Mari Silbey, Author at Zatz Not Funny!

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Does Aereo Have a Back-Up Plan?

Mari Silbey — September 17, 2012 — 10 Comments

Broadcasters aren’t giving up on shutting Aereo down. A new court brief filed on Friday has several programmers fighting a judge’s ruling this summer that Aereo is legally in the clear (for now) to continue operating. The new filing claims that the ruling ignores an existing statute which requires licensing payment “whether the members of the public capable of receiving the performance or display receive it in the same place or in separate places and at the same time or different times.”

We’ve always known that Aereo has an uphill battle ahead of it, but one thing that’s occurred to me more recently is that the company may have a back-up plan. CEO Chet Kanojia was the star speaker at last week’s Multichannel cloud TV event, and I had a chance to ask him afterward if Aereo is working on an alternative business model in case the current one doesn’t work out. Kanojia was adamant that the company is only focused on the here and now, but he also agreed that there are other applications for Aereo’s technology. Personally, I wonder if Aereo’s tiny antennas and transcoding tech could be repurposed for something other than just broadcast content. The entire TV delivery system is changing after all. Could Aereo help other TV service companies move to a cloud-based distribution model?

It’s also interesting to note that Kanojia has serious street cred in the cable industry. He worked with Time Warner Cable on its Maestro solution. Maestro didn’t pan out, but Cablevision picked up the idea and ran with it for its RS-DVR service. So Kanojia is no stranger to this space.

In DVR, Industry, TV Shows, Web

TiVo’s Banking on Analytics in the Cloud

Mari Silbey — September 17, 2012 — 4 Comments

TiVo’s purchase of TRA this summer was no happy accident. The DVR company sees television analytics as an important part of its future.

At a Multichannel News event I attended last week, Senior Director of Product Marketing Evan Young commented that TiVo views the shift toward cloud TV as a way for TiVo to “leverage information from subscribers to deliver a better service.” Read: TiVo wants to make money from user data.

To be fair, everybody wants to make money from user data. In fact, with TV headed toward an IP future, the software companies are circling, each hoping to swoop in and become the Google of the television world. (Including Google, but that’s another story) TiVo is just one of many with its eye on analytics, customized TV, and ultimately targeted advertising. The shift for TiVo is interesting, however, because of its prior anti-establishment position. Young also made reference to “our MSO partners” at the Multichannel event, making it clear that TiVo knows where its future lies.

There was one other interesting TiVo note at last week’s event too. Young talked about the advantages of network-based DVR for cable subscribers, but also emphasized the headache of trying to wean consumers off boxes at home. Any transition would inevitably mean consumers would lose any previously recorded content unless it could be backed up locally on another hard drive. So, while TiVo sees a lot of benefits to the cloud, it also isn’t planning to do away with hardware any time soon.

In DVR, TiVo

Cable Industry Courts Network DVR

Mari Silbey — September 5, 2012 — 2 Comments

It took years for Cablevision to plow the necessary legal ground for its network-based DVR service. Even once the paperwork was filed, actual deployments didn’t start until January of 2011. However, since that time, the buzz around cloud DVR has ramped up in the cable industry. I’ve been hearing since at least last fall that cable operators are testing out new network DVR solutions and planning to move video recording into the cloud. Now, there’s confirmation of sorts from cable vendor Envivio. Envivio says multiple MSOs in Europe and North America are running lab tests with its Halo network media processor, which would enable network DVR services.

While I’m hesitant to read too much into news about lab tests (the press release also talks about updates to the Halo platform), the announcement does jive with other activity in the cable industry. Comcast, for example, has invested hugely in building out its network in order to host more content in the cloud for VOD services and TV Everywhere delivery. And there is a concerted effort underway across multiple operators to shift electronic program guides (EPGs) into the cloud for easier and faster interface management. While a better cable UI is in everyone’s best interest, the real motivation for cable operators with these EPGs is the future promise of cloud-based content and service management. When cable can introduce new services – including network DVR – without a truck roll, operators will be in revenue heaven.

Meanwhile, as Steve Donahue at Fierce Cable also points out, Charter’s CEO said last month that it would consider introducing a network-based DVR (which could include TiVo), and Comcast has filed its own patents for network DVR technology.

