The “big 4” are no longer the de facto standard that they used to be, viewership of individual channels is lower, and the lines between when, where and how people watch TV is blurring rapidly. As with many old-school industries, they have desperately tried cling to their old business models and stifle innovation, only to succumb and participate in the change. The change to digital broadcasts will further degrade the dominance of the big broadcasters as more “free” TV watchers move to cable (or satelite); this will begin to seal the dominance of power wielded by cable companies like Comcast, Time Warner, and AT&T. We can now wait and observe how they fare; so far, this has not put a damper on the quality of the best content available for television.
But the more interesting battleground is in the slow crumbling of the divide between watching TV on a television and watching “television” on a computer driven device. This is the new turf where new combatants can slug it out equally with the big boys as well as other up and comers. There there are a variety of products that are bridging this gap and catering to new ways of watching TV content.
On the hardware side, televisions are becoming more powerful; notably, there are full-blown computers hidden inside many of them and an increasing number of models are including Internet connections and the ability to act as computer displays. There are products that are bringing TV content to the Internet and products that bring Internet content to the TV. Already, “new television” has matured enough that most of these products have recently expanded their features and are beginning to fight it out in these new feature territories.
If you are on the road a lot, then there are a great deal of options available to you that coincides with the growing ubiquity of broadband availability.
NETFLIX
Netflix revolutionized the movie rental space by making it easier and, arguably, more convenient to manage and rent movies while eliminating the hassle of worrying about rental fees through a subscription rental service. In addition to the unrivaled multitude of DVD titles that they have available, they have been slowly building a sub-catalog of content that subscribers can stream and play directly on their computer. Then, several months ago, they worked with Roku to develop a dedicated box that streams their content directly to a TV (without a computer). Within the last couple of months, they have extended this idea to bring Netflix content to LG and Samsung Blueray players, the Xbox360, and TiVo Series 3 and HD models. With many of the best TV serials available on DVD and streaming, some viewers are eschewing real-time broadcasts in favor of Netflix content. Netflix has adapted well to the changing world of video and may prove to be a winner in this war.
TIVO
Speaking of TiVo... a lot of the the current TV revolution can be traced to the advent of the TiVo. This may not have been the first “digital video recorder” (DVR or PVR, “programmable video recorder”), but it is the most usable and it is so well known that it has become a verb. Its user interface was so well designed that it survives essentially unchanged from its introduction.
Starting as a glorified VCR (video tape recorder), they have expanded beyond broadcast recording through partnerships with Internet content providers to build a palette of offerings that can be streamed or saved from the Internet for playback on a TV. They are bringing the immediacy of high quality movie downloads to the living room as well via Amazon's “Video on Demand” (née “Unboxed”) and, soon, Netflix. There is a deliberate goal of bringing the power of Internet connectivity to the traditional television form-factor.
I would like to take a moment to commend TiVo for their commitment to their customers by staving obsolescence of their older products through continuous feature additions through software upgrades. Such a rare demonstration of commitment to their products and customers in this day and age offsets the perceived high price of their service subscription. Sadly, they are not updating Series 2 models with the Netflix feature.
TiVo has now jumped to the other side of the TV-Computer chasm by teaming with Nero (of CD and DVD ripping, burning, and playing fame) to bring TiVo capabilities directly to a Windows-based PC. with the included hardware, all of the features of the TiVo are now directly available on the PC.
SLINGBOX
Another game changer, Sling Media introduced the Slingbox as a way to put traditional television onto the Internet to allow a person to watch their video device from anywhere there is a decent Internet connection on any kind of connected device, be it a computer or a mobile device. This may not be for everyone, but for those that travel a lot and miss their local broadcasts or don’t want to let their TiVo content build up before they get back home this is a beautiful solution.
With the broadening variety of compelling content on the web, Sling Media introduced Sling Catcher to bring that content to the television, overlapping some of TiVo’s more selective approach for bringing The Net to TV.
I should be interesting to exciting is their yet to be released sling.com web site that will allow streaming content from a variety of sources, including your Slingbox direct to a browser.
Summary
There is a lot going on in the world of television—I didn’t even address mobile video solutions or media specific computers. For the TV addict, they will have the flexibility to watch TV from your couch as always, but with a lot more content options. Traditional content providers are making much of their content available on the Web; there are now solutions to allow you to choose whether you want to watch from your computer screen or on your couch... or, indeed, from anywhere in the world.
Note: I own and am a big fan of TiVo, Slingbox, and Netflix. I have no financial interest in them, but I am cheering their success.
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