The savvy guide to the Internet-TV connection

I remember the first time I heard the name YouTube. At the time, YouTube wasn’t nearly the giant it is today. It is currently the fourth most visited website according to Alexa.com. People upload homemade videos and their favorite movies, music videos and TV shows.

However, YouTube isn’t the only game in town. In fact, according to PCWorld, it’s not even the best game in town.

Blip.tv was the highest rated. Uploading is easy if not a little slow, and users are given the option to upload thumbnails or to have one created for them. Blip.tv converts files into mediocre quality Flash 8 video, but unlike any other similar site, you can also stream or download the original high-quality file that you first uploaded. Uploaders can also give downloaders the option to download files in multiple video formats, and the site provides multiple HTML code options for embedding videos.

DivX Stage6 took second place. It is the only service that allows users with standard accounts to upload hi-def video. You have to convert your file to DivX format, but this is accomplished easily with conversion software to which there is a link on the site. Their video quality was the best after sites that support original-source files. However, the website can take anywhere from 10 minutes to a day to process your video, as compared to Blip.tv, where your video goes live almost immediately.

YouTube placed seventh. It certainly lays claim to the largest audience and the most content. However, it has some limitations. Videos can only be a maximum of 10 minutes, and the picture quality from Flash 7 is not as good as competitors. Higher quality, H.264-fortmat videos are available to AppleTV and iPhone users but not yet to the general public. Uploading is easy, and the videos are live soon after. YouTube features several privacy options including allowing videos to be viewed only by you and your friends.

For the full review, check out PCWorld.

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We couldn’t say it better, so we won’t. AppleTVHacks.net has an “open letter” to the Jobster asking that AppleTV be opened up to third-party developers.

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Now that we’ve heard the news that D-Link is planning to start selling a faster home media extender to compete with Apple TV, the item continues to beg the question - why only downloaded media and not anything that’s on the computer, such as live Skype phone calls (audio and video) and streaming media (such as MLB.tv)?

The unnamed D-Link media extender (probably will be called some version of its existing “Media Lounge“) is designed to compete with AppleTV, which does the same thing - will cost more and do less than the Addlogix InternetVue - which basically turns your TV into your computer’s TV screen. This device will allow streaming video to be seen “live” on your TV, and will allow you to watch “live” video from the many new streaming media video networks out there (MyDamnChannel, VeohTV, Joost, etc., and etc.)

Even more interesting is D-Link’s interest in this market, which has responded to AppleTV in an underwhelming fashion, by many accounts. We think this is the next step - to connect the PC/Mac to other media (Slingbox’s reverse product - TV on your computer is a nice niche device of interest only to a few techies, as far as we can see). This suggests to us that there is a sense that this market will take off if the right device is introduced into the system. Make it as simple to use as the remote control we have now (point and click, as it were), and the industry will take off.

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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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Satisfy your inner geek with these tidbits:

1) Comprehensive and mostly comprehensible reviews of three TV tuners for the Mac from Network Computing.

2) Software download ($29) of a DVD to Apple TV converter from Daniusoft.

3) If you really must play around with things you’re not supposed to, at least get some guidance. Here’s a websiteappletvhacks.net whose name says it all (probably good for SEO).

4) Apple released iTunes 7.3.2 supposedly providing bug fixes to improve stability and performance, but it caused AppleTV’s around the world to start crashing. Here’s how to fix it. (Unrelated, but related: the Quicktime 7.2 released last week also caused video to go down on thousands of computers. Go to Apple support discussions to read the tales of woe from QuickTime users whose only crime was to download the latest version. It seems that everything else related to QT needed updating too, like Flash, Adobe Reader and Shockwave, among other files, but Apple didn’t bother to tell us).

5) Miglia’s VideoExpress offers hardware video converter for Apple TV, iPhone, iPod.

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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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Phillip Swann of TVPredictions made a couple of useful observations recently:

1. The quality of Internet video shown streaming or downloaded on full-sized TV screens must improve. He described AppleTV’s current video picture as “grainy and nearly unwatchable. It’s a total embarrassment and it should disturb a company with Apple’s reputation for quality. I’m told that Sony’s Bravia Link will look better, but we’ll see.”

He has company in that opinion, as evidenced by this piece, and this piece and this particularly colorful one (”If you want to know what the picture quality is like, do a couple Tequila shots, spin around a few times, bang your head against the floor, and then watch broadcast TV on an old 19″ JVC.)

Not everybody has been so underwhelmed, of course. CNet Australia gave picture quality a qualified thumbs-up and Macworld described it as having solid picture quality.

Swann’s other point is also worth discussing: The Internet TV feature must be part of the consumer’s existing TV service. He describes it as critical. “Americans have set-top fatigue, and they are not going to the store to buy yet another one just so they can watch a short video from the Internet on their TV’s.”

That’s a key point as far as we are concerned. Only a handful of geeks (they’re over-represented on the Web, so their voices tend to dominate the discussion) will put up with complicated systems, hacks, and multiple gadgets. My wife doesn’t want anything in the room along with the TV.

