Technology360

PBCore metadata standard

The PBCore metadata standard is, IMHO, one of the most important and, arguably, the most progressive thing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has ever funded.  It's a necessary tool to enable public media to transition to the digital age -- assuming, of course, that public media's managers can find their way to the digital age. 

Marcia Brooks is directing the project from the Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family National Center for Accessible Media at WGBH in Boston and she's written a great article on it for the December 17th issue Current, the public broadcasting newspaper.  Current seems to delay posting its articles online for some reason, so the the Public Television Digital Archive has posted a copy of Get going in metadata today with this amazing free kit! online [PDF].  Nice job, Marcia, and thanks to Nan Rubin for posting this important overview.

Update 29 December 2007:  I see that the PDF has also been posted at the PBCore web site.

Update, 4 January 2008:
An HTML version is now posted at Current.  --Dennis

MovieBeam closes. Bad news for Vudu, AppleTV?

Steve O'Hear writes:

... MovieBeam, an early attempt at creating a consumer facing set-top box and accompanying movie service, has closed its doors after fours years in business.  ¶  Originally founded by The Walt Disney Company and later sold to U.S. video rental chain Movie Gallery, MovieBeam was designed to bypass Cable and Satelite providers by beaming movies wireless into the home. The set-top box came with dozens of movies already stored and ready for rental (at $5 a pop), with forty new titles refreshed each month. In total the device could store around a hundred movies at any one time. ...

Link:  last100.

O'Hear thinks this may be bad news for other new entrants in the set-top box market.  I don't doubt that set-top box fatigue (what David Liroff calls the "topple factor") is at work here.  But MovieBeam also faced impending delivery problems.  It was distributing movies over the small amount of ancillary data capacity of analog television stations, including many public television stations.  Those analog transmitters are going away in 13½ months.  While the replacement digital system has much more capacity, it will also, IMHO, come with much greater support costs due to the fragile reception issues inherent in the ATSC digital standard.  I wouldn't be surprised if that figured in MovieBeam's decision also.

But even without the set-top box, video downloading is a problematic business.  After less than a year, Wal-Mart has announced that it's closing its video download store.  Again, Steve O'Hear writes:

... In a bid to get all of the major studios on board, while at the same time not compete negatively with Wal-Mart’s traditional DVD sales, the service was plagued by high pricing and a ridiculously large dose of DRM (one Windows-PC only). It was doomed from the start. ...

Link:  last100.  --Dennis

Farewell to the Great CRT

Television engineering legend Charlie Rhodes has a wonderful history of television displays in an article of this name in TV Technology.  Thanks to Cliff Benham for the tip.  --Dennis

Leichtman study: persons aware of DTV transition still in minority

Leichtman Research Group has completed a new report, HDTV 2007: Consumer Awareness, Interest and Ownership, based on a survey of 1,300 U.S. households.  The following findings are from their press release:

• 37% strongly agree that they understand how the digital transition will affect their household
• 35% strongly agree that they care about how the digital transition will affect their household
• LRG estimates that there are about 35 million television sets in households that currently do not subscribe to a multi-channel video provider (and a similar number of over-the-air only television sets in multi-channel video households).  Among the group of non-subscribers to a multi-channel video service – who will be most impacted by the digital transition – overall, 19% are both aware of the digital transition and strongly agree that they understand how the digital transition will affect their household
• 56% of those in households with an annual income of over $75,000 say that they have heard of the digital transition – compared to 36% of those in households with an annual income under $75,000

The 43% of adults it identifies who have heard of the 2/19/2009 transition is up from one-third of adults a year ago.  But one has to wonder how many of these people think that, like the title of Leichtman's report, the digital transition means HDTV rather than how they receive their signals.  --Dennis

FCC’s 13th Annual Video Competition Report

The FCC is out with its annual report on video competition (news release with thanks to Bert Manfredi on the OpenDTV list).  I'll link to the full report when it's posted.  --Dennis

Here are specific findings from the news release:

