[opendtv] Re: Valve's Newell: How PCs Will Take Over the Living Room

From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2013 00:14:55 +0000
Jeroen Stessen wrote:

> b. although I'll be getting a new @tpvision.com address, I'll
> be losing that too by the end of this year because I and 46
> other people are going to be laid off (with severance pay) for
> not wanting to move with the lab to Gent, Belgium.

Wow. Big changes all over, it looks like. All the best in your new endeavors!

>> and yet the trade press is still hyping up hardware company/TV
>> studio collusion as the necessary solution.
>
> Because it is true. Without co-operation our apps would remain
> content-less.

The basic problem is these magical "apps."

> The most popular apps deal with replaying last week's content
> from the various TV program providers (different apps for
> different providers). There are also apps for free content (e.g.
> YouTube, Vimeo, TED, ..), and apps for paid content (movies,
> porn, ..). We need to work with these providers to get their
> permission and co-operation, and this is what distinguishes one
> Smart TV brand (or alliance) from another, in Europe anyway.
>
> Our apps are not really apps in the sense that they are large
> downloads that run on the end device, they are just hyperlinks
> to html5 web pages (in the latest 2.0 standard). Maintaining the
> standard, testing legacy devices against it, and working on the
> next standard, this is all a lot of work. And the hardware cost
> is only kept down if the hardware platform happens to support it
> with sufficient CPU and GPU cores, which may or may not be the
> case.

It's all a question of design approach. My design approach is the same 
philosophy used in the design of OTA TV. Does NOT mean free necessarily (even 
OTA TV can be conditional access), but it means un-walled, and it means that 
the content is only whatever the owners of content decide it should be. Does 
Philips need to ask permission from te TV networks to sell a regular OTA TV 
set? I doubt it.

So, neither I, nor Microsoft, need any TV network's permission for me to be 
able to type in a URL to reach that network's web site. No permission needed to 
add such links to my list of "favorites." This is some of what your "apps" do. 
Smart TV owners should be able to do this much without the CE vendor colluding 
with anyone.

The replay feature you mention, another function of your "apps," I leave up to 
the content owners themselves. Each of the TV networks in the US allows users 
to replay the week's shows, or actually multiple weeks' worth of shows. No 
permission needed for that either. The content owners wouldn't provide those 
sites if they didn't want people to use them.

I'm avoiding any "value added" that the content owners themselves don't 
provide. Maybe that's the key here. My thinking is, if smart TVs were designed 
as I described, more people would begin to rely on online TV content, and you 
would instantly see that the TV networks would oblige them with more content. 
Not less.

Bert

 
 
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[opendtv] Re: Valve's Newell: How PCs Will Take Over the Living Room

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