Technology360

VeohNet P2P video distribution released

"... Veoh software, installed on consumers’ PCs or Macs, creates a virtual television network that is able to distribute TV-quality, full-screen broadcast video to hundreds of millions of users with broadband Internet connections. Motion picture studios, television networks, organizations and individuals can publish unlimited amounts of broadcast video content to the network, providing consumers with unparalleled choice in television programming and control over their viewing experience. VeohNet was specifically designed to provide DMCA compliance, while traditional systems do not take compliance into account enabling the rampant piracy of intellectual property. A beta version of Veoh’s software and service will be available later this month. Content producers and consumers are encouraged to visit www.veoh.com to sign up for notification upon launch. ..."  Link:  Veoh press release.

"... Because Veoh delivers television programming over the internet, it is unencumbered by restrictions imposed on traditional broadcasters by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and the traditional costs of broadcasting. This allows broadcasters to produce innovative new content that has never been seen on television, and distribute that content throughout the world.  Veoh provides a secure delivery system that prevents piracy and provides publishers unprecedented control over their content. ..."  Link:  Veoh.com home page.

Actually, it's revenue from audiences that enables broadcasters to produce innovative new content.  Thanks to David Liroff for the tip.  --Dennis

Early Adopters Remain Primary Market for Portable Media Players

"... In order for the Portable Media Player (PMP) market to reach beyond early adopters, several issues must be addressed, reports In-Stat.  These factors include high price points, digital rights management (DRM) issues, and perhaps most importantly, the increased availability of video content from download video service providers.  ...¶... A recent report by In-Stat found the following:

- Early adopters will remain the primary market for PMPs this year
- The mass market is not yet willing to pay the hefty price tag for PMPs, which is approximately $400 to $500.
- PMPs are competing with other converged devices such as handheld gaming devices, smarter PDAs, and portable DVD players
- By 2009, In-Stat forecasts that worldwide PMP shipments will reach 7.5 million units. ..." 
Link:  In-Stat.

Next Steps for IBOC Are Critical

Skip Pizzi writes:  "... Therefore, notwithstanding the industry's recent embrace of the multicasting movement, full approval in its current form is not necessarily assured. And despite its seemingly rosy future at present, the adoption of any significantly burdensome or costly new regulatory requirements for broadcasters who implement multicasting could kill the movement as quickly as it arose.  ¶  If multicasting truly is IBOC's killer app, how the final rules read on it will be critical to the U.S. digital radio transition as a whole - perhaps more than any other single regulatory element. ..."  Link:  Radio World.

The Premature Death of HD Radio

Mark Ramsey writes:  "The HD Radio path we are galloping down is a treacherous one. And the future of our industry hangs in the balance.  ¶  HD Radio has been much examined by the engineers and sellers and owners and programmers. But from what I can tell, not a single consumer marketer has ever tried to make sense of it.  ¶  Until now.  ¶  Will HD Radio die a premature and ignominious death? I hope not. But the difference between the success of, say, digital photography and the failure of, say, AM stereo is the difference between understanding the way consumers think and ignoring it.  ¶  So far, we're ignoring it.  ¶  Here are the reasons HD Radio could die on the vine - unless you and I do something about it now. ..."  Link:  Radio World.

Truth and Beauty: future challenges for BBC and public service broadcasting

Lord John Birt, former BBC director general, gave the James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture at the Edinburgh International Television Festival last Friday.  Rafat Ali's paidContent.org has several quotes from it, including:

"The awesome challenge for the next generation of leaders in public service broadcasting will be to maintain universality amidst fragmentation.  The task: to reach out to every kind of individual in an interactive media world which will offer an increasingly personalised viewing experience, in which the old linear broadcast channels will become progressively less important." 

Here's link to the full text.  Well worth reading though you may wish to skip past the lengthy reminiscences at the beginning to the section headed, The Role of Broadcasting.  Thanks to Stephen Hill for the tip.  --Dennis

"Getting" podcasting

Doug Kaye, impresario of ITConversations and author of a recent essay called "The Future of Public Radio" to which I linked, has been engaged in a weblog dialog with Mark Ramsey, founder and president of Mercury Radio Research.  The dialog is worth reading for broadcasters because it neatly gathers most of the "hits vs. niches" arguments raised since Chris Anderson's The Long Tail article gave birth to this new meme.

