Vision - September/October 2007 - (Page 19) IP networks, and begin deploying richer and more personalized TV and connected entertainment experiences,” says Enrique Rodriguez, vice president of Microsoft TV, the company’s television unit which supplies its IPTV software to AT&T. AT&T and Verizon are trying to compete in the traditional TV provider category by offering something fresh. Using IPTV technology, they believe they can woo cable and satellite viewers away with a variation of an old dish. But IPTV technology also is being used by non-traditional TV providers to invade the home via retail set-tops and Netbased streams over high-speed lines. telco to experience slow growth. Verizon, it should be noted, also decided to wait a few years before converting its video service from fiber optics to IPTV due to reliability concerns. So while IPTV is a technological advancement, it’s still unproven. But it is clear that the technology’s capacity to offer more services is causing the traditional communications companies to react. They are searching for ways to expand their capacity for more video, faster Internet speeds and better phone service. If IPTV works, you’ll see the cable and satellite operators embrace it as well. In fact, Comcast already says that it will test IPTV equipment this year that’s based on the Cable Television Laboratories’ “Data over Cable Service Interface Specification 3.0”. “Everybody understands that it allows us to increase our speed fairly substantially,” Comcast Chief Technology Officer Tony Werner said at a company investors meeting last spring. • UNBOX: ENHANCING VIDEO-ON-DEMAND SERVICE rEal dEmand? Despite all the activity and bold assertions, not everyone is convinced that IPTV gives a company an edge. While it may sound good for a communications company to say it can offer such features as on-screen Caller I.D., watching Internet video on your TV and displaying PC-based photos and music on the TV, it’s still questionable that millions of people want those things. Forrester Research, which has suggested that IPTV-delivered interactive features could be years away from mass acceptance, issued a study this year showing that only four percent of Americans would pay $100 for a box that could deliver Internet services, including video, to their televisions. “Eventually downloadable video will be as common as e-mail. The problem is that all the current models either require too much money, or too much know-how, or they are just plain confusing for the consumer,” Forrester’s James McQuivey told Reuters in a recent article. Even some companies embracing IPTV’s promise acknowledge that it could be more than what people want. For instance, Apple’s Steve Jobs calls Apple TV “a hobby” because it’s attempting to do what others have not been able to. And that is: Persuading consumers to do something with their television besides watching it. There also are some questions about IPTV’s reliability as a technology. AT&T, which uses Microsoft’s IPTV software, experienced several glitches during the early stages of its rollout, causing the www.ce.org TiVo and Amazon this year launched an IP-based service called Unbox which sends movies and other videos from a Net server to a broadband-enabled TiVo digital video recorder (DVR). The download time varies depending upon the user’s Internet connection, but it can take as long as an hour to process an entire two-hour film. (A one-hour TV show can be downloaded in about 30 minutes.) However, company officials say consumers will gladly invest an hour to avoid a trip to the video store, which could take as much time when you factor in parking and traffic jams. For TiVo, which has struggled to convince cable and satellite operators to carry its DVR software, Unbox (and IPTV) is a means to generate additional revenue and tighten its hold on its audience. By offering a video on demand feature, TiVo hopes its subscribers will refrain from signing up with a cable operator that can offer both VOD and a non-TiVo DVR service. And Amazon and TiVo have added PC-based short videos to the service in hopes of capturing “The television is and will continue the growing online audience. to be the preferred platform for “The television is and watching video content.”—TiVo Vice will continue to be the President Tara Maitra preferred platform for watching video content, and TiVo is leading the charge in offering broadbanddelivered content to the living room,” says TiVo Vice President Tara Maitra. Movie Gallery, the video retailer, was thinking along the same lines in March when it purchased the MovieBeam VOD service that can transmit movies over an IP system to the TV using a set-top. The retailer hopes the service will keep its customers from buying VOD movies from their cable operators. “We believe the MovieBeam service provides the best video-on-demand service available in the marketplace today and is a strong compelling complement to the consumer retail video store experience,” says Joe Malugen, Movie Gallery’s CEO. And, finally, arguably the business world’s greatest “nontraditionalist”—Apple CEO Steve Jobs—this year launched Apple TV, a set-top that can wirelessly send PC-based files such as video, photos and music to the TV using IP-based streams. Jobs is hoping that Apple TV will bypass the cable AT&T’s u-Verse TV service lets and satellite operators and sell movies and individual consumers record four high-def programs at the same time. episodes of TV shows directly to the consumer. • September/October 2007 19 http://www.ce.org
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