and sync it with your music, TV shows, movies and more. Also, you can now wirelessly share and enjoy your favorite digital photos from any computer in your home with Apple TV.” (end company propaganda)

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Lawyer and tech analyst Ranjit “a.k.a. Ron, never Ronny, and for godsakes not Ronnie” Mathoda (hat tip to Seeking Alpha, which reprints his stuff from his blog) has lined up the case for and against media streamers like AppleTV and the others we feature here on TVMama vs. good ole’ DVD’s. Let’s see what he says, and then we’ll have our say:

His reasons why Internet distribution is better than DVD:

1. It’s cheaper to do marketing through teases with content snippets and sharing. YouTube ratings and Facebook’s social graph let people know what content their communities prefer.

2. It’s easier to allow people to upload. Only a select few get DVD’s made. Anyone can share their video online.

3. It’s easier to encrypt on the Internet.

4. The Internet interface can be revised and updated, as will Internet-connected consumer devices.

His reasons on the other side of the equation:

The ways the Internet is inferior are:

1. It’s cheaper to move large amounts of data on discs than by copying bits. (Trucks are cheaper than the Web - for the moment.) He says the advantage trucks enjoy is diminishing, because the Internet is evolving swiftly and peer to peer file sharing systems dramatically lower distribution costs.

2. Legally it’s cheaper to move discs then to copy bits. Copyright law requires you to obtain rights to copy bits electronically but lets you move them around physically without permission.

3. It’s painful to hook up the Internet to hi-def TV (for now).

The trend (as Ranjit sees it):

1. The Internet is going to become a better place to market, upload, store and encrypt data than physical discs.

It’s unlikely the legal cost advantage of physical distribution will disappear - unless DRM becomes a dead issue (iTunes, anyone?). But the growing Internet advertising market will draw more professional content online. (see under: Joost)

Internet-to-hi-def will improve, he says. We agree with that - that’s the whole idea behind TVMama - to write about and advocate for easier/better/faster/cheaper media streamers and interfaces.

Well, I guess we agree with him on all counts. Score one for the web. Will this occur before 2007 ends or not? That’s what I doubt.

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Editor’s note: TVMama contributor E. Blasberg has put several significant predictions into this item. Take a moment to read all of it, because he builds his case carefully and compellingly.

By E. Blasberg

First there was the VCR (anyone remember Betamax?). The VCR allowed you to time shift and preserve your television viewing (provided you could figure out how to program it; I think more people had 00:00:00 blinking in their living rooms than would care to admit it).

Twenty-three years later came the next major advance: TiVO (I’m not counting DVD’s because no one records on to them from the air or cable). TiVO let you timeshift your viewing in a much easier way, but essentially it was a VCR on steroids (not a new idea in and of itself, but the way it allowed you to record shows was orders of magnitude ahead, plus it saved you lots of money on tapes).

Then came AppleTV. Now you can not only watch TV shows and movies that you’ve bought online or put on your computer in your living room, but you can play music from any playlist you had set up in iTunes for your iPod or see any photo album you created in iPhoto or watch any home movies you’d made with your digital video camera. You can even watch YouTube on your TV, and who knows what else may be coming down the pike for this device in its infancy (e.g., online TV shows and movie rentals in real-time)?

Now, as I’ve argued previously, AppleTV surely is (or soon will be) a paradigm shift of immense magnitude. But only for your living room. What if I want to multitask my TV viewing? What if I want to watch TV on the bus or subway or airplane? Why “waste” those transport hours when I could be watching the latest episode of Lost on a stunning, 3.5″ crystal clear screen?

Two paradigm shifts in one year? Maybe. I am, of course, referring to the iPhone. The next greatest “must have” gadget of this decade.

True, the iPhone is primarily a cell phone. True, video has been available on the 5G iPod for some time. But not in this quality, with this much ease of use and not with a full web browser (for watching web videos). It even does email.

But the ultimate secret about the iPhone is that Apple completely misnamed this device. And they did it on purpose. The true name of this portable media player/cell phone/Internet device is the “Mac Nano.” For you see, it’s actually running Mac OS X. So, while Apple’s billing this thing as a phone, what they’re really set to do is literally double the installed base of Macintosh users over the next 18 months. That’s right: 18 months. Mark my words: they will sell not 10 million by December 2008 (as Steve Jobs conservatively estimated at MacWorld this past January), but 25 million in that time-frame.

Being as there are about 23 million Macs around now, by December 2008 there should be easily 50-60 million computing devices running OS X. And that, my friends, is Steve Jobs’ true evil genius (well, it’s only really evil if you’re Micro$oft).

No one (to my knowledge) has mentioned this point as yet, but it’s one worth bearing in mind. The iPhone, like it’s sister AppleTV, is in its infancy. Once a method for developing real applications is released, this little device will really come into its own (can you say “Skype on the iPhone”?). In the meantime, Apple will sell tens of millions. And then they’ll start ads like: If your first Mac was an iPhone, wait until you see what you can do with its big sister the MacBook. If you know how to use an iPhone, you already know how to use a MacBook or iMac because they all work the same way.

Like the beginning of the end of an ice age, I’m calling June 29, 2007, the beginning of the end of desktop computing as 93% of the world knows it.

And, oh, by the way, it’s also the beginning of true, high-resolution mobile TV viewing as well.

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