Doug began this dialog:  "I don’t normally comment on individual IT Conversations shows here on my blog, and it’s even rarer for me to take exception to what one of our guests has to say, but I found Rob Greenlee’s interview with Mark Ramsey of Mercury Radio Research so fascinating that I can’t help myself. In less than 45 minutes Mark managed to highlight almost everything that big-media broadcasting doesn’t understand about participatory media. I don’t want to pick on Mark, who I’ve never met and who is probably very good at what he does, but some of his quotes are true classics of a way of thinking that will ultimately be the demise of traditional large-scale media. Consider, the following from this show:

“[Podcasts should be] original, unique and broad-based, compelling content…Star content is what drives everything…If I podcasted with any zeal…my greatest hope and desire would be that I would be discovered by radio and put on a radio station or a network that has reach and distribution. That’s what it’s all about.”

This guy needs to read about the long tail and get a clue what makes most of us tick. ..."  Link:  Blogarithms.

Mark continues it:  "...Why all the mud-slinging? Because I did an interview with Rob Greenlee of IT Conversations where I diminished the enthusiasm of the indie world of podcasting and predicted that the big names in entertainment would coopt podcasting as they coopt all other aspects of the entertainment universe (and this was BEFORE iTunes carried Podcasts and the big Radio names jumped into the market).  ¶ The indies don't like that opinion. ..."  Link:  Radio Marketing Nexus.

Most recently, though perhaps not finally, Doug has a rejoinder to Mark's reply:  "... Mark’s idea of a revolution is apparently one in which mass can only be built by the combination of a small number of large players. But the same mass can be built by combining a large number of small players. There will be 50,000 podcasters by the end of 2006, and together – not individually – they will be significant. ..."  Link:  Blogarithms.  --Dennis

BBC TV channels to be put on net

"The BBC's TV channels will be made available on the internet, BBC Director General Mark Thompson has confirmed.  ¶  He announced plans for the MyBBCPlayer - which will allow viewers to legally download seven days of programmes - at the Edinburgh Television Festival. ..."  Link:  BBC News.

BBC confirms download app, channel multicasting.  "BBC Director General Mark Thompson has confirmed that the world's biggest public service broadcaster will start multicasting its main television channels online and offer a PVR-style application, following a review of the organization's Royal Charter next year. ..."  Link:  PVRWire.

At TiVo, a Risk of Being Skipped Over

Laura Rich has a long interview with Thomas S. Rogers, the new CEO of TiVo, in which he says,  "... The other set of things that we hope will really keep us at the cutting edge so that TiVo continues to be set apart as a brand are the advanced television applications. The things that have really begun to resound with consumers. Mobility in television: you’re on a business trip, take your television shows with you. The kids want to take their shows on a family trip – the ability to do that with TiVo-To-Go, the announcement we made with Microsoft not long ago. The ability to remotely record something: You’re at work, you here about a great show from other people, you say, “Oh, I’m not going to be home in time, what do I do?” You can go right into the Web site and from there make sure your own TiVo from home records the show. You have multiple television sets in a household and you’ve recorded something on one set, but now you’re in the bedroom and you want to watch it on another – the networking of your TiVos to be able to send shows from television to television.  ¶  The ability to take shows from the Internet, which is a growing source of video, which today people don’t think is a full television experience, but over time, all that video coming in over the Internet may be an increasingly important part of what people think of as television. But it’s only going to be real television if you get it from your broadband wire, that now goes to your computer, and actually get it to your TV. Well, that’s not an easy thing to make sure that that stuff shows up on your television in the same menu, easily accessed in the way regular channels do. And TiVo is right at the cutting edge of doing that. So those are the kinds of things that I think will distinguish TiVo from a consumer point of view. The advertising capability distinguishes it from an industry point of view, assuming we continue to do that in a consumer-friendly way. ..."  Link:  New York Times.

Email subscription option

You can now subscribe to daily email updates of complete Technology360.com postings powered by FeedBlitz.  Enter your email address in the dialog box on the right and it will take you through a (very) light registration and verification process.  So far as I can determine, FeedBlitz does not have a weekly summary option, so I will continue to provide that via Topica to existing subscribers there.  --Dennis

WiMax Keeps Gathering Momentum

Kenneth M. Leon (Standard & Poor's) writes:  "... A number of recent developments since my last column (see ... "Here Comes WiMax World") indicate that all of the pieces are coming together for WiMax service.  ¶  We at Standard & Poor's Equity Research feel confident that WiMax service will be commercially available in 2006. Trials by telecommunications carriers around the world are already under way. ¶  We believe WiMax is the ultimate complement to Wi-Fi, capable of back-hauling wireless hot spots and wireless LANs (local area networks) to the Internet, providing campus connectivity, and offering a wireless alternative to cable and DSL for last-mile broadband access. It has a service range of up to 50 kilometers and provides data rates of up to 280 megabits per second per base station. ..."  Link:  BusinessWeek.