The big question for the next generation of digital video recording is whether it will be true nDVR, or the hobbled remote storage DVR (RS-DVR) that Cablevision has had to deploy for legal reasons. From an operational and an environmental standpoint, let’s hope it’s the former.

In DVR, Industry

FCC Says Price of “Expanded Basic” TV up 5.4%

Mari Silbey — August 14, 2012 — 24 Comments

The FCC yesterday released its latest pricing data on pay-TV services. In the twelve months leading up to January 1, 2011, the average cost for “expanded basic” service increased 5.4% across the country to $57.46 per month. The price for expanded basic service is defined as “the combined price of basic service and the most subscribed cable programming service tier excluding taxes, fees and equipment.” Oddly, however, the FCC also points out that average costs increased slightly more in competitive communities than they did in non-competitive communities. The difference was 5.7% to an average monthly cost of $58.47 in competitive communities versus 5.2% to an average monthly cost of $56.82 in non-competitive communities.

The findings here are highly counter-intuitive. Why would pay-TV service cost more in communities with reasonable service provider competition?

There’s no simple answer to that question, but there are a few critical things to point out about the FCC data. First, the FCC isn’t including equipment fees in these numbers. Continue Reading…

In HDTV, Home, Industry, TV Shows

Now Playing: Usain Bolt in Ultra-HD

Mari Silbey — August 6, 2012 — 8 Comments

Super Hi-Vision Ultra-HD 8K camera

Comcast and NBC Universal hosted an Ultra-HD screening of several Olympic sporting events tonight in a nondescript office building not far from Washington D.C.’s Union Station. The second of its kind, tonight’s showcase included women’s swimming, women’s track and field, and the men’s 100-meter dash where Usain Bolt once again earned the title on Sunday night of world’s fastest man. The Ultra-HD video in the Comcast facility streams at 16 times the resolution of a typical high-definition television broadcast. And it was sharp enough tonight to allow those of us in the audience to identify the man who famously threw a beer bottle from the crowd on to the track at the start of Usain’s race.

The Ultra-HD video experience comes by way of a partnership including Comcast, NHK out of Japan, and the BBC. It’s branded as Super Hi-Vision, but the technology is also known more colloquially as 8K HD. There were 4K-resolution streams shown off at CES last January, and at the Cable Show in May, and you can even find limited 4K HD content on YouTube. However, there’s no other place in North or South America where 8K HD viewing is possible. Outside of Washington D.C., you have to go to the U.K. or Japan to see Ultra-HD.

So, is it worth it? Continue Reading…

In HDTV, Industry

3 Predictions for Google Fiber TV

Mari Silbey — July 29, 2012 — 24 Comments

Google Fiber TV Box set-top

In case you missed it last week, Google announced its new TV service in Kansas City based on a gigabit, fiber-to-the-home network. Leaving aside the broadband component of the offering for this post, the new Google Fiber TV service relies on all-IP delivery (a la AT&T’s U-verse) and high-speed residential connections (a la Verizon’s FiOS) to package up TV in a new Internet-style fashion. Wi-Fi access, Netflix and YouTube are built right in. Everything is searchable (linear, on-demand, app content, etc.) and placeshift-able. And Google is already working on features like a button that lets you “plus one” a show, and the ability to let you tune to a new station from your social stream.

On the gadgety goodness front, Google is proffering a slim DVR Storage Box with two terabytes of storage, even slimmer client TV Boxes with Wi-Fi access points included, and a free (for now) Nexus 7 tablet with remote control application. Brent Evans (aka geektonic) notes that part of the old Sage TV team is also behind the Google DVR, which bodes well for its performance.

Google’s content deals fall squarely in the fair to middling range. The company has negotiated licensing (so far) with nearly all of the broadcast networks and several cable channels like Nickelodeon, Showtime and Discovery, but there’s no Fox, Disney or ESPN, which would be a deal-breaker in my house.

All of which leads me to where Google is headed with Fiber TV. After watching the cable market for years, and recent broadband build-out activity, I can make a few wild guesses… some of which may even turn out to be right.

Prediction #1: Google TV is not about TV

In Industry