• The number of TV households and the number of MVPD subscribers increased since the FCC released its last report. As of June 2006, there were 110.2 million TV households, compared to 109.6 million in June 2005. Of that number, approximately 95.8 million TV households subscribe to an MVPD service, versus 94.2 million as of June 2005.
• Section 612(g) of the Act states that: (1) “at such time as cable systems with 36 or more activated channels are available to 70 percent of households within the United States” and (2) “are subscribed to by 70 percent of the households to which such systems are available, the Commission may promulgate any additional rules necessary to provide diversity of information sources.” According to Warren Communications News, a source on which we have traditionally relied, 71.4 percent of households passed by cable systems offering 36 or more channels subscribe to these systems. However, other data sources do not demonstrate that the second prong has been met. As a result, we conclude that the only way to accurately measure the 70/70 test is to collect data directly from the cable industry.  Therefore, the Commission requires each cable operator to submit the following information for 2006 within 60 days under penalty of perjury: 1) the total number of homes the cable operator currently passes; 2) the total number of homes the cable operator currently passes with 36 or more activated channels; 3) the total number of subscribers; and 4) the total number of subscribers with 36 or more activated channels.
• Cable continues to serve the largest percentage of MVPD subscribers. The Report finds that as of June 2006, approximately 68.2 percent of MVPD subscribers received video programming from a franchised cable operator.
• DBS subscribers comprise the second largest group of MVPD households, representing 29 percent of total MVPD subscribers as of June 2006. DBS operators continue to add local-into-local broadcast television service. In approximately 175 of the 210 television markets, at least one DBS provider offers the signals of local broadcast stations.
• The number of MVPD subscribers choosing all other delivery technologies represented 2.6 percent of all subscribers in June 2006.
• The Nielsen Company estimated that, as of January 2007, 15.5 million households, or about 14 percent of all television households rely on over-the air television broadcasts for video programming.  In addition, many households that subscribe to an MVPD also rely on over-the-air signals to receive broadcast programming on some of their television sets.
• From June 30, 2005 to June 30, 2006, the number of commercial and noncommercial television stations rose from 1,747 to 1,753. As of January 2007, approximately 1,600 stations nationwide were on the air with DTV operations, including all 119 stations affiliated with the top-four network affiliates in the top 30 television markets.
• Incumbent local exchange carriers also are providing video service. At the end of 2006, Verizon reported that it offered video programming via FiOS TV to more than 2.4 million households in 200 cities in 10 states and served 207,000 subscribers. At the end of 2006, AT&T served approximately 11 cities through U-verse TV. In addition, Qwest has taken steps to provide IPTV service in its service area.
• As of June 2006, Broadband Service Providers (“BSPs”) served approximately 1.4 million subscribers, representing 1.5 percent of all MVPD households.
• Electric and gas utilities also provide MVPD and other services on a limited basis. The American Public Power Association, which represents more than 20,000 not-for-profit community and state-owned electric utilities, reports that the average subscriber penetration rate for its members offering video service was 50 percent of the homes passed by utility video services, and that 40 percent of these subscribers purchase a combination of video and high-speed Internet access service.
• The number of subscribers to private cable operator systems, also known as satellite master antenna systems, has declined to 900,000 subscribers as of 2006, a decrease of ten percent from last year’s one million subscribers.
• The number of wireless cable subscribers has declined steadily from a peak of 1.2 million in 1996 to approximately 100,000 as of June 2006, unchanged from a year earlier.
• In recent years, major commercial mobile radio service and other wireless providers have begun offering services that allow subscribers to access video programming through handheld devices, such as mobile telephones.
• The amount of web-based video provided over the Internet continues to increase significantly each year. In July 2006, 107 million Americans, three out of every five Internet users, viewed video  online. In July 2006, about 60 percent of U.S. Internet users downloaded videos. More than 7 billion videos were downloaded that month.
• Between July 2005 and June 2006, a total of 28 MVPD transactions were announced. Together these transactions were valued at approximately $5.3 billion and affected approximately 1.8 million subscribers.
• In 2006 we identified 565 satellite-delivered national programming networks, an increase of 34 networks over the 2005 total of 531 networks. Of the 565 networks, 84 (14.9 percent) were vertically integrated, or affiliated, with at least one cable operator. Five of the top seven cable operators own, in whole or in part, all of the networks that are affiliated with any cable operator.
• In 2006, we identified 101 regional networks, an increase of six over those identified in 2005. These networks provide programming of local or regional interest and are distributed to subscribers of one or more MVPDs in an area. Of these, 57 networks, or 56.4 percent, were vertically integrated with at least one multi-system cable operator (“MSO”). There are 43 regional sports networks, representing 42.6 percent of all regional networks, as compared to the 37 we reported last year. Of the 43 regional sports networks, 19, or 44.2 percent, are vertically integrated with a cable MSO.
• The sale of DTV consumer electronics continues to accelerate. The Consumer Electronics Association (“CEA”) estimates that, in 2006, digital televisions (“DTVs”) will have outsold analog televisions by 66 percent.
• The development and deployment of CableCARDs continued in 2006. CableCARDs permit the reception of secured digital cable services without the addition of a set-top box. As of December 22, 2006, more than 216,000 CableCARDs had been deployed by cable operators, up from 90,000 the previous year.
• The Report also surveyed developments in foreign markets. MVPDs in a number of countries provide programming on an a la carte basis or in mixed bundles, themed tiers, and subscriber-selected tiers. For example, in Hong Kong, consumers receive a free basic package and also can subscribe to more programming for an additional charge per channel. In Canada, the largest cable operators offer a la carte services. In the United Kingdom, consumers may select additional programming services they want, either on a subscription or pay-as-you-go basis, without first purchasing a monthly basic-tier package. In India, as of January 1, 2007, consumers in certain cities can subscribe to programming on a per channel basis.

