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

  • From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2014 08:30:05 -0400

This has been possible for years. There are a variety of ATSC tuner dongles for 
tablets. 

We'll see where this goes...

Regards
Craig

> On Aug 26, 2014, at 7:19 PM, "Manfredi, Albert E" 
> <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> 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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