Cell phones with build in cameras are replacing cheap pocket size digital cameras and video cameras. Best cell phone cameras can be better in many ways than cheap pocket digital cameras from few years back. And most people do not want to carry separate devices for each function (at least without a very good reason), when a smart phone can handle calls, Internet, photos and video shooting.
CES 2013 fair had more pocket advanced size cameras on display than DSLRs, but the trend on then was that business was going down due cellular phone cameras getting better. So camera manufacturers are integrating more cellular phone like features to their cameras (like Android OS with wireless connectivity to photo sharing sites) and concentrate on building good superzoom and DSLR type cameras. You need to have something clearly different than what cell phone can offer: huge zoom, good performance in low light or works also in harsh environment. Wireless connection is getting more and more common, either built-in or using memory card with WiFi.
As Sales Slip, TV Makers Strain for the Next Sensation because hardware companies want to make their products stand out in a sea of black rectangles that can show the content user want to watch. And one that is particularly acute for television makers. The hardware is becoming kind of boring and exciting things are happening in software. TV manufacturers continue to push the idea of “smart” sets by adding apps and other interactive elements.
Connected TV technologies get more widely used and the content earlier viewable only on TV can be now seen on many other screens. Your smartphone is the screen in your pocket. Your computer is the screen on your desk. Your tablet is a screen for the couch. Almost every major electronic device you own is a black rectangle that is brought to life by software and content.
In the last two years, television makers have tried a push with 3-D sets. But now It’s official: 3D is dead. The tech industry’s annual hot air balloon show is gone. On the one hand, 3D has become ubiquitous enough in televisions that people are unwittingly buying it when opting for a high-end new HDTV to fill their living room.
Post HDTV resolution era seems to be coming to TVs as well in form of 4K / UltraHD. This year, television makers like Samsung, Sony, LG and Panasonic are trying to grab attention by supersizing their television screens and quadrupling the level of detail in their images. They are promoting what they call Ultra High-Definition televisions, which have four times as many pixels as their high-definition predecessors, and can cost as much as a car. It’s a bit of a marketing push. It seems that all LCD makers are looking to move their business models on from cheap mass production to higher-margin, premium offerings. They try to innovate and secure their future viability by selling fewer, but more profitable displays.
4K at CES 2013: the dream gets real article tells that the 4K bandwagon is fully loaded and ready to get rolling. The US TV maker isn’t alone in stepping up to the higher resolution in its new flagship models. Sony, Panasonic and Sharp, Japan’s traditional big-screen TV leaders, are all attending this year’s CES with proper retail products. Manufacturers Need You to Buy an Ultra-High-Def 4K TV. Save Your Money because just as HDTV was slow to take off, the 4K start will be slow. It’s more than the price that’s keeping these things from hitting critical mass. 4K is only for ultra-premium markets this year.
4K resolution TV has one big problem: The entire ecosystem isn’t ready for 4K. The Trouble With 4K TV article tellst that though 4K resolutions represent the next step in high-definition video, standards for the format have yet to emerge and no one’s really figured out how to distribute video, with its massive file footprint, efficiently and cost effectively. Getting 4K content to consumers is hard.
Even though 4K resolution is widely use in digital cinematography, but there is no suitable consumer disk format that supports it and the bandwidth need to stream 4K content would be huge. Given that uncompressed 4K footage has a bit-rate of about 600MB/s. Broadcom chip ushers in H.265 and UltraHD video tells that H.265 video standard, aka HEVC or MPEG-5, squeezes more pixels over a network connection to support new high-resolution 4K TVs.
You should also note that the new higher resolution is pretty pointless for a small TV (where the TV mass market is now). Ultra HD would make a difference only on screens that were at least 80 inches, measured diagonally. For smaller screens, the extra pixels would not be visible to a person with 20/20 vision viewing from a normal viewing distance. Ultra HD TVs can also be a flop. But let’s see what happens in the world where nowadays tiny smart phone screens can have full HDTV resolution.
Keep in mind that 4K is not any absolute highest resolution expected in few years. 8k resolution TVs are coming. Sharp showed a 8K resolution TV with 7680 x 4320 resolution at CES2013. For more details on it read Sharp 8K Super Hi-Vision LCD, 4K TV and Freestyle wireless LCD HDTV hands-on article.
Another development than pushing up the resolution to make high end display products is OLED technology. OLED is another new technology to make expensive products. The much buzzed-about device features next-generation, high-quality OLED screens. OLED stands for organic light-emitting diode, and they offer a bevy of benefits: more energy efficient, cleaner image, wide viewing angle and devices can be made thinner. You can also make TV screen curved in shape. In a race between television titans, LG has beat Samsung in becoming the first manufacturer to introduce a 55-inch OLED television to market: the largest OLED TV panel to date.. OLED products are very expensive (LG TV $10,300 in US dollars). OLED display can also have 4K resolution, so you can combine two expensive technologies to one product. Market analysts say that they believe the technology will not become more affordable until 2015.
The Verge Awards: the best of CES 2013 article lists for example product like Samsung 4K “easel TV”, Sony 4K OLED TV, Teenage Engineering OD-11 Cloud Speaker and Oculus Rift virtual reality gaming.
All your audio, video kit is about to become OBSOLETE article tells that although much of the audio and video technology packed into CES 2013′s 1.9 million square feet of exhibition space is indeed impressive, one panelist at an emerging-technology conference session channeled a little 1974 BTO, essentially telling his audience that “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” Deep-geek soothsayer predicts smart audio, Ultra HD eyewear, much more in coming years. Audio is going to become adaptive, changing its wave forms to fit each user’s personal aural perceptions. Active noise reduction is finding its way into cars. HD audio will be coming to mobile phones. MEMS-based microphones and speakers are also on the runway. Consumer-level video will see in the future much higher resolution devices with much higher frame rates.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Signals Weak for TV-Ad Market
Lower Broadcast Ratings, Fragile Economy and Web Rivals Mute ‘Upfront’ Outlook
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324373204578377032005060920.html
Broadcast-television ratings have dropped sharply this season. And that, combined with the weak economy and competition from other media, augurs badly for the spring ad-sales market, ad buyers and analysts say.
More TV ad dollars are expected to move to cable channels
But both broadcast and cable television are facing more intense competition from online media, including Web video outlets.
