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- BBC Doing Broadband TV: Olympics in Athens & McCartney in Glastonbury to spearhead BBC broadband television push in Summer 2004 (02MAR04) (Guardian)
The Guardian reports, "The BBC said ... it was putting some of its most eagerly waited TV coverage, including the Olympic Games and Paul McCartney's performance at Glastonbury, onto the internet for the first time." The BBC's new online TV services "would take some of the BBC's radio and TV output and deliver it to PCs and interactive TVs together with additional information." - Upcoming BBC broadband service to include Glastonbury coverage and the Athens Olympics for broadband on-demand TV (02MAR04) (BBC)
The BBC news announcement states, "Outlining the kind of content and services [the BBC's Ashley Highfield] believes the BBC needs to offer internet users in the 'on-demand' world to drive broadband take up, Highfield cited the roll-out of the BBC's broadband service from Glastonbury in June and the Athens Olympics in August - both available on broadband for the first time and the Olympics a broadband world first. As well as allowing users to choose from a wide selection of broadcasts from both events, broadband technology will also enable them - at the same time as viewing - to play games, interact with other users and access facts and statistics." - Highfield TV Future Speech: BBC's Ashley Highfield discusses Evolutionary Broadband, Revolutionary Broadband & Convergent Broadband (02MAR04) (BBC)
The BBC's new media & technology director Ashley Highfield in his speech at the Financial Times New Media & Broadcasting Conference stated, "[T]he convergent future, assumes that consumption of on demand, broadband media will take place not at the PC screen but via the TV and Hi-Fi. The plethora of hardware currently launching that will bring broadband content direct to the TV shows that I am not alone in imagining this future.... In this very near future world, you'll be watching a combination of programmes: some from existing TV channels, some off the internet, others stored on your own hard disk at home, or swapped via email with friends. And not just broadcast content, but your own content: photos, home videos, ripped music, and highly local collaborative community content." - Watch On TV, Download To PC Later: BBC iMP to allow viewers to play back TV shows for free up to a week after broadcast (03MAR04) (Netimperative)
Netimperative reports the BBC's "Creative Archive will launch in autumn 2004 focusing on factual radio and television content, for example natural history footage, while the BBC IMP, which is currently being trialled and will enable viewers to play back TV programmes online for free up to a week after they have been broadcast, is also expected to launch later this year." - P2P TV Content: BBC to make media archive available as peer-to-peer exchangable content to save on bandwidth (17FEB04) (TheRegister)
The Register reports, "This is a neat way of tackling the bandwidth issues it would otherwise face, but in effect passes the buck to the broadband providers. With [British Telecom] in talks with the [BBC] it seems reasonable to expect some kind of partnership deal." - Protecting Content: BBC interactive media player to have DRM to protect all media content including any P2P exchanges (26FEB04) (DigitalLifestyles)
In discussing the BBC Interactive Media Player (iMP) for broadband TV entertainment, Digital-Lifestyles reports, "All content will be DRM'd, only available for a limited period time, once downloaded. As expected, it will also only be available to UK broadband users. In a break with the BBC's long-standing support of Real, Microsoft DRM will be used for the technical trial, but it appears that no final decision has been made.... [T]he EPG ... will cover fourteen days; seven looking forward and seven backward. The programs that have been broadcasted will be downloadable to the computer simply by clicking on them.... People will also be able to recommend [TV shows] to friends.... It was reiterated that P2P file sharing technologies would be used to automatically exchange content between broadband-connected computers running iMP, thus saving the BBC a considerable amount of money on individually serving each files." - Protecting Content: HP uses Intel digital content protection technology to ensure video cannot be recorded when going from PC to TV (01MAR04) (CNET)
CNET reports "... HP said that it had licensed Intel's high-bandwidth digital content protection technology, which is designed to ensure that video cannot be intercepted and recorded as its travels between devices, such as between a personal computer and a TV display screen." - Watching 'Today On 3' In UK: 3 launches live 'Today on 3' video news & entertainment channel for mobile phones (03MAR04) (Netimperative)
Netimperative reports, "'Today on 3' has been created to give 3's customers easy access to an average of over 72 miutes of new footage each day on their video mobile, including clips from Sky Sports, MTV, Pete Tong, ITN and the Barclaycard Premiership." - Video Phone Cheating: Cell phone makers working to change video background if wife calls husband at awkward time (29FEB04) (HeraldSun)
