[opendtv] SFGate: No fees, no wires, just TV on a tablet, startup promises

  • From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2014 23:19:08 +0000

I think this is sort of humorous: "Oh yeah, Supreme Court? Put this in your 
pipe and smoke it!"

Take the Aereo design, give individuals their own tiny TV antenna and 
ATSC-to-WiFi converter, not dime-sized but palm-sized this time, offer the 
package for a one-time purchasing fee, between $50 and $100 for a so-called 
"T-pod,", and you're done.

The part I want to know more about is the ATSC receiver. No mention of using 
ATSC-MH, which makes this all the more interesting.

The fact that this receiver/converter/PVR is a one-time purchase, by individual 
owners, SHOULD make this uncontroversial. Although it too violates some of the 
excuses we heard wrt Aereo. Specifically, this is still streaming live TV to 
Internet appliances, so for those who insist that you need a "license" to allow 
this, they might still complain. It will be interesting to watch. My guess is, 
this time around, even the Supreme Court won't be able to object (using the 
argument "how is this different from cable TV?").

They mention streaming to tablets, and having to install an "app" in the 
tablet. No mention of streaming to other IP appliances, such as PCs.

Tangentially, have broadcasters stopped using ATSC-MH? I noticed that one of 
our broadcasters here has gone back to their original set of multicasts, which 
they had cut back to offer the MH signals. And also, perhaps in response to the 
impending auction threat, I just noticed that our Univision affiliate just 
added another two subchannels, for a total of four program streams now, three 
of which are in English. So as of this morning, I'm getting 52 TV program 
streams OTA. Not half bad.

Bert

-----------------------------------------
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/No-fees-no-wires-just-TV-on-a-tablet-startup-5708348.php

No fees, no wires, just TV on a tablet, startup promises
Benny Evangelista
Updated 8:18 am, Sunday, August 24, 2014

Bay Area television viewers may soon have one more reason to cut the cord with 
cable and satellite companies thanks to a service that brings free over-the-air 
TV to tablet computers.

It's called Tablet TV, which doesn't require Wi-Fi, a cellular connection or a 
subscription fee. All that customers need is an iPad or Android tablet and one 
of the startup's antenna devices costing less than $100.

And it's backed by Granite Broadcasting, owner of independent San Francisco 
station KOFY. At a time when viewers have more choices than ever - from Netflix 
to YouTube to 500-plus cable channels - Granite sees Tablet TV as a way to lure 
viewers back to broadcast television, without the need for a television at all.

"This puts the broadcasters back into the driver's seat," said Peter Markham, 
chairman and CEO of Granite Broadcasting. "Now we're going to a one-to-one 
relationship with the viewer, which the broadcast industry has never had."

Tablet TV is a 2-year-old joint venture between Granite, a New York company 
that operates stations in six markets, and Motive Television, a London 
technology company focused on the TV industry.

In the U.S., Tablet TV would be a throwback to the days before cable and 
satellite became dominant, when everyone relied on rooftop antennas or set-top 
rabbit ears to tune in.

If Tablet TV can prove that the technology is reliable, easy to use and cheaper 
than subscription TV, it could lead to "a little bit of a renaissance in 
over-the-air television," said analyst Brett Sappington of the Dallas research 
firm Parks Associates. 

Since February, Granite and Motive engineers have conducted a closed test at 
KOFY. But the venture plans a more widespread beta test starting in early 
September, with the service set to begin on Black Friday, the traditional 
day-after-Thanksgiving kickoff of holiday shopping.

Betting on S.F.

If all goes well in the Bay Area, Tablet TV will take its show to other cities.

"Our theory is if we can make it work in San Francisco and people like it, the 
rest of the country will be easier, because people here are connoisseurs of 
media and technology," Motive CEO Leonard Fertig said. "We are placing our bet 
with San Francisco with this thing."

The gamble comes at a time when cable and satellite providers worry about the 
rising trend of cord cutting, a term used when people watch video on the 
Internet instead of subscribing to traditional, and costlier, pay TV services. 

About 7.6 million U.S. households have cut the cord, a 44 percent increase from 
2010, according to a recent report by research firm Experian Marketing Services.

In an even more worrisome trend for pay TV services, Experian said 67 percent 
of younger adults watch streamed or downloaded video during a typical week. 
Many younger adults bypass pay TV services and go right to online sources like 
Netflix and Hulu.

The explosion in tablet use is part of the shift. Parks Associates said about 
61 percent of all U.S. homes with high-speed Internet own at least one tablet, 
and found that the weekly video viewing time on tablets has increased from an 
average of a half hour in 2012 to 1.3 hours this year.

Tablet TV hopes to capitalize on that trend with a device Motive calls a T-Pod 
- a palm-size digital TV antenna, tuner and digital recorder. The company 
hasn't settled on a price, but Fertig said Tablet TV expects to sell T-Pods for 
between $50 to $100.

The rechargeable T-Pods can capture over-the-air digital TV signals and 
retransmit them to tablets using their own Wi-Fi signal. They work both indoors 
and outdoors, but must be within 100 feet of the tablet. The companion tablet 
app decodes the signal and shows the programs. The app includes a program guide 
and chat service, and users change channels with a simple swipe.

The programming isn't limited to KOFY's platter of reruns and syndicated shows 
- the antenna-tuner is designed to pull in any digital TV signal within range, 
including those from the local affiliates of CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX and PBS.

58 Bay Area channels

During a recent demonstration at San Francisco International Airport, Fertig 
found 58 over-the-air TV signals, including the various secondary channels 
broadcast by stations like KQED and KNTV. In larger markets, he said, there are 
as many as 120 available channels.

And Tablet TV wants to compete with pay TV providers in another way - the T-Pod 
is also a DVR, able to record programs using its built-in flash drive and the 
tablet's available memory. The company has plans to eventually offer storage in 
the cloud.

Fertig said Tablet TV plans to offer video on demand three months after its 
service begins. That service needs a local TV station to transmit the signal - 
here it would be Granite's KOFY.

Tablet TV might have a hard time breaking the entrenched hold of cable and 
satellite providers, which the majority of U.S. households rely on even for 
over-the-air signals. "Once you get cable, why would you go looking for 
over-the-air channels?" Brett Sappington of Parks Associates said.

But Fertig argued that pay TV's specialized networks offer only about 15 
percent of what viewers watch. 

The most popular shows - "NBC Sunday Night Football" and CBS' "The Big Bang 
Theory" topped the Nielsen ratings last season - and local news are on 
broadcast stations. 

"We're not saying turn off your cable," Fertig said. "But what people are 
really buying is that 15 percent" of programming.

Tablet TV's main competitor will remain big-screen, living room HDTVs. The 
Parks Associates study found that U.S. households still watch an average of 20 
hours a week on their TVs.

A secondary option

But Tablet TV positions itself as a secondary option for backyards, bedrooms or 
commuter trains, and Sappington said that portability could help the service 
find an audience. 

Live mobile TV is already a hit in countries outside the U.S. where cable TV is 
not as entrenched, and in Asian markets, mobile phones have integrated 
over-the-air TV tuners, he said. 

And a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that shut down New York startup Aereo, 
which retransmitted over-the-air TV broadcasts online, showed "there really was 
an appetite for broadcast TV among consumers," Sappington said.

The court found that Aereo violated copyright laws. Tablet TV, however, is 
backed by an industry that owns broadcast rights and will probably embrace a 
service that lets them capture more viewers and advertising dollars, Sappington 
said.

Benny Evangelista is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: 
bevangelista@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Twitter: ChronicleBenny

 
 
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