“Early indications are that the 2013/14 TV upfront could follow last year’s trend of slowing growth,”
“Advertisers have seen a significant shortage of ratings, and some are willing to take some money and move it online,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wi-Fi Enabled Digital Cameras Easily Exploitable
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/03/26/003218/wi-fi-enabled-digital-cameras-easily-exploitable
“Newer cameras increasingly sport built-in Wi-Fi capabilities or allow users to add SD cards to achieve them in order to be able to upload and share photos and videos as soon as they take them. But, as proven by Daniel Mende and Pascal Turbing, security researchers with ERNW, these capabilities also have security flaws that can be easily exploited for turning these cameras into spying devices.”
Digital cameras easily turned into spying devices, researchers prove
http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=14651
Mende and Turbing chose to compromise Canon’s EOS-1D X DSLR camera an exploit each of the four ways it can communicate with a network. Not only have they been able to hijack the information sent from the camera, but have also managed to gain complete control of it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Direct-to-Vinyl Recording Makes a Comeback (Video)
http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/13/03/25/187200/direct-to-vinyl-recording-makes-a-comeback-video
German compatriots from vinylrecording.com, busily demonstrating their vinyl recording system, which is sort of the gramophone record equivalent of print on demand.
Tomi Engdahl says:
DreamWorks tops compute-cycle record with ‘The Croods’
As many as 400 artists worked on the sophisticated 3D film’s production, meaning lots of pixels to push
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9237880/DreamWorks_tops_compute_cycle_record_with_The_Croods_
Between 300 and 400 animators worked on “The Croods” over the past three years. The images, from raw sketches to stereoscopic high-definition shots, required about 250TB of data storage capacity to make, according to Kate Swanborg, head of enterprise marketing at DreamWorks.
Each animated character in a 3D movie has up to 2,000 control points or features that can be manipulated by an animator.
A competed film has more than 250 billion pixels in it.
DreamWorks has standardized much of its IT infrastructure on Hewlett-Packard’s HP BladeSystem c-Class server blades — 3,000 of them — which consist of preconfigured compute, storage and network architecture.
DreamWorks’ five petabytes of disk storage is tiered
DreamWorks has a “render farm” of servers made up of about 20,000 processors.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Spotify Plans To Take On Netflix And HBO With Streaming Video Service
http://www.businessinsider.com/spotify-plans-to-take-on-netflix-and-hbo-with-streaming-video-service-2013-3
According to two sources briefed on the company’s plans, Spotify intends to become an on-demand music and video service – one that would invest in original content and compete heads-on with Netflix.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Televisions in living rooms now the fastest-growing internet platform
Focus gradually shifts away from porn? Presumably
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/27/internet_tv/
Tablet use is also up, by more than 50 per cent, while smartphones have – it seems – plateaued with a meagre four per cent increase. However it’s televisions and set-top boxes which take the first prize, jumping 138 per cent over the last six months as Smart TVs finally suck in some internet content worthy of the living room.
TVs are still a small player overall
Tomi Engdahl says:
Despite Google patent efforts, VP8 no shoo-in for Web video
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57575564-93/despite-google-patent-efforts-vp8-no-shoo-in-for-web-video/
Nokia refuses to license patents it says are needed to use Google’s video technology, sullying Google’s earlier patent deal. But WebRTC could still spread VP8 widely, lowering Web video costs for startups and schools.
VP8 will catch on
Ultimately, VP8 will find a place, said Karl Dahlin, vice president of business development at videoconferencing hardware company AVer. H.264 is widely used for corporate viceoconferencing chat rooms, but things will change with the spread of mobile videoconferencing.
“The rush of consumer-based videoconferencing today and new applications of WebRTC will use VP8, and mobile videoconferencing users will eclipse [traditional video chat] rooms very quickly,” with 100 times as much usage, Dahlin predicted.
Tomi says:
Aereo wins major court battle against TV networks
A remarkably tech-savvy decision
http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/1/4170312/aereo-wins-major-court-battle-against-tv-networks
The United States Second Circuit Court of Appeals just rejected an appeal from TV networks against web-television company Aereo by a 2-1 vote, concluding that Aereo’s system does not infringe the broadcaster’s copyrights.
Broadcasters argued that unlike Cablevision, Aereo lacked the proper license to operate — but the court ruled that the license doesn’t matter since Aereo customers are streaming their own unique copies to themselves.
The remarkably tech-savvy decision for Aereo today clears major legal difficulties for the web-television broadcaster, and will force TV networks to win an appeal either in front of the full Second Circuit or Supreme Court if they want to shut the streaming service down.
Aereo allows TV watchers to stream HD video over the web with a proprietary remote antenna and DVR service
“Only in the world of copyright maximalists do people need to get special permission to watch over-the-air television with an antenna,” said Senior Staff Attorney John Bergmayer. “Just because ‘the internet’ is involved doesn’t change this.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
HBO: ‘Game of Thrones’ piracy is a compliment
http://insidetv.ew.com/2013/03/31/hbo-thrones-piracy/
How does HBO feel about having the most pirated show on TV?
Not too bad, apparently.
The show’s second season was recently released to record-setting DVD sales for the network. But in December, Thrones topped another chart that is far more dubious — Thrones ranked as the most illegally downloaded TV series for 2012. “I probably shouldn’t be saying this, but it is a compliment of sorts,” Lombardo said. “The demand is there. And it certainly didn’t negatively impact the DVD sales. [Piracy is] something that comes along with having a wildly successful show on a subscription network.”
The show is currently, on a per-season basis, the network’s top money-earner despite widespread piracy of the show, the executive confirmed.
Still, Lombardo noted that HBO’s policy remains firmly anti-piracy
Tomi Engdahl says:
Check Out the San Francisco Bay Lights in 4K Glory
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/04/bay-lights-in-4k/
Tomi Engdahl says:
RED Cameras Now Much, Much Cheaper
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/11/red-camera-price-drop/
RED’s Hollywood-worthy HD video cameras just got way, way cheaper. On Friday, CEO Jim Jannard (who also founded eyewear goliath Oakley) posted in a RED users’ forum that the company would be reducing the price of many of its professional-grade cameras by up to 45 percent.
Tomi Engdahl says:
BitTorrent opens kimono, gets out one-to-many streaming tool
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/02/bittorrent_live/
BitTorrent’s live streaming protocol has finally emerged into the daylight after years of development. The beta program is now public. You can try it.
The broadcast data is assigned to small groups – “clubs” – which then share the stream with a UDP protocol. Congestion control is added at the last hop.
“So far, the one thing cable infrastructure has managed to still do better [than streaming] is live broadcasting. But the BitTorrent Live technology makes it practical to move that to the internet without being cost prohibitive,” said BitTorrent founder Bram Cohen in an interview with TorrentFreak.