Best Buy stalls on converter box coupons

Steven Sande reports that Best Buy may not be ready to accept the $40 government coupons for DTV converter boxes until April 1st:

... The cutover to digital TV, with its myriad details, is difficult enough to explain to consumers. For months, Congress has been urging broadcasters to promote the change to DTV early and often. But if viewers cannot use their coupons at what is, for many households, the default store for electronics purchases, it undercuts the coupon program’s credibility.  ¶  The retailer told Congress this week that its computers and cash registers will not be ready to handle the government coupons on January 1. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) released the government’s rules for the coupon program in March, so it’s not as if Best Buy hasn’t had enough time to prepare for the necessary changes to its systems. ...

And that the NTIA has known this all along:

... The Bush administration may have even signaled to retailers that if they weren’t ready in time, no big deal. Indeed, earlier this year the Commerce Department suggested as much, in the discussion section of its converter box coupon rules:

The [Digital TV] Act requires NTIA to accept requests for coupons between January 1, 2008 and March 31, 2009, and thus, it proposed that retailers be ready to redeem coupons starting January 1, 2008, consistent with the statutory guidance. NTIA expects widespread retailer POS system modifications to occur in the first quarter of 2008.

In other words, the news that stores may not be ready until April 1 is not really news to NTIA.

Link:  Digital TV Facts: The Latest.

This comes as it's announced that NTIA head John Kneuer is stepping down "to pursue new opportunities."  Link:  AP.  For those caught in television's coming Katrina, we can paraphrase our president: "You've done a heckuva job, Johnnie."  --Dennis

Satellite TV Fails Public Television

Consultant (and former PBS exec) Michael Soper contacted both DirecTV and Dish about carriage of PBS station HD programming and got noncommittal answers.  This is from DirecTV's response:

... While I do not have any information specifically about PBS in your area, we do value programming like this and realize PBS in HD is important to our customers. Unfortunately, due to limits in bandwidth, we are not able to offer all of the local channels we provide to the Salt Lake area in HD. ...

Link:  Rare Medium.  He also did an earlier post on this topic.  I agree with Michael, of course, but we in public television could be doing something to make this happen much faster.  Currently, most public television stations are still broadcasting the PBS HD feed, not an HD version of our main channel.  Therefore, the two main satellite companies would need to set aside large chunks of spectrum for 7x24 programming differentiated only by station IDs.  More stations need to do HD versions of their main analog channel with all the localization (acquisitions, local programming, underwriting, and pledge breaks) that implies -- that is, HD when it's available and upconverted SD when it's not -- not just to make satellite carriage more attractive but because their "main" program channel looks pretty pathetic next to their HD channel and that of their commercial colleagues.  PBS is moving to help stations do this, but I fear we'll be missing out on early adopter interest if we don't move fast.  For my stations, that means not waiting for PBS.  --Dennis

BBC Moves Toward Digital TV in a Challenging Period

Eric Pfanner has an interesting article on issues that the BBC is facing in the New York Times.

Updated 30 October 2007:
But on the other hand, it's expanding its international operations.  See Chris Williams, BBC readies global web and TV expansion.  Link:  The Register.   --Dennis

The Broadcast Triple Play

Michael Harris, Chief Analyst for Cable Digital News, writes for those in the cable industry who don't like the FCC's recent ruling on digital must carry:

... Once again proving that the broadcast industry has the FCC in its back pocket, the commission ruled that cable operators will need to carry local broadcast TV signals in both analog and digital formats starting in 2009.  ¶  Adding insult to injury, MSOs must carry broadcasters' high-definition signals, too. In other words, cable operators are required to transmit the same TV programming in three formats. Now, that's a triple play!  And a tremendous waste of privately owned cable spectrum. ...

Link:  Light Reading. 

His colleague, Jeff Baumgartner in DTV's Broader Logic, is a little more sanguine:

Although there are some differences of opinion about how well cable's lobbying arms fared in the whole dual-must carry ruling from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) , I think they did a commendable job obtaining a compromise on a couple of important points, particularly after the pounding much of the industry took from the feds before and after the July 2007 ban on integrated security set-tops. (See Verizon & Others Get Their  Waivers and FCC Denies Comcast Again .) ...

Link:  Light Reading.  --Dennis

Digital broadcasting set to transform communication landscape by 2015

  In the U.S., virtually all writing about the digital broadcasting transition is framed in marketplace terms.  Often, this commentary has a pessimistic spin as did an article in the Charlotte Observer from the NAB Radio Show that I posted on Thursday, Bad times ahead for terrestrial radio.  However, in Europe and some other parts of the world, the benefits of the transition are seen in more social democratic terms, as in this press release from the International Telecommunications Union in Geneva:

A treaty agreement was signed today at the conclusion of ITU’s Regional Radiocommunication Conference (RRC-06) in Geneva, heralding the development of ‘all-digital’ terrestrial broadcast services for sound and television. The digitalization of broadcasting in Europe, Africa, Middle East and the Islamic Republic of Iran by 2015 represents a major landmark towards establishing a more equitable, just and people-centred Information Society. The digital switchover will leapfrog existing technologies to connect the unconnected in underserved and remote communities and close the digital divide. ...

Link:  ITU.  Thanks to David Liroff for the link.  --Dennis