[opendtv] Re: Apple TV Ensures TV's Future Is Not Just Apps, For One Really Obvious Reason - Forbes

From: Craig Birkmaier <brewmastercraig@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Sun, 01 Nov 2015 08:31:54 -0500

On Oct 31, 2015, at 7:22 PM, Albert Manfredi <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

If you watch time-shifted, by definition, you're not watching linear, Craig.
Linear TV is by appointment.

Linear is a channel that is programmed continuously for some portion of the day
with multiple different programs. Whether you with while the program is being
streamed, or record it for time shifted viewing, it is still being delivered by
a linear source. If you use the Internet to access a linear stream while it is
live you are watching a linear TV program. If you access a program from an
Internet server, it is Video on Demand.

I understand your infatuation with the Internet and your belief that everything
will be viewed on demand....someday. But linear channels are not going away,
even if people time shift a program rather than making an appointment to view
it. They had to have access to the live appointment stream to record it.

The fact that many people are still using their old equipment to watch "on
demand," rather than going online to do so (as they do whenever they watch on
any device other than a TV set), only means that they haven't updated their
equipment yet. In time, they do so.

Sorry, but a significant portion of what I and many other people record on our
"old" DVRs is never made available on demand. That is starting to change - ESPN
now offers almost every football game it covers on demand after the game is
over. A huge portion of the content behind the pay walls is not available on
demand, or only available on demand to subscribers.

And another nit. Some systems make live programming from a subscription source
available to "other screens" in real time without having to stream from the
Internet. With Contour from Cox you can watch any live program on a "WiFi
screen."

You just don't get it, Craig. The point is, there's no difference in ease of
use. There's hardly any difference in how the material is presented. If
anything, when I use the "app," I feel totally restricted. It's like wearing
a straightjacket, compared with the browser.

Ease of use is relative. If you are sitting in front of a PC the mouse driven
interface is easy to use; but reaching up and touching the screen to do
something is not easy. Running a touch interface on a phone or tablet is easy,
but the fine control needed to use pull down menus and palettes of tools is not
easy. Each has its place. I am not surprised you feel that running an App with
mouse and keyboard is restrictive - it IS by design.

And btw, you don't even need to connect the PC physically to the TV set. Look
up "Miracast." There are so many way better options than the limited-use
boxes that one wonders why the journalists don't bring this up with every
article on this subject.

How the PC is connected is irrelevant, just as viewing live TV on a table that
gets its bits from a STB is not streaming from the Internet. What is relevant
is how you control the TV viewing experience with that PC.

apps are designed to work with a touch
screen interface, while browsers are designed to work with a mouse or
trackpad.

Those are just words, Craig.

No Bert, they are human interface concepts that were designed specifically to
allow us to interact with a machine. Concepts that have evolved for decades to
help enhance productivity and to remove barriers between man, machine, and the
task the machine is being used to perform.

There is virtually no difference between "tapping" and "clicking," other than
the fact that clicking an object on a large screen is a heck of a lot more
accurate than fat-finger tapping on a smartphone.

DUH.

People
watching TV on PCs are typically watching on a PC screen;

Also "just words." A PC can display on any number of screen types, and for
sure, more in the future. Plus, once again, look up "Miracast."

Just the facts Bert. Only a tiny fraction of TVs are connected to PCs. To be
fair, many TVs are connected to game consoles that are used for streaming TV;
Microsoft offers a board for the X-Box that connects to cable TV systems. But
these systems offer a GUI designed for the family room, not a keyboard and
mouse interface.

A very large portion of streaming TV is watched on PCs, as you frequently point
out. But these are desktop machines in the office or home, and notebook
computers that can be used anywhere. The point I keep trying to make is quite
simple: very few people use a PC as the front end to their TV and that group is
declining in numbers as devices like Apple TV, Roku, Fire TV and Chromecast
provide a less e pensive alternative with a user interface designed for the
lean back TV viewing experience.

The price of a PC can only decline so far Bert, before they have to give
them
away. One of the major reasons that PC sales are declining is that many
vendors
are still pushing Windows 7,

You can get a full-fledged PC for well under $300 these days, which should
really make one wonder why spend ~$150 or so for one of the limited boxes.

1. To save $150
2. To work with my ecosystem of devices - it's not just about watching TV
3. To play casual games
4. To conserve space and energy - PCs are typically large and ugly.

And, going around and around on this, PC sales are declining much less
precipitously than tablet sales are.

Not true. PC sales are declining in top line numbers. Total units sold has been
declining for the past five years to the point where tablets are now overtaking
PCs in sheer numbers. The Industry is trying to stem this erosion by turning
PCs into tablets - can you say Surface.

Tablet sales are declining relative to the very high initial adoption rates,
but the total number of tablets being sold is still increasing, and predicted
to increase as we begin to reach the point where consumers will replace older
tablets. The big problem with tablets is they do what they were designed to do
very well, and the replacement cycle is nothing like the smartphones to which
they were being compared.

The main reason for PC sales being flat is that the market is saturated AND
that the new OSs, beginning with Windows 8, have demanded less, rather than
more, horsepower from the PC. But people continue to use PCs. Tablets and
phones are not replacements for PCs. They are devices which are newer, so
they naturally experienced a large initial sales spike, and now they have
also fairly well saturated the market (in the West, anyway).

As Steve Jobs said: PCs are trucks. They are not going away, but they are
competing with a wide range of computing devices that are optimized for other
tasks. You are correct that all of these devices will co-exist, and that the
replacement cycles will not all be the same.

We should all be happy that it is no longer necessary to replace this stuff
every 2-3 years. Let's not get hung up on short term shifts based on incomplete
knowledge of longer term human behavior. Just don't hang onto one legacy
platform and try to make it into a Swiss Army knife.

Did you watch any of that CITI presentation? The next big shift is going to be
the proliferation of intelligent devices, many of which will only communicate
with other machines. How we manage our personal environments and information
will continue to evolve...

We are not moving to a PC centric info sphere - we are moving away from that.

The trade scribes need to tell the whole story. Put the subject matter in
perspective. Understand the universe of possibilities.

Exactly!

But human behavior evolves less rapidly than the possibilities. How we adapt
and use machines to manage our lives and entertain us is about both the
possibilities and the realities of what works and what is just a fad.

Regards
Craig

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[opendtv] Re: Apple TV Ensures TV's Future Is Not Just Apps, For One Really Obvious Reason - Forbes

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