“We plan to shape the future of live broadcasts and want to work with broadcasters to accomplish that.”
Particularly since the potholed public internet isn’t capable of high quality video broadcasting – you need to use a CDN (Content Delivery Network), or even better, own one.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Low-noise MEMS microphone targets hearing aids
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4410819/Low-noise-MEMS-microphone-targets-hearing-aids
Compared to electret condenser microphones, the ADMP801 MEMS microphone from Analog Devices is not only smaller at 7.3 cubic mm, but also produces low EIN (equivalent input noise) of 27 dBa SPL (sound pressure level).
In addition, the device consumes just 17 µA with a 1-V supply, which the manufacturer reports is a fraction of the power consumed by conventional electret microphones.
Housed in a surface-mount LGA package that is 3.35×2.50×0.98 mm,
The ADMP801 MEMS microphone costs $10.78 in lots of 1000 units
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Big Bet at Intel Corp. That Could Change TV
http://variety.com/2013/tv/news/intel-the-big-bet-that-could-change-tv-1200332075/
Step aside, Apple: This Silicon Valley chip-maker is ready to invade the cable biz this year. But is the plan inspired or insane?
Having the only clue of the work he’s done to date be visible to his Silicon Valley neighbors has a deeper meaning for Erik Huggers, head of the division housed inside, Intel Media, one he hopes will soon resonate among U.S. consumers.
“When you think Intel, you think something inside, a component of something sitting in your computing device,” he said. “I think there’s an opportunity for the company for the first time to have the perception of ‘Intel outside.’ If we succeed, I do think it will change the perception of Intel dramatically.”
The move could be deemed either inspired or insane, depending on your point of view. It’s a direct challenge to leading pay-TV providers like cable operator Comcast and satcaster DirecTV, which may often be characterized as vulnerable but aren’t actually showing signs of weakness right now. Intel is making a headlong leap into a business where Google has barely stuck a toe in the form of Google Fiber, which has rolled out its own broadband network in two Midwest cities. And though everyone expects Apple to rock this competitive field with some sort of solution of its own, what it is doing exactly and when it will arrive is completely undefined.
Bottom line: If Intel is going to launch a product with a breadth of content on par with the cable, satellite and telco giants with which it hopes to compete, it could cost billions of dollars in carriage fees.
“We know this is very left field, we know this is crazy, but as a company we understand we must become more user-experience-driven,” he admitted.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Pinhead-Sized Implant Could Replace Hearing Aids
Regaining proper hearing at last
http://www.fraunhofer.de/en/press/research-news/2013/april/regaining-proper-hearing-at-last.html
Around 17 million people in Germany suffer from impaired hearing. For many of them, their hearing is so damaged that a standard hearing aid is no longer enough. A new device will improve patients’ hearing and can be implanted during outpatient surgery.
The new solution is composed of three parts: a case with a microphone and battery; wireless, optical signal and energy transmission between the outer and middle ear; and an electro-acoustic transducer – the centerpiece and loudspeaker of the implant.
The electro-acoustic transducer, which takes the form of a piezoelectric micro-actuator, is then placed directly at the connection between the middle and inner ear known as the “round window”. From there it transmits acoustic signals to the inner ear in the form of amplified mechanical vibrations, thereby enhancing the hearing capacity of patients.
“The bending elements, which are arranged in the shape of a pie, consist of a laminated composite made from piezo-ceramics and silicon. If voltage is applied, the elements bend upwards and generate a mechanical vibration. This spreads to the membrane of the round window and the inner ear, stimulating the auditory nerve.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Smart television buyer will be disappointed – “Oh, it is not on ..?”
State of the art television technology smart televisions represent the risk of being a viewer of the shape in half. Different manufacturers are unable to agree on a common standard that would ensure that a range of services for easy application on all devices.
Source: http://www.3t.fi/artikkeli/uutiset/teknologia/alytelevision_ostaja_pettyy_ai_se_ei_naykaan
Tomi Engdahl says:
Gesture Control Coming to a Television Near You
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1395&doc_id=261391
Pressing buttons on your television’s remote may one day be passé. A new technology will enable couch potatoes to change channels, adjust the volume, rewind a movie, browse the Internet, or control myriad other functions with simple physical gestures. The technology, incorporated into a device called a SmartMotion Server, will not only interpret the swipes and rolls, but will understand what they mean in the context of different TV-related applications.
For viewers, the new server technology will mean a whole new control experience. A roll of the wrist, for example, might adjust the volume. Yawing the remote, meanwhile, might enable fast-forwarding or rewinding of a movie.
While learning a new repertoire of gestures might seem unnecessary to today’s TV buffs, Movea says it’s becoming important as televisions offer more Internet capabilities. “Consumers started asking for this type of capability as soon as they had Internet-connected TV,” Kelliher told us. “They often don’t have a mouse and they don’t want to sit in a desk-like environment while they’re watching TV. They’re on the couch, so a mouse is cumbersome, whereas a flick of the wrist is not.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Most viewed YouTube video earned 0.004 Euros per is view
PSY singer’s Gangnam by Style-viewed video on YouTube was viewed total of 1.4 billion times. The advertisements have collected a total of eight million U.S. dollars, or about 6.2 million Euros. This means that the advertising revenue per viewer was only $ 0.006 or EUR 0.004.
Source: http://www.tietoviikko.fi/kaikki_uutiset/youtuben+katsotuimmalla+videolla+tienasi+0004+euroa+per+katsomiskerta/a892208?s=r&wtm=tietoviikko/-07042013&
Tomi Engdahl says:
At what age did you start thinking about sound?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13645_3-57578131-47/at-what-age-did-you-start-thinking-about-sound/
Audiophiles — or anyone who occasionally listens to music without multitasking — may fall in love with sound.
Most folks rarely focus on music; it’s background to other activities like talking, reading, working, exercising, and so forth. They don’t really think about sound that much, as long as it’s loud enough, or they can follow the dialogue, or there’s enough bass, they’re happy. Audiophiles are more likely to really listen, so we care about how our music or home theater sounds. The more you listen, the more you hear, and the opposite is also true.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The smart TV buyer will be disappointed
State of the art television technology smart TV represent the risk of being a viewed as “half shaped” Different manufacturers are unable to agree on a common standard that would ensure that a range of services for easy application on all devices.
Many new smart TV buyers impatient waiting turns bitter disappointment when he gets to the first time the device to browse the applications store.
The reason for this mess is not only a new technology, including equipment manufacturers in the competition. Television manufacturer hopes that the consumer selects the device on the ground, what services are right on that device and its operating system is able to use.
