[John I]

IPTV - The New Content Opportunity
Citizen Videographers
Home-Wide Entertainment Getting Closer
Personalizing Entertainment


The Internet changed everything. It changed the way we work together. The way
we work with friends and family. The way we get our news and information. It
is slowly changing the way many of us will get our entertainment.

It also offers an opportunity for content developers - music and video - to express
themselves, reach an audience interested in their content enough to buy it and
perhaps even attract a large enough audience to make a living.

While it is true that the RIAA aggressively sues any site that even looks like
people are sharing their content, they find it difficult to go after sites that
promote and support independent musicians. The MPAA is closely watching the
new video sites that are emerging to ensure none of their content isn't shared
on the open market.

Suddenly, hundreds of thousands of videographers around the globe are beginning
to see that a new era is beginning that can get their stuff shown without having
to grovel at Hollywood's or the networks' doors. Will they get Gone With the
Wind, Citizen Kane, Forest Gump, Top Gun, Friends or All in the Family rich and
famous?

Probably not. But if you attract even 10+ fans in one million people on the
planet to pay a buck or two to download your show or get hooked on your Inet
series.that's a pretty big number!

After all there are there are thousands of folks in the creative capitals of
the world paying their union dues and busing tables waiting for a call from the
production/distribution house so taking control of your own destiny isn't such
a bad thing.

Video over the Internet is here.just ask Viacom, Yahoo and others. Millions
of video clips - online ads, show previews and other video content is being downloaded
and viewed all of the time. Web video publishing tools are widely and economically
available. If you don't want to launch your own web video delivery, there are
distributors like Brightcove, ManiaTV, ChannelBlast, Scripps, Blinkx and others
available to handle the burden.

Since we're an avid diver we got interested when we read about being able to
watch segments on our PC from Eco-Nova and after visiting shipwreckcentral.com.
If you can't dive all the time, at least you can watch videos and even some
live feeds of underwater exploration? Too cool!

Ok so maybe they will only attract three - four hundred thousand subscribers
but multiply that by one - two dollars a month and that's a decent chunk of change
!!!

String together enough shows, movies and videos that are of interest to you and
you could easily abandon your cable company and never miss missing a segment
of Desperate Housewives or Lost.

Face it. T.S. Eliot was right when he said, "Television is a medium of entertainment
which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time,
and yet remain lonesome."

You Aren't Alone
Of course just as we have a mob of citizen journalists, every hack and weirdo
with a camcorder will have the same idea of instant riches or will use the video-enabled
Internet to make his/her political or apolitical statement.

But that is the marvel of IPTV. It may be bad but you won't sit through 3-4
minutes of ads to watch a reality show. You can watch bad reality free of commercials.

With the global adoption of DVB (Digital Video Broadcast) standards for 95% of
the global market (Figure 1), Intel and Microsoft are more than ready to serve
a market that is just beginning.

The move is being streamlined by the wired and wireless organizations around
the globe that are moving from dial-up to broadband connection which meet the
needs of video downloads (Figure 2). Consumers are increasingly turning to
the Internet for music downloads, photo exchange, information and even purchases.
The FCC reported that in 2003 approximately 23 percent of the U.S. households
had broadband capabilities in their homes and by 2008 broadband penetration would
grow to 56.3 percent.

In Forrester Research's study this year of CE and Internet access they found
that Internet users watch just 12 hours of TV per week compared to 14 hours of
those who are offline. Industry analysts are confident that these people using
their connection for all of their entertainment as products become more widely
available, easier to install/use and more economical.

That seems to be where Intel and Microsoft are placing their bets.

Real-world implementation and availability is only just beginning as services
rollout and WLAN devices begin to appear (Figure 3). But the momentum and potential
is undeniable. According to IDC we are already paying for many of these services-internet
access, pay-TV service, content downloads - so bringing them together in a single
source service is not a huge leap of faith.

According to Lyra Research nearly half of all TV viewing in a DVR household is
time-shifted so that people watch their shows on their time already. It is relatively
easy to see IPTV changing some of the viewing habits from timeshifted TV to niche
programming to network-based DVR to my TV.

Thanks to digital media infrastructure initiatives such as UPnP (universal plug
and play) and DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) the task of bringing the
devices together is getting easier. We didn't say easy but easier.

Households are making the transition because so much of their content - family
and individual - is digital. Most people whether photos are taken with a digital
camera or camphone store their photos (and view them) on their computer. They
play individual and multi-player games on their systems. They store their family
and personal videos on the PC. They download their music or listen to Internet
radio.

Home Hubs
As a result the growth of media hubs and media servers (much to the delight of
the hard drive folks) is forecast to increase more than 200 percent over the
next five years. Rather than have duplicate copies on every system in the house,
people want to centralize their content. To meet the demand every system manufacturer
is offering converged device capabilities in one way, shape or form (Figure 4).


With a wired or wireless media hub they can store their content, play DVDs and
videos, download content, record TV shows and movies and more. According to
the Diffusion Group, home network penetration in the U.S. was 17 percent last
year and will increase to more than 67 percent by 2010. Japan is close behind
with 16 percent in 2004 but will surpass the U.S. with 76 percent penetration
by 2010. Germany which only has about 2 percent home network penetration at
the present which is expect to increase to 35 percent by 2010.

The stumbling blocks to acceptance and implementation isn't the availability
of the technology because people are worried about the compatibility and interoperability
issues, are certain that there will be little or no after-sales support (surprise!)
and the industry doesn't make it easy to buy the right hardware/software. Every
manufacturer offers the solution and when it comes to discussing how these solutions
work with others it is laissez-faire!

Things are getting better but we still have a long way to go.

While people seem to be intent on their do-it-all devices like photo/Internet/IM/email/photo/video
cellphones, folks aren't abandoning their notebook computers. In fact demand
is increasing to the point where sales have surpassed desktop systems. It is
only natural then that they would want their all-content systems to enable them
to tap into their TV programs.

Tuners that allow notebook users to tap into their favorite programs (Figure
5). Because high definition TV content is available through-the-air, firms like
ADS Tech are planning to introduce TV tuners for notebooks this next year to
give people quality viewing everywhere.

Over Protection
Playing nice with the huge content owners - Hollywood and the networks - all
of the PC and CE manufacturers are stressing the importance of robust content
protection (DRM software). The stuff works so well home and on-the-road devices
can't share the content. It may work so well in the future that their audiences
simply ignore them for IPTV content which presently is providing "good enough"
content protection.

Going back to our diving videos we discussed earlier, the content isn't of interest
to everyone in the world. While the kids like diving, it isn't something that
thrills the wife and in that truth not a lot of people we work with so making
copies and sharing seems more work than it is worth. In fact if the sites attracted
only three million viewers (note networks have long since dropped shows with
ratings that low) the owners would probably be ecstatic!

Chip away three million here and three million in each state and province around
the globe and you're talking a serious drop-off in standard TV pabulum.

As industry analyst Rob Enderle recently pointed out blogs and citizen journalists
have had a decided impact on news services. It's a very real possibility that
independent and personal/family video content that has little or no DRM could
replace our standard entertainment fare.

It's really going to suck if they get all the protection they want but no one
comes to watch!!!

They really aren't going to worry because even at $200, there are millions of
folks around the globe who don't see a reason to buy a PC or simply find them
too difficult/too complicated to use.

But don't worry.Vista is almost here.