Cable Companies Want Bigger Share of Online TV Market 175
commodore64_love writes with news that a number of cable companies, such as Time-Warner, Comcast, and Cox, are trying to establish themselves as content providers on the web in addition to television. They are currently negotiating with HBO, TNT, CNN, and a number of other channels to bring their programming online exclusively for cable TV subscribers. They say they're not trying to develop "some enormous new revenue opportunity," but rather trying to compete with sites like Hulu, which provide shows for free.
"They pay networks a per-subscriber fee each month for the right to carry channels. But the cable companies have groused that they are paying for content that programmers are giving away for free on the Web. ... People aren't yet cutting the cord en masse - the Leichtman survey found that people who watch recent TV shows online every week are not more likely to give up TV service than other people. But the industry is heading off what could end up as a troubling trend. After all, the availability of free content online has befuddled other media industries, from music to newspapers. ... The cable companies and others involved in the talks for a TV service said their goal isn't to kill the online video goose, but to work out a plan that keeps everyone's business intact."
Time Warner is horrible.... (Score:5, Interesting)
During LOST on ABC this week my cable cut out five times....in the first fifteen minutes of the show.
I instead just waited for the show to be over, then downloaded the HD scene release from one of those internet sets that let's you do that, instead of watching the choppy version from my digital cable box that I pay a lot for per month.
Time Warner customer service is terrible also. They had no idea what was wrong with my box. Replaced it. And the same thing happened this morning when I watching the news....so I just listened to news radio this morning instead of local TV news.
If Time Warner and these other companies expand into the online realm of audio video media entertainment are they going to carry the baggage and problems that they have on cable already? Are we going to have to pay for 1,000 internet channels when we only watch at most ten of them? Is the digital cable guide never going to be available? When will they start upping the subscription rates and not telling anyone? Will they force the user to purchase a CD from Time Warner with the software installed to watch the online videos so that they can charge an installation fee?
I pay for cable but I almost download everything I watch now besides live sports events, and even then with the reliability of my cable box, I've been turning to radio more often than ever.
Maybe people have other experiences with different cable and satellite TV providers, but Time Warner is tremendously horrible. And why do I keep Time Warner? They are the only cable and internet provider around me, for real. Ugh.
if it's "free"... (Score:3, Interesting)
I travel a lot, so in lieu of a slingbox, I'd appreciate the added feature of being able to watch the service I pay for when I'm on the road.
Re:Time Warner is horrible.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Are they going to make you pay for 1000 channels, when you only watch 10... and STILL show adverts?
And I presume it'll all be DRM'd up to the hilt and only playable on Windows?
Or will they release it in a various formats (flv,mpeg etc.) without DRM and all downloadable on a per-show basis without any adverts, like BBC iPlayer does?
Only time will tell
Re:This was my first submission to slashdot (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't worry this will fail.
If done right, they'll just abandon this silly notion and nothig will change.
If they really fight this, they will stop in a few year after throwing billion of dollars.
In the mean time just use bitorrent.
I consider it a form of civil disobediance.
P prefer not to, but if they are locking my out of content I want to see, I'll use it.
All I want to do is ahve my machine automatically download the shows I select. I have no problem with them inserting ads, I do understand that's where they get there money.
In fact, they could insert local ads based on your location, which could be based on your billing address.
That is the future of television.
Re:There is a reason that the FCC (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree. The vertical integration of Time Warner is a bit disturbing. They own the studio that makes the show. They own the TV channel that carries the show. They own the cable network that carries the channel. They own the ISP that competes with that cable network as a method of distribution. They own the infrastructure that carries both the ISP and the cable network to your home. Am I missing anything?
Personally, I think that the split should be between the people who provide infrastructure and everything else. If you're the company that actually runs the cable to people's homes, then you shouldn't be allowed to provide any kind of service over that network. It presents too many conflicts of interest.
BitTorrent. (Score:3, Interesting)
I just download TV episodes from BitTorrent. Much more convenient, I don't have to install some shitty Windows only software filled with security holes, no commercials, and I have full control over the files I download.
I usually download a ~349Mb TV episode, and copy it to a flash drive. I then bring the flash drive downstairs, plug it into my PlayStation 3, and enjoy watching the shows in HD.
Or sometimes, if I know I won't have time to watch the show because I know I'll be busy all day, I'll run the video file through a converter and copy it to my MP3/Video player, and watch the TV show when I have a bit of free time.