- There is no universal smart TVs, but each manufacturer has its own platform.
Samsung wants to use the TV’s own proprietary operating systems, because the company does not want to trade in the application applications that do not meet the promised services. Applications must therefore be approved by the TV manufacturer.
The situation can be compared to the smartphone world, which is currently dominated by three operating systems: iPhone, Windows Phone and Google’s Android. Application factors are responsible for what works in any given system.
The consumer can hope that the service providers will solve the problem and make possible applications to more than one television.
- In the early stages of smarty TV is has happened that the more consumers into options, so the more consumers get mixed up,
Smart TV buyer headaches does not expect a quick solution. Will likely take a long time before the equipment manufacturers and applications providers will find common ground.
Source: http://www.itviikko.fi/teknologia/2013/04/05/ostaja-pettyy–alytelevisioilla-onkin-putkiaivo/20134950/7?rss=8
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sony announces $699 FMP-X1 4K media player for summer release, 4K downloads slip to fall
http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/7/4194290/sony-fmp-x1-4k-media-player
Along with announcing pricing and a release date for its new 4K LED televisions, Sony has announced more details about its previously-unnamed 4K FMP-X1 media player at NAB 2013.
Unfortunately, early adopters of Sony’s new 4K lineup will have to wait longer than expected for the company’s “industry first” 4K video distribution service. Sony notes that FMP-X1 owners will have to wait until fall for paid 4K movie downloads — and there’s still no word on how many titles will be available in Sony’s lineup, except a note that the library will include films from Sony Pictures and “other notable production houses.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
NAB 2013 show seems to be going on at the moment
http://www.nabshow.com/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft dumps Mediaroom to focus TV work on Xbox
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2259931/microsoft-dumps-mediaroom-to-focus-tv-work-on-xbox
Microsoft is selling its IPTV business Mediaroom to Ericsson so that it can focus on its Xbox games console.
“Ericsson will continue to invest in the growth and success of Mediaroom to the benefit of customers, employees and the industry. It allows Microsoft to commit 100 percent of its focus on consumer TV strategy with Xbox.”
According to Mehdi, Mediaroom powers 22 million television set-top boxes and pulls its weight in the pay TV market.
“Ericsson’s vision of the Networked Society foresees 50 billion devices to be connected via broadband, mobility and cloud. Future video distribution will have a similar impact on consumer behavior and consumption as mobile voice has had,” said Per Borgklint, senior VP and head of BUSS at Ericsson.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Holy Cow: Two of the Big Four TV Networks Are Considering Going Off the Air
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2013/04/08/holy-cow-two-of-the-big-four-tv-networks-are-considering-going-off-the-air/
How worried are the owners of the major broadcast television networks about Aereo, the Barry Diller-backed digital television service they’ve been trying unsuccessfully to sue out of existence? Worried enough that at least two of them are actively entertaining the possibility of pulling their free over-the-air signals altogether.
That may sound like a doomsday scenario, but it’s happening, says Garth Ancier, a former top-level executive at NBC, Fox and WB.
“I know two that are talking about it,” he says, leaving open the possibility that the others might be as well. He declines to specify which, saying he’d heard it in a “talking over coffee” setting and didn’t want to betray a confidence.
“To say it’s serious is probably an overstatement,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
New Threat to Aereo TV
Legal Issues in West, Precipitated by Rival Aereokiller, Cloud Diller’s Startup
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424127887323820304578410622624628176-lMyQjAxMTAzMDAwODEwNDgyWj.html
The TV industry’s best hope of shutting down TV startup Aereo Inc. anytime soon could rest, bizarrely enough, on a legal case involving something called Aereokiller LLC.
Aereo is the company backed by media mogul Barry Diller that last year began streaming broadcast-TV signals over the Web to New Yorkers for a monthly fee, prompting major TV networks to sue, alleging copyright infringement.
The service could threaten billions of dollars in fees broadcasters are paid by cable and satellite operators, according to industry executives.
Aereo, he said, “is pirating our broadcast signal.”
Aereo defends its system, saying broadcast signals are free over the air.
Ultimately the differing opinions could end up before the U.S. Supreme Court, lawyers say.
So where does Aereokiller fit in? It is a copycat service launched in Aereo’s wake last year by an entrepreneur named Alkiviades David, using a Web address of Barrydriller.com. Aereokiller streams broadcast networks over the Web, and has said it uses technology similar to Aereo’s.
Now, Aereokiller has become a larger threat to Aereo, clouding both its legal standing and its hopes of expanding its service to 22 cities across the U.S.
The Aereokiller case is still on appeal
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel announces next-gen Thunderbolt with 20 Gbps throughput, 4K support
http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/08/intel-announces-next-gen-thunderbolt-20-gbps-throughput/
Here at NAB, Intel just introduced the next generation of its Thunderbolt interface, which promises a data rate of 20 Gbps in both directions (on each of the two channels) as opposed to 10 Gbps for the previous version.
the next-gen Thunderbolt tech (code-named Falcon Ridge) enables 4K video file transfer and display simultaneously in addition to running at 20 Gbps. It will be backward-compatible with previous-gen Thunderbolt cables and connectors, and production is set to ramp up in 2014.
Tomi Engdahl says:
TI introduces industry’s first full HD image sensor receiver
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/electronic-product-reviews/other/4411487/TI-introduces-industrys-first-full-HD-image-sensor-receiver
Texas Instruments Incorporated introduced the industry’s first image sensor receiver IC to serve as a dedicated LVDS bridge between image sensors and processors. Compared to existing FPGA-based solutions, the SN65LVDS324 lowers the bill-of-materials (BOM) by 20 percent, reduces system power consumption by more than 10 percent and shrinks package size by 50 percent. It provides full HD, 1080p60 image quality in a host of video capture applications, including surveillance IP cameras and video conferencing systems, as well as industrial, consumer and professional video recording equipment.
Tomi says:
Intel shows off 20Gbit/s Falcon Ridge Thunderbolt controller
Doubles the bandwidth for those that can afford it
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2260257/intel-shows-off-20gbit-s-falcon-ridge-thunderbolt-controller
CHIPMAKER Intel has announced an update to its Thunderbolt bus boosting bandwidth to 20Gbit/s while introducing 10Gbit/s controllers with lower power consumption.
Intel’s Thunderbolt bus was first seen on Apple’s machines but it was last year before chipsets supporting the bus started to appear on other machines.