I’ll let Swann say it, but I agree wholeheartedly: “When Internet TV is a seamless service offered by your cable or satellite operator for a monthly fee (and no upfront equipment cost), it will begin to generate a serious audience in this country.”

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The Amazon-TiVo announcement, which TVMama viewers already knew about (Where have you all been? TiVo has been advertising the service already – see the ad on the right side of the page. And the video above on how to do it is one month old!), is gathering a lot of reaction today.

Nevertheless, the official press announcement caused the official press to comment on it. Rick Aristotle Munarriz of Motley Fool notes that it is problematic for Netflix, whose own instant viewing download service (a freebie given to Netflix subscribers) has recorded only 5 million views since it launched six months ago.

Munarriz called that total “low when you consider that Netflix has 6.8 million subscribers. In other words, the average subscriber has checked out 0.75 movies or commercial-free TV episodes through the service since January.” He says services like Unbox on TiVo will threaten Netflix. Who will want to watch downloads on little computer screens (the Netflix service) when they can be seen on the TV, he asks (and rightly – we say).

Stephen Withers of ITWire in Australia notes: “Most of us realize that watching movies on computers is the pits. That’s why the video streaming features of Apple TV and Xbox 360 have caused a stir. However, Amazon and digital video recording provider TiVo have conspired to take the PC out of the picture with a new service that enables viewers to download movies directly to their TiVo PVRs.”

He described it as “a much simpler process than downloading content to a PC or Mac, and then having to sync or stream it to a device….is also a lot less trouble than hooking a computer up to the TV.”

Agreed! Even tech geeks complain about being unable to sync their POC’s and TV’s.

But the Amazon announcement doesn’t mean its approach will dominate the marketplace. Thomas Claburn of Information Week says “the instant gratification factor will likely make NetFlix customers…think twice about continuing to receive NetFlix DVDs through the mail,” but also notes that instant gratification for a two-hour movie takes about one hour even for those with a 5-Mbps broadband connection.

What this all boils down to is that we don’t have a single device or methodology of getting online content out of the box and onto the TV. Some will prefer a relatively simply device such as AppleTV; others won’t even want to add an extra device, but will want to control it all from the remote and the couch. But all of these systems have their glitches. It’s going to be a while before all the dust settles, and TVMama will be here throughout the shakeout to guide you along the way.

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We tried to get an interview with Phil Shapiro, president of Consumer Electronics Association of America, but only got as high up the food chain as Jason Oxman, vice president, communications. Well, we’re not the New York Times.

One of the good things about email Q&A’s is they take place in virtual time, and you can conduct a lot of them. The downside is it is difficult to ask a follow-up question in real time, and it is easy for people (particularly professional PR flacks like Mr. Oxman) to edit themselves and stay on message. The best part is we can add our own commentary afterward.

With that caveat, here is part one of my interview with the aforementioned Mr. Oxman (with my additional comments interpolated in italics).

TVMama: Is “convergence” between the PC and the TV going to happen in 2007? Do people want it to?

JO: For years, we have talked about convergence as the inclusion of multiple functions in a single device. But now, attendees at the 2007 International CES, and consumers worldwide, are beginning to see a new convergence, which combines consumer electronics products and services in new ways. The consumer technology and content worlds are beginning to truly intertwine and will continue to do so, in order to provide greater connectivity for consumers.
Consumer technology products strive for one common goal – to make the lives of consumers more convenient and to make information more accessible. (TVMama – Cough, cough. I’m glad this answer came in on email; I don’t think I could have continued without a coughing fit.) Consumers in 2007 and beyond will see a surge in portable content devices, which will provide their content anywhere they want – in the home, in the car or on the go.

TVMama: Is AppleTV the killer app in this field? If so, why? If not, why, and is there a killer app yet?

JO: AppleTV is one example of the great products on the market right now providing convergence for consumers. Computers are becoming media centers; the Slingbox sends content around the world, Archos media players enable WiFi downloads of movies – these products enable consumers to access their own content, whether in their home or thousands of miles away. The portability of content was a key trend that emerged at the 2007 CES and we will continue to see an explosion of portable content devices, created to make the lives of consumers more convenient and content more readily available.

TVMama: Have you heard of USBTV, a USB device for bringing media content to the TV from SanDisk?

JO: USBTV is another example of the incredible products the consumer technology industry has created which provide consumers with another means to view their content. This device allows consumers to download content from their computer and watch it on the display of their choice. (TVMama: Puffery. No real sightings of USBTV yet, despite SanDisk promises.)

TVMama: Do the PVR’s, Xbox360’s and others that have some streaming capability work well and smoothly for the non-geek world?

JO: Devices and technologies that allow streaming capabilities have become increasingly easy to use and are becoming widely adopted around the globe. The implementation of industry standards and protocols such as IP, create user friendly interfaces, which allows for an easier viewing experience for consumers. (TVMama: Truth or dare. Maybe they are “increasingly easy to use,” but they aren’t easy to use. Look at this clever and well-written diatribe from a MSM tech journo.)

More soon.

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