[opendtv] Re: Multichannel News: FCC Needs to See the Light (of Innovation)
- From: Craig Birkmaier <brewmastercraig@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 05 Oct 2016 07:57:30 -0400
On Oct 4, 2016, at 10:17 PM, Manfredi, Albert E
<albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Look, it's not that complicated. The FUD is about piracy, as the supposed
excuse why rental STBs must exist. And yet, TVE exists too. And yet, Netflix
exists too. So, instead of vague generalities, how about some specifics? The
piracy issue can be and has been addressed, one must presume, even over IP,
independent of a rental box.
Piracy is one of the issues raised by Hollywood. The ability to piggyback new
ads on existing services by device manufacturers is another. But the BIG issue
is allowing the FCC to get in the middle of licensing agreements - i.e.
regulating Internet commerce.
BS. There is nothing to prevent streaming from handling live streams. When it
suited your argument, you acknowledged this fact. Now, you pretend it's some
technical obstacle. The only matter here is one of transition time. That's it.
Correct. Nothing, except completely converting every head end from MPEG-2 TS to
IP. Yes this will happen eventually, but in the meantime, nearly 100 million
homes still need STBs to view the MVPD streams.
If we are going to move everything to IP streaming, that problem goes away,
eventually. So don you open up the market for MPEG-2 TS boxes, or allow the
MVPDs to continue dragging their feet to max out their investment in these
boxes?
Let's see who can't see the hand. Decades ago, the MVPDs would have had to
literally do what the FCC says. They would have had to allow other vendors to
build those proprietary boxes, making sure they had the proprietary
encryption details worked out.
Yup. A rather trivial issue. Lot's of companies build these boxes for the cable
and DBS systems. TiVo sells boxes that can do the job. What we have seen once
again, is regulators dragging their feet to help the monopoly they are
regulating max out profits.
Today, the MVPDs have to do essentially nothing TECHNICAL at all. The only
change is a gradual expansion of what they can get rights to, for TVE. This
is to maintain the same garden walls and all. Obviously, there's a lot more
that can be done, but I'm trying to change the basic business model as little
as possible, to make these points.
This is true, if you create TVE sites for every channel in the MVPD bundles.
Most of the popular networks are already there. The alternative is to build an
IP head end in the cloud as Hulu is probably doing. In both cases the local
MVPD service is largely rendered obsolete.
The issues then become related to the roles the MVPDs now play in the TV
ecosystem:
1. Billing and customer service;
2. Local ad sales and insertion in the programming;
3. Advertising and promotion, including both local MVPD services, and premium
services like HBO that they sell.
The STB is unnecessary. Piracy can be mitigated effectively. No one needs to
build any stinkin' new box.
Read the NPRM. There is a period of inter-industry standards setting, followed
by development and testing of devices. Nobody knows what this might entail. We
might end up with something that works with existing devices, or we might end
up with something like cable card, which would require new devices for EVERYONE.
Regards
Craig
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