With Intel promoting Thunderbolt as a Firewire replacement, it is not surprising the firm chose the National Association of Broadcasters’ show in Las Vegas to make the announcement. The firm said the chipset, known as Falcon Ridge, will have enough bandwidth for 4K television resolution, a resolution that content creators are increasingly working in as the broadcast industry starts to move on from the ageing HD 1080p standard.
Tomi says:
Texas Instruments previews H.265 codec on eight-core Keystone DSP
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2260316/texas-instruments-previews-h265-codec-on-eightcore-keystone-dsp
CHIPMAKER Texas Instruments has implemented the H.265 video codec on its multi-core Keystone digital signal processor (DSP).
Texas Instruments has moved away from its all-ARM based OMAP chips to focus on its multi-core Keystone chips that have both ARM and DSP cores. Now the firm has announced the availability of its pre-production codec that can run on an eight-core 1.25GHz Keystone DSP.
The firm touted the benefits of the H.265 video standard, especially when it comes to working on 2K and 4K video resolutions.
Texas Instruments’ Keystone chips will be appearing in HP’s Moonshot servers later this year and will be a particularly attractive option for firms that do transcoding.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Broadcasters Circle Wagons Against a TV Streaming Upstart
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/10/business/media/aereo-has-tv-networks-circling-the-wagons.html?pagewanted=all
When Chase Carey, Rupert Murdoch’s top deputy at News Corporation, told broadcasters on Monday about his contingency plan to turn the Fox network into something available only on cable, he knew policy makers would be listening, too.
But a few of them were busy that day, meeting with Chet Kanojia, the very man who had provoked Mr. Carey’s stark warning.
Mr. Kanojia had come to Washington to sell lawmakers and reporters on the virtues of his upstart service, Aereo, which scoops up the free signals of local television stations and streams them to the phones and computers of paying subscribers. Because Aereo cuts off the stations from the retransmission fees that they have grown to depend on, they are determined to shut down the service — even, the station owners say, if they have to take their signals off the airwaves to do so.
The networks aren’t just concerned about Aereo, which has a tiny following, but about copycats. “It’s Aereo today, but it could be something else tomorrow,” said Robin Flynn, a senior analyst at SNL Kagan.
For several decades companies that were lucky enough to own licenses for local TV stations thrived on advertising revenue alone, and because there was relatively little competition they enjoyed huge audiences and profit margins to match.
As cable and then the Internet introduced new competitors, station owners began to rely on a second revenue source, the so-called retransmission fees that come from the cable and satellite operators that pick up their signals and repackage them for subscribers. Now that they’ve had a taste of these fees, the stations aren’t willing — or able, they say — to go back to the old model of advertising alone.
CBS joins Fox in considering subscription-only model
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57578785-93/cbs-joins-fox-in-considering-subscription-only-model/
CBS CEO Leslie Moonves applauds News Corp. exec’s comments, telling the New York Times that the network was considering cutting its over-the-air signal in the New York area.
Another television network has joined the broadcaster backlash following last week’s court decision upholding Internet TV company Aereo’s right to stream broadcast TV without paying retransmission fees.
Like rival Fox TV, CBS, the parent company of CNET, is considering alternative ways to monetize its television content in the face of Aereo’s service, including cutting off broadcast signals in favor of a subscription-only model, The New York Times reported today. The revelation comes a day after Chase Carey, chief operations officer of News Corp., indicated that Fox would change its business model to ensure it gets paid for TV content it produces.
“We need the dual revenue stream model of retransmission fees and advertising to sustain our business,” Carey said yesterday at National Association of Broadcasters’ annual trade show in Las Vegas.
“For now, we’re talking about the New York-Connecticut area,” he said. Aero currently operates only in the New York metropolitan area
Last week, a federal appeals court in New York upheld a lower court ruling in favor of Aereo, which uses tiny antennas to pick up over-the-air broadcast signals that it then streams over the Internet to its subscribers’ Internet-connected devices.
Fox’s threat to go cable-only won’t mean much to most viewers
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-fox-threat-cable-only-20130409,0,5098893.story
News Corp. Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey made big headlines Monday for suggesting that Fox could go from a broadcast network to cable channel to make ends meet.
The implication is that consumers would have to pay to watch Bart Simpson or catch some NFL football on Sunday afternoons.
But for all intents and purpose, Fox is already a cable channel and has been for a long time. Yes, about 10% to 15% of the country’s TV consumers still get Fox via antennas, but everyone else receives its signals from a pay-TV provider such as Time Warner Cable or DirecTV.
And they pay for it too. Back in the early 1990s, lawmakers gave broadcasters the right to charge distributors to carry their signal. In the TV industry, this is known as retransmission consent.
Retransmission consent has become a key revenue stream for broadcasters. According to SNL Kagan, Fox, CBS, NBC, ABC, CW and Univision will take in a combined $1.7 billion in fees from pay-TV companies in 2015.
Converting Fox (or any network) from broadcast to cable would take more than just flipping a switch. Fox would need to get a green light from the people it buys programming from, including the big sports leagues such as the NFL, to make such a move. Some might be wary and even if Fox did do this, it would have to find a way to make some of its higher profile programming (such as next year’s Super Bowl) available to everyone.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nuclear option: would Fox really leave the free airwaves to undercut Aereo?
http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/9/4205338/nuclear-option-would-fox-really-leave-the-free-airwaves-to-undercut-aereo
Taking Fox to cable could be a logistical and legal nightmare
Talk about mixed messages: when Aereo first began offering consumers a way to get free network TV over the internet — on any device and on demand — CBS CEO Les Moonves said last year that the service wasn’t causing him any loss of sleep. Fast forward to yesterday and executives from News Corp are warning that, if Aereo persists, Fox may pull programming off the free public airwaves and make it available only to paid cable subscribers.
The networks allege Aereo is violating their copyrights and distributing their programming illegally, but after losing two significant court decisions, the TV bigwigs are taking their case to the public.
According to a report in Variety, News Corp president Chase Carey told the audience at a conference hosted by the National Association of Broadcasters, “If we can’t have our rights properly protected through legal and political avenues, we will pursue business solutions. One such business solution would be to take the [Fox] network and turn it into a subscription service [...] It’s not a path we’d love to pursue. But we’re not going to sit idly by and let people steal our content.”
The broadcasters say Aereo is just thinly-veiled piracy created as an end run around copyright law. Aereo, meanwhile, says this is the same old story of copyright owners stifling innovation that they can’t control but could eventually help them (think Betamax and YouTube, for instance).