The Herald Sun reports, "Makers of new-style video mobile phones in Hong Kong said yesterday they were looking at ways of getting errant husbands and wives off the hook if a spouse calls at an awkward time" allowing "owners of 3G phones to select the background of their choice before answering a call." - TiVo-Like Wireless PCs: Intel wants home PCs to be media network hubs & video recorders in the home (03MAR04) (CNET)
CNET reports Intel is developing a wireless-enabled "Entertainment PC (EPC)" specification as "a desktop design based on Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition operating system, which manufacturers can use to create more entertainment-oriented PCs that come with features such as digital video recorders." Ruel's Note: Microsoft and Intel did have an 'Entertainment PC' specification since back in 1998 where the PC had a TV Tuner card for watching TV, but the updated specification apparently includes not only the TV but also all of the current capabilities that a PC can have including recording to harddrive and wireless connections. -ruel - Moving Beyond Niche Status: PVR as successor to VCR is slow to gain European fans (01MAR04) (IHeraldTribune)
The International Herald Tribune reports, "Though people ... say they have become addicted to their PVRs, these devices have been relatively slow to catch on with a broader audience. In the United States, TiVo and other PVRs have been around for more than four years, but they have attracted only about three million users, analysts estimate. In Europe, where availability remains limited, only a small fraction of that total are being used." - Demanding More Storage: 140-hour TiVo Series2 DVR to be available at BestBuy.com, CircuitCity.com, Amazon.com & Good Guys (29FEB04) (HomeTheater)
Home Theater magazine quotes TiVo marketing vice president Susan Cashen as stating, "With TiVo, it's easy to find and record your favorite programs all season long, even if the network schedule changes. With the largest recording capacity we currently offer, the 140-hour TiVo Series2 DVR gives consumers the flexibility to record more of their favorite programs and watch them whenever they want." - PVR Software For PC: Snapstream Beyond TV PVR system turns any PC into PVR for inexpensive bargain price (27FEB04) (Globe&Mail)
The Globe and Mail reports, "The bottom line is that SnapStream is a dream to use. It is well-designed, easy to configure, a pleasure to look at and comes with plenty of useful features built in. It makes turning your PC into a PVR easy enough for just about anyone, and it is a whole lot cheaper than a Tivo or a set-top box with a PVR built in." Ruel's Note: I use Snapstream as one of my PVR software programs and can say that it is very, very good. -ruel - Looking At Professional DVCPRO P2 Recorder & Memory Cards: Maybe consumer PVRs will record to compact high-capacity memory cards in the future (01MAR04) (HollywoodReporter)
Over in the professional TV newsroom world, the Hollywood Reporter reports that the Panasonic DVCPRO P2 "will unveil a suite of tools that record to compact, high-capacity solid-state memory cards" as professional digital recording equipment for TV newsrooms. - Connecting To Digital Homes: CONNECTIONS Digital Home Conference & Showcase to be held May 5-7, 2004, in Dallas Texas (27FEB04) (ParksAssociates)
The news announcement reports the CONNECTIONS Digital Home Conference & Showcase will have an agenda that "includes five tracks - Digital Entertainment; Home Networking & Residential Gateways; Portability and Mobility; Applications, Services & Consumer Value; and Home Management & Convergence - covering multiple aspects of this significant emerging market. Parks Associates forecasts that annual sales of connected multimedia products - including specialized consumer electronics platforms and PC-centric adapters and receivers - will more than triple between 2003 and 2008." - Coke Woos TiVo Generation: Primetime ads only reach 15% of audience due to media fragmentation & TiVo commercial-skipping (01MAR04) (BusinessWeek)
In an article about Coca-Cola marketing, BusinessWeek reports, "[T]hanks to media fragmentation and the growing use of devices like TiVo that let viewers skip ads altogether, megamarketers can now hit no better than 15% of the population with an ad in prime time -- far less than the 40% reached as recently as the mid-1980s." - Timeshifting, Placeshifting & Trackback: TV without time schedules and communications without destinations (02MAR04) (Mediapost)
Mediapost's Tom Hespos writes, "By now, we're all familiar with the concept of timeshifting. We usually use this term to describe the behavior of PVR users when they digitally record programs with the aim of viewing them when it's most convenient for them.... A similar concept, which I'll call "Placeshifting" is getting ready to emerge in interactive communications.... That is, content is becoming less of a destination-specific concept. These days, I can publish an idea online using my own personal website and that idea can, with the help of some simple technology, take on a life of its own across multiple destinations.... Another technology that contributes to placeshifting is Trackback. Trackback is a concept ... [that] involves informing the original poster of an idea that another content site has posted its own take on the idea. In this way, ideas can exist across multiple destination sites." - Ruel's Spotlight Site: Samsung's Interactive Guide to the New World of Digital TV (02MAR04) (Samsung)
