[opendtv] Re: Online TV bundles
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2015 08:30:57 -0500
> On Jan 4, 2015, at 7:40 PM, Manfredi, Albert E <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
>
> Craig Birkmaier wrote:
>
>> Fine. So what part of the 50% of nonlinear viewing does this
>> represent?
>>
>> You conveniently ignore the more entrenched technologies people
>> have been using for decades.
>
> No, Craig. These figures do not include PVRs, DVDs, or BluRay.
Wrong.
> And they have nothing to do with the topic at hand, which is TV over the
> Internet. And by the way, neither DVD, nor BluRay, nor in-home PVRs, are
> compatible with watching TV over tablets and smartphones. (Well, at least not
> trivially so.) So, much of today's non-linear TV watching can definitely NOT
> be attributed to these devices.
Sorry Bert, they are completely relevant. They are very much part of the market
for non-live stream consumption of TV entertainment and are very much part of
the 50% statistics in that article Bert.
> As to your being stuck on "soon," 100 percent of homes are not TV homes, nor
> do 100 percent of homes have telephone service. So it's absurd to get stuck
> on such minutiae. You'll never reach 100 percent for any such service.
THANK YOU!
Now let's get back to reality.
The issue is not whether we will reach 100% market share for any distribution
technology. The issue was a statement in an article you posted that said:
> As Online Viewing Soars, Internet TV Will Soon Be the Only TV
> By Marcus Wohlsen
>
> ...Eventually cable will follow bunny ears into the basement of dead
> technology, and online TV will be called something else: plain old TV.
But you refuse to answer the obvious question. I think we agree that what the
author is saying may happen, although it certainly will not be the only way to
watch TV. That is why I have asked you to tell us about how long it will take.
Will broadcasting go away completely? If so, when?
Will packaged media sales/rentals go away completely? If so, when?
Will dedicated MVPD services delivered via cable or satellite go away
completely? If so, when.
Will subscription bundles ever go away, with TV returning to the free ad
supported distribution model that it started with more than six decades ago?
So let's put a stake in the ground and try to end this silly dancing around.
Please answer these questions or shut up.
> Big revelation! That doesn't mean anything. The bottom line is that it takes
> no huge feat to send essentially all TV content over the Internet, within a 5
> year window. My only hesitation there would be reliability. Cabled media
> won't have the reliability of multiple independent wireless media, as we have
> now with FOTA TV.
At least this is a feeble attempt to answer.
One could ask for a bit of clarification, however.
I have no doubt that within five years, perhaps even this year, that it will be
possible to subscribe to a Virtual MVPD service that duplicates or exceeds what
is offered by cable and DBS today. Remember the stuff I just wrote in another
message about what a Virtual MVPD would offer and why facilities based MVPDs
must do the same?
Reliability is clearly the big issue - buffering delays caused by network
congestion will not be acceptable, outside the occasional glitch. The cable
guys pummeled their DBS competitors because small dishes often lost service
during thunder storms. I pummeled everyone for poor vide quality because they
did not allocate enough bits to eliminate gross compression artifacts. In
reality QOS will be a factor - most people will not invest in. 4k TV to watch
SDTV quality content riddled with compression artifacts.
To their credit, most of the new Internet based video services do a very good
job with video quality, since they optimize the compression of programs before
putting them up on their servers, and adjust delivered resolution based on the
device and available bandwidth. I still see compression artifact on live
programming both from OTA and cable networks.
So while it will be possible to move to Internet TV soon and cut the cable/DBS
cord, the real question is how long this transition will take.
I'll take a bet that we won't reach 50% of homes that use only Internet TV
services within five years.
>> And where the hell did you come up with half of households for all
>> TV viewing.
>
> Spoon-feeding Craig again, from the above link:
>
> "'Non-linear video accounts for 49% of the video consumed on the TV, and it
> is already the majority, 60%, of TV video viewed by consumers 18-24,' said
> Barbara Kraus, director of research, Parks Associates. 'Growing consumer
> demand, alongside new OTT service announcements from HBO and CBS, is driving
> all players in the video ecosystem to add streaming capabilities to their
> devices.'"
And I debunked this article Bert. This is NOT all Internet TV, and the sample
was ONLY MVPD households. The author was all over the board with MANY
assertions that had nothing to do with the survey...talk about cherry picking!
>
> Read carefully, Craig. They are talking about all consumed TV content here.
> Not just among certain households.
FOTFL
> Then don't accuse the "content oligopoly," for your lack of initiative,
> Craig. The prices are going up, for the now-surpassed TV content distribution
> model, simply because they can. The content oligopoly has already made
> alternatives available. Those who choose not to benefit from the alternatives
> have only themselves to blame.
>
The alternatives are more expensive and there ARE NO alternatives for many of
the programs with large audiences - nearly 30 million homes watched the College
Football semi finals on ESPN - the number will probably be higher for the
national championship game January 12.
Regards
Craig
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