Would the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) sit still and allow Fox to pull its content off free airwaves? Peter Tannenwald, a lawyer and expert on FCC regulations, says he doubts the government would get involved. The move, however, could hurt one of the key points that broadcasters’ make about why they shouldn’t have to give up prized spectrum for mobile broadband services, which is that they provide quality TV programming free to people of limited means. Moving that programming to cable would clearly undercut the argument.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Product How-To: High-quality wireless audio in the car
http://www.edn.com/design/consumer/4411638/Product-How-To–High-quality-wireless-audio-in-the-car
As the home environment marches towards the reality of wireless connectivity, car drivers and passengers are expecting the same functionality and freedom associated with a wire-free environment. There are two applications where consumers expect to enjoy high-quality audio: The first is streaming content from their smart devices to the head unit, and the second is listening to high-quality audio from their rear-seat entertainment system while watching a movie or playing a game.
Bluetooth, the most ubiquitous of wireless protocols, has the ability to address both these applications but only recently has had the potential to make this possible.
For stereo audio, the A2DP profile mandated codec of SBC (Low Complexity Subband Coding) was used within the Bluetooth transport layer. Unfortunately, at its most popularly used implementation (Bit Pool 32), SBC was only able to reproduce audio quality closer to FM quality (32kHz Fs or 10Hz to 15kHz frequency bandwidth).
Because of these unattractive features, rather than using Bluetooth, automotive manufacturers were forced away from standards-based options to the more inflexible and constraining solutions offered by proprietary vendors such as SCMS’s Kleer. However, as A2DP is set to stay with us for many years OEMs need to think about dealing with current audio-quality issues, rather than looking for alternative solutions.
Happily for all in the design chain, there is now an alternative which will render Bluetooth “fit for purpose” for the automotive sector. The aptX codec has been integrated into various CSR automotive solutions including BC05MM, CSR8311 as well as aftermarket solutions such as CSR8670 and all options readily address both audio quality and latency.
Additionally the aptX codec now enjoys widespread adoption in the smartphone and consumer space, with brands such as Samsung, Apple, Motorola, HTC all adopting the aptX codec for wireless streaming.
Bluetooth is a standard that has been readily adopted by a myriad of consumer electronics manufacturers. Over three billion Bluetooth chips have been sold in the past 10 years. All smartphones and the majority of feature phones and portable media players include Bluetooth as a feature and offer the A2DP profile for wideband stereo audio.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Auto sound gets new options
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/automotive-innovation/4411416/Auto-sound-gets-new-options
The driving experience is primarily a solitary one, where the main company that supports minimum distractions to driving is listening to the radio. The music or talk that is produced has been produced and consumed using the same technologies since about the 1940s.
After many decades of a stable technology base, new methods are entering the market, but the challenge is to make them last.
The drivers sound technology in cars is challenging as the driving experience ranges from short trips under five minutes through long trips which can exceed six hours in duration.
The initial solution for in car sound, is still the default on all vehicles – an AM radio.
The issues with AM radio are the sound quality and the continuity of sound.
The upgrade of FM radio improved sound quality and an increase in the variety of content choices, was introduced over 50 years ago.
The radio industry has recently embraced new technologies, and has brought the additional options of HD radio, and Satellite radio to the automobile.
The gold mine in the personalized driving experience is to allow for user selected content in the car. These solutions, that started in the aftermarket, have made their way into the “optional upgrade” marketplace for cars from the OEMs. These include cassette tapes, the thought to be “ubiquitous” eight-track player, CD players, USB/HDD-based media players and the AUX device interface.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Verizon CEO: 50% of our wireless traffic is video
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/verizon-ceo-50-our-wireless-traffic-video/2013-04-10
Video accounts for 50 percent of Verizon Wireless’ (NYSE:VZ) network traffic today and by 2017 the carrier estimates video will make up two-thirds of all traffic over the network.
Verizon Communications CEO Lowell McAdam said that the company’s investment in its LTE network is what is making the delivery of that video possible. “With 3G you have video clips but there is buffering. With 4G you can stream video,” he said.
desire to use LTE Broadcast technology to broadcast live events like the 2014 Super Bowl to Verizon’s customers.
McAdam said that he doesn’t plan to replace traditional broadcast TV because the majority of people will want to watch the 2014 Super Bowl in their homes over their existing television. “We don’t want to get in the way of broadcasters,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Exclusive: Microsoft’s next Xbox will take over your TV, interact with your cable box
The fight for the living room continues
http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/10/4208970/next-xbox-tv-entertainment-plans
Microsoft is investing in TV in a big way with its next Xbox console as part of a fight for the living room. Multiple sources familiar with the company’s Xbox plans have revealed to The Verge that Microsoft will introduce a feature that lets its next-generation console take over a TV and set-top box in a similar way to Google TV. We understand that the next Xbox will require an online connection to use the entertainment services, allowing them to be always-on for streaming and access to TV signals.
The functionality will work by taking a cable box signal and passing it through to the Xbox via HDMI, allowing Microsoft’s console to overlay a UI and features on top of an existing TV channel or set-top box. We’re told that this is a key part of the next-generation Xbox and that it will go a step further than Google’s TV implementation thanks to Microsoft’s partnerships with content providers. Extended support for various cable services will be rolled out gradually, but the basic functionality will be available at launch.
Coupled with this TV functionality, Microsoft’s next-generation Kinect sensor will also play a role in the company’s TV focus.
Microsoft to focus fully on its Xbox console for entertainment apps and TV services.
plans to sell its Mediaroom IPTV business to Ericsson
Tomi Engdahl says:
Adobe Goes Primetime With Comcast, NBC Sports To Jumpstart TV Everywhere
http://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthof/2013/04/10/adobe-goes-primetime-with-comcast-nbc-sports-to-jumpstart-tv-everywhere/
TV Everywhere, the television industry’s attempt to respond to viewer demand for more TV content on other screens such as tablets and computers so they don’t cut the cable cord, has been seen even by industry insiders as disappointing, even embarrassing.
That’s starting to change as more cable subscribers “authenticate” themselves to prove they’re paying customers before they can view cable content online, but clearly not fast enough to satisfy the industry and certainly viewers.
Adobe today is launching Primetime,
Primetime combines Adobe’s video publishing, advertising, and analytics products.
Adobe also announced two initial customers: Comcast Cable and NBC Sports Group (which is owned by Comcast, but this is a separate deal). NBC will have live and on-demand content
For operators like Comcast and programmers like NBC Sports, Helfand says, Primetime provides a single video player, a unified publishing workflow and Digital Rights Management system for faster rollout to multiple devices, and the ability to run ads across devices and track how well they’re doing. “Device fragmentation is the biggest challenge carriers face,” says Helfand.