- Recording HDTV: Fears of HDTV anti-copying flag are said to hold up launch of HDTV PVRs (27FEB04) (AudioRevolution)
AudioRevolution reports, "Recent reports say the FCC is considering flagging HDTV signals in order to protect against users recording them at their high-resolution native resolutions. This comes as the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) is lobbying the FCC aggressively so that Hollywood's best movies and TV programs are not easily recorded and duplicated at HDTV resolutions." As a result, "[w]hile the FCC has not agreed to this flagging yet, fears of such a technological change have held up the much-anticipated launch of HDTV personal video recorders (PVRs)." - Oscar HDTV Snafu: Upgrade is said to have caused blackout for older HDTV sets watching KABC broadcast of Oscars award show (01MAR04) (Variety)
Variety reports that an "Upgrade caused blackout for older HD sets" during KABC's Sunday broadcast of the Academy Oscars Awards show in Los Angeles. Variety further reports that "KABC engineers were investigating...." - Watching HDTV: Phillip Swann can't help but see Oscar stars' skin problems instead of looking at their clothes on HDTV (01MAR04) (TVPredictions)
TVPredictions' Phillip Swann discusses "who looked better -- or worse -- during Sunday's night high-def broadcast of the Oscars on ABC." - HDTV Public Seminar: 'HDTV Boot Camp' is open & free to the public on March 10, 2004 at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts (02MAR04) (SMPTE)
- New PBS HD Channel to be available as new additional channel from local PBS stations that have transitioned to digital broadcasting (25FEB04) (PBS)
The news announcement quotes PBS President and CEO Pat Mitchell as stating, "The launch of the PBS HD Channel is a significant milestone in PBS' commitment to the digital transition. Local PBS digital stations already offer a range of digital services, including unique, groundbreaking multicasting content. The PBS HD Channel will be a key component of PBS' growing digital portfolio." - Over-The-Air DTV Gets Benefit From Cable: Successful terrestrial DTV transition paradoxically benefits from cable (Nov2003) (ResearchandMarkets)
The catalog reports page for the "Digital Terrestrial TV: What's Next?" report from ResearchandMarkets states, "Paradoxically, the successful transition from analogue to digital terrestrial TV appears to be more certain in those countries with a dense cable network...." - Ruel's Spotlight Site: High-Def demo movie clips in WMV9 codec including Scooby Doo 2, Terminator 2, and Rules of Attraction (02MAR04) (Microsoft)
"Download the clips to experience high definition Windows Media Video. To deliver ultra-high quality, these clips were encoded 24 fps, and at the resolution noted of either 1280 x 720 (720p) or 1920 x 1080 (1080p)." - VHS Videotape Versus DVD: Forty-Three Million households in the US still have a VCR and no DVD player (01MAR04) (UnionTrib)
The San Diego Union-Tribune's Suzanne Choney quotes the Video Software Dealers Association's Sean Bersell as stating, "[M]ovies are going to stop being released on VHS, but when you still have 43 million households that have a VCR and not a DVD player, the industry is not going to abandon that [VHS] market prematurely" and that the "VHS audience is becoming a 'niche market' that will have its place." - TV On Cell Phone: MobiTV let's you watch MSNBC but TV is more like slideshow at 2 frames per second or less on cell phone (01MAR04) (KRNS)
Mike Langberg, with the Knight Ridder News Service (KRNS), reports, "What you get is unlimited viewing of 14 live cable television channels, including ABC News Live, CNBC, the Discovery Channel, the Learning Channel and MSNBC. Unlimited, that is, until your battery runs out – after about three hours for most phones compatible with MobiTV.... MobiTV claims to broadcast at one to two frames a second; in my tests with a Sanyo SCP 8100 flip phone borrowed from Idetic, the picture instead seemed to change every one to two seconds." - Telewebbing Could Be Better Than iTV: Egg shutting down interactive TV service since online service does so much better (01MAR04) (Netimperative)
Netimperative quotes an Egg online bank spokesperson in the UK as stating, "Due to the exponential growth in confidence and usage of online banking, the vast majority of Egg's 3.5 million customers access Egg via its website and as such Egg TV was used exclusively by a tiny fraction of Egg customers." - Cyberterrorism & WebTV: FBI arrest Louisiana man for alleged cyberterrorism targeting MSNTV-WebTV users (26FEB04) (SecurityFocus)
SecurityFocus reports federal prosecutors' allegations that "David Jeansonne, 43, was targeting 18 specific MSN TV users in an online squabble when he crafted the script in July 2002, and sent it out disguised as a tool to change the colors on MSN TV's user interface. Though the code didn't mass-mail itself to others, some of the recipients were sufficiently fooled that they forwarded it to friends, for a total of 21 victims." SecurityFocus reports the arrest was made pursuant to "the cyberterrorism provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act."
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