And the legitimate, legal customer is limited to watching a video that's interrupted by commercials, confined to a small Flash window, etc etc.
To Flamebait: (Score:3, Interesting)
The people who oppose equal time are the people who are afraid of dissent. There simply is no other logical explanation.
Re:This was my first submission to slashdot (Score:3, Interesting)
In fact, they could insert local ads based on your location, which could be based on your billing address.
Exactly, they should actually put some thought into creative thinking about where they would like to see the industry go and revenue come from, rather than their usual protectionist actions that deprive users of access to content in order to keep life support going on an outdated business model.
It's just plain laziness and a very wrong idea about "deserved" revenues. They don't deserve to make any money if they don't keep their customers happy and actually provide people with what they want.
It actually struck me for the first time how weird it is that a cable TV company is my Internet provider. Of course they are going to be against unlimited streaming video, as it directly competes with their existing business model. They have been too lazy to figure out how to properly monetize it, so they'll just slowly choke off access. Maybe it'll be time to look into Clear (WiMax service) soon...
Re:Give people what the want, for Pete's sake! (Score:3, Interesting)
Traditionally video is measured in how many lines (|||||) can be seen, counting left to right, inside a square. The sharper the image, the more lines you see. So you have:
VHS - approximately 250 ||||| lines
analog TV-330 ||||| lines
S-VHS- 420 ||||| lines
DVD - 480 ||||| lines
720p- 700 ||||| lines
1080i-1000 ||||| lines
All values are approximate, since the measurement is performed using analog means (the human eye). A heavily-compressed HD channel might deteriorate to only 500 lines horizontal resolution - not any better than DVD resolution. Perhaps the FCC could mandate that for a 720p channel to call itself "HD" it must have at least 600 lines of horizontal resolution, per picture height. And for a 1080i channel to call itself "HD" it must have at least 900 lines of horizontal resolution, per picture height.
This is a stopgap measure for cable. (Score:1, Interesting)
One day the networks will bypass the terrestrial affiliates and go straight to cable/satellite. That will open up a lot more airtime they can show commercials. But even cable is another middleman they'd like to bypass. Once full definition video on demand over IP becomes truly feasible and universal, the networks will go straight to the Net, the hell with the cable/sats.
Re:Time Warner is horrible.... (Score:5, Interesting)
An open standard using a torrent like system would allow a hybrid between broadcast and full video on demand.
Right now while my TV is turned off my cable company is broadcasting several digital HD channels at my house, and I don't even have a digital converter box yet. Total waste of bandwidth to broadcast all this data at people who aren't even watching that channel.
How peer to peer could work:
Show creators release this week's episodes as an open standard binary with tags in for downstream commercial addition, (or not for pay per view).
All licensed digital providers (ISP, Cable, Telco) then pick up the torrent seed from the source and fetch it to their local hard drives.
I pay a (REASONABLE) fee for the show, more for commercial free, and my home media adaptor (PS3, XBOX360, Linux box, AppleTV whatever) torrents it from my local provider to my place on to my drive for me to watch.
Yes, you could then implement QOS to allow streaming services like telephones etc to operate while my media box torrents in my selected content.
No I don't want a closed box Motorola PVR, they are crud, too buggy, and I have no control over feature removal at the whim of megacorp incorporated.
This should be open so there is competition, so the quality of the whole thing is reasonable.
Make it easy and cheap enough and you won't have to worry about DRM screwing up the paying customers (and not preventing pirates) See: Nine Inch Nails free music giveaway scheme for evidence.
Miro plus Torrents plus RSS almost offers this now, but is piracy (someone's got to pay the media providers!!) and too technogeeky for Grandma.
No, you giant media conglomerates don't get to push us back on the couch to watch broadcast. You lost. Get out of the way. There's a good reason people spend more time on the web than TV in the western world.
Torrent-ial waste of bandwidth (Score:3, Interesting)
Why isn't this multicast? You send the multicast stream once from the source, ISP/CableCos get it, insert commercials, then they can multicast it to the end users to save to hdd.
Torrents should only kick in when your primary disribution isn't running, the end users or the cable co do not need to upload for normal distrubtion. In fact, I really don't see any reason why they should ever kick in. Direct download would be more efficient since the distribution point is at the ISP/CableCo, not over the Internet.
Re:Eliminate the middle man (Score:2, Interesting)
All they have to do is look at the referer in the HTTP request, if your refered from the ISP's portal your good to go, it's a lot easier for the ISP to tell if your a subscriber than the content provider.