For consumers, Primetime is intended to eliminate the mess of installing various apps, players, software plug-ins, and multiple log-ins currently needed to view a variety of cable channels and shows.
The player will use Apple‘s (yes, Apple’s, even though Adobe and Apple have a long, strained history) HLS (for HTTP Live Streaming) protocol, embedded inside Adobe’s well-known Flash player. Later this year, Adobe plans to provide an HTML5, or next-generation Web, solution for mobile browsers, Roku and Xbox devices, and Connected TVs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Book lays foundation for video-processing steps
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/dev-monkey-blog/4411583/Book-lays-foundation-for-video-processing-steps
To help engineers better understand how video processing takes place in embedded systems, Michael Parker and Suhel Dhanani have written the book, “Digital Video Processing for Engineers: A Foundation for Embedded Systems Design.”
Both authors work at Altera, an FPGA manufacturer
This volume gives engineers a good introduction to how computers can process video information.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mozilla Brings Native H.264 Video to Desktop Firefox
http://www.webmonkey.com/2013/01/mozilla-brings-native-h-264-to-firefox-nightly/
The latest nightly builds of desktop Firefox now support the ubiquitous H.264 video and MP3 codecs. When the current Firefox Nightly arrives in final form later this year, Firefox users will no longer need the Flash plugin to play H.264 web video in Firefox.
Firefox for Android and Firefox OS already support H.264 and MP3, but on the desktop the new H.264 support is, thus far, only available in the Windows 7 Nightly release.
Mozilla long opposed supporting the H.264 codec because it’s patent-encumbered and requires licensing fees. For better or worse it’s also the most popular codec for HTML5 video on the web, which drove Mozilla to take the pragmatic approach and add support to Firefox. Instead of including the codec directly in Firefox, the browser will rely on OS-level tools to play H.264 video.
Eventually all platforms except Windows XP will get OS-native codec support for H.264 video. Windows XP, which lacks OS-level tools for H.264, will continue to use the Flash plugin to play H.264 movies.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Netflix users watched more than four billion hours of video in Q1
http://paidcontent.org/2013/04/11/netflix-four-billion-hours/
Summary:
Netflix streamed more than four billion hours of movies and TV shows to its members in the first quarter of this year.
Tomi Engdahl says:
More Cracks Undermine the Citadel of TV Profits
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/15/business/media/more-cracks-in-televisions-business-model.html?pagewanted=all
For the longest time in the media business, the concept of the bundle has been foundational.
People were free to shop for what they wanted, as long as they were willing to buy a bunch of other stuff they did not.
Television has thrived on this kind of systematic stacking, but though bundles may be a handy way of protecting things, they also tend to obscure the weaknesses within. Those flaws are becoming more apparent as the practice of bundling comes under attack.
Networks are stepping up the fight against Dish Network’s Hopper, which automatically skips the commercials in network programming. Aereo won a court decision on April 1, letting it continue its rollout of a service through which consumers can access broadcast signals online without Aereo paying any of the estimated $3 billion that broadcasters will take in from retransmission fees by 2015.
Those initiatives represent assaults on different parts of the business, but each is an attack on the bundle, and the legacy industry is reacting ferociously.
The advent of the Internet presented an existential challenge to bundles. Once consumers got their hands on the mouse and a programmable remote, they began to attack the inefficiencies of the system. When seeking information, they sought relevant links, not media brands. And DVRs put them in the control room of their own viewing universe.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Video: Ultra HD TV prices are expected to collapse
Japanese Sony wants to get people to get high-precision 4k resolution.
Later this month, the U.S. market launched in 55-inch Ultra-High-definition televisions will cost about $ 5,000.
Source: http://www.tietoviikko.fi/kaikki_uutiset/video+ultra+hd+televisioiden+hintoihin+odotetaan+romahdusta/a894203?s=r&wtm=tietoviikko/-16042013&
Tomi Engdahl says:
YouTube adds support for live streaming on iOS with latest update
http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/15/4227482/youtube-update-adds-support-for-live-streaming-on-ios
When Coachella streamed its concerts on YouTube this weekend, iOS users may have been disappointed to discover that the YouTube app didn’t support live broadcasts. Now, Google is adding live event streaming to iOS, albeit a little late.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Netflix plans its move from Microsoft Silverlight to HTML5 video
http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/15/4228248/netflix-plans-its-move-from-microsoft-silverlight-to-html5-video
Last month Google announced that Netflix was now available on ARM-based Samsung Chromebooks thanks to the use of HTML5 video — and now the streaming service has outlined its larger plans to eventually move to the format for all computers.
Currently, Netflix primarily uses the Microsoft Silverlight plug-in when streaming video to web browsers, but Netflix’s Anthony Park and Mark Watson point out in a blog post that the current solution really can’t stand. Plug-ins don’t play well with with most mobile browsers, they can be cumbersome for users, and perhaps most importantly, Microsoft itself may not develop a new version of Silverlight beyond the current release.
The solution is HTML5 video, but that relatively young technology requires further development to meet the needs — and DRM requirements — of a service like Netflix.
Netflix has been collaborating on three W3C initiatives that together will provide the required functionality for streaming video services.
“HTML5 Premium Video Extensions,”
According to Netflix, the Chrome OS version of Netflix uses the first two extensions in the suite already
Once Google builds that third extension into the browser, however, the door will be open for Netflix to start testing HTML5 video on a wide array of computers
Tomi Engdahl says:
Comcast confirms: Yes, we’re encrypting basic cable now
http://gigaom.com/2013/04/15/comcast-basic-cable-encryption/
Comcast customers, get ready for yet another TV transition: The cable provider has started to alert its customers in some markets that it is about to encrypt their basic cable signals, forcing them to order a digital adapter if they want to continue to receive basic programming through the service.
Cable companies have long lobbied for the right to encrypt basic cable channels, arguing that this will prevent cable theft and simplify remote management of their equipment. They succeeded last year when the FCC ruled that they could start to encrypt basic cable, as long as they provide consumers with some help during the transition.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Netflix plotting move to HTML5 video – but only if DRM works
‘We’re a major source of funds for Hollywood’
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/16/netflix_planning_html5_switch/
Streaming video leader Netflix says it’s eager to move away from using Microsoft’s moribund Silverlight technology to support its service on desktop PCs, but it will be a while yet before today’s HTML5 browsers support the features it needs to make that happen.
In a blog post on Monday, reps for Netflix – which by some estimates now accounts for around a third of all internet traffic in North America – said the company definitely plans to get off the Silverlight boat
“We’re trying to get to the point where we don’t need a plugin. But we have to have DRM.”
Silverlight has long been Netflix’s technology of choice for implementing its DRM solution on Windows and OS X.
that solution presents a host of problems.
approach of maintaining separate, dedicated clients for each platform can be a real drag. It would be much better if support for Netflix streaming were baked right into the HTML5 standards – and if the company has its way, it says, that’s just what will happen.
But forget about getting rid of the DRM
If all of this effort seems like a lot of trouble just to implement DRM technology that customers don’t really want, get used to it.
“Right now what we’re basically doing is giving billions of dollars to Hollywood to buy the content, so that they can afford to build more content,” he said. “That’s basically the business we’re in.”
“We just do streaming,” he said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
HTML5 Video at Netflix
http://techblog.netflix.com/2013/04/html5-video-at-netflix.html
We currently use Microsoft Silverlight to deliver streaming video to web browsers on the PC and Mac.
But since Microsoft announced the end of life of Silverlight 5 in 2021, we need to find a replacement some time within the next 8 years. We’d like to share some progress we’ve made towards our goal of moving to HTML5 video.
HTML5 Premium Video Extensions
Over the last year, we’ve been collaborating with other industry leaders on three W3C initiatives which are positioned to solve this problem of playing premium video content directly in the browser without the need for browser plugins such as Silverlight. We call these, collectively, the “HTML5 Premium Video Extensions”:
Media Source Extensions (MSE)
Encrypted Media Extensions (EME)
Web Cryptography API (WebCrypto)
First Implementation in Chrome OS
We’ve been working with Google to implement support for the HTML5 Premium Video Extensions in the Chrome browser
Tomi Engdahl says:
Twitter Won’t Challenge Hulu in Internet TV
http://variety.com/2013/news/twitter-close-to-clinching-viacom-nbcu-tv-pacts-report-1200374606/
Hoping to turn tweeters into viewers, Twitter appears to be gearing up to take on Hulu as a destination for premium TV video content: The social site is in advanced talks with Viacom and NBCUniversal to license content, Bloomberg reported.
However, a source familiar with the discussions said the content from NBCU and Viacom would be short clips — not full-length episodes, a la Hulu.
Twitter already is a major haven for chatter about TV skeins. About 32 million U.S. TV viewers actively engaged in Twitter conversations in 2012
Tomi Engdahl says:
Time Warner Cable to Offer Live Mobile TV for Apple Devices
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-16/time-warner-cable-to-offer-live-mobile-content-for-apple-devices.html
Time Warner Cable Inc., the second- largest U.S. cable operator, is adding live out-of-home programming for the first time to its TWC TV application, letting customers watch shows on Apple Inc. (AAPL) mobile devices.
Time Warner Cable will make as many as 11 live national news, sports and entertainment channels available outside the home starting at 10 a.m. New York time tomorrow, according to Maureen Huff, a company spokeswoman.
The New York-based cable provider is following the lead of Comcast Corp. (CMCSA), the largest U.S. cable operator, and DirecTV (DTV), the nation’s biggest satellite-TV provider, in giving customers certain live and on-demand content on mobile apps. It’s part of a cable-industry shift toward a concept known as “TV Everywhere,” where subscribers can watch television in any location with a wireless connection.
TV’s Future
The TV Everywhere movement is driving changes throughout the industry. Dish Network Corp. (DISH)’s $25.5 billion bid for Sprint Nextel Corp. (S), announced yesterday, is centered on the premise that consumers want the same TV-viewing experience inside and outside of the house, Charlie Ergen, chairman of the satellite- TV company, said in an interview.
The trend could add about $1.7 billion a year of revenue to pay-TV operators by allowing them to leverage mobile TV to increase subscriber fees, Needham & Co. estimated last year.
Billionaire Barry Diller’s Aereo Inc. startup, meanwhile, is offering broadcast content over the Internet to mobile devices for $8 to $12 a month. The company is engaged in lawsuits with networks such as News Corp.’s Fox and CBS Corp. (CBS) over whether it has the right to use the programming.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Broadcasters file Aereo appeal, warn of ‘havoc’ and ‘massive disruption’ to TV industry
http://paidcontent.org/2013/04/17/broadcasters-file-aereo-appeal-warn-of-havoc-and-massive-disruption-to-tv-industry/
Fox, PBS and other broadcasters filed for a New York appeals court to revisit a crucial ruling that permitted start-up Aereo to beam their signals. The appeal raises the stakes further in a battle for the future of TV.
In the past, other companies have retransmitted TV signals over the internet but broadcasters quickly smashed them for copyright infringement. Aereo, however, has survived two major court challenges thanks to its technology which assigns a mini-antenna (see pic below Aereo antennas) to each subscriber; the service is now live in New York City and is slated to arrive imminently in 22 more markets.
In the new filing, broadcasters howl that Aereo’s individual antenna system is just a loophole to get around a copyright regimes that requires any company that plays over-the-air signals, including cable and satellite firms, to pay retransmission fees.
the Supreme Court — or Congress — is the broadcasters’ best hope. Time is not on their side, however, because it would take years for the legal case to be heard and decided. By that time, technology and consumer habits for TV may have changed dramatically.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Filmmakers Lament Extinction of Film Prints
http://variety.com/2013/film/news/film-jobs-decline-as-digital-distribution-gains-foothold-1200375732/
With the conversion of theaters in the U.S. almost complete, the end of movies on film is in sight
Significant cost savings in distribution drove studios to embrace digital projection of movies. Creatives still debate the technical advantages of digital vs. the romanticism of film, and preservationists fret over the fate of cinema classics. But with the conversion of theaters in the U.S. almost complete, the end of movies on film is in sight.
Film vs. Digital
The larger question is whether the rock-solid, razor-sharp images that come from a digital projector are a plus or a minus.
“(Film) has an immersive quality, and frankly, a feel to it, a romanticism if you like, that hasn’t yet been equaled by any form of digital projection,” says Nolan. “There’s a depth to the image that digital formats don’t have.”
Cinematographer John Bailey agrees that projected 35mm “seems to have a kind of animation and life to it — a breathing quality. It has to do a lot with the film grain; it has to do a lot with the projection shutters and the fact that every frame in a film print is completely distinct.”
Digital also has as many fans as foes.
“Digital empowers us and it challenges us because you can get away with less,” Landau says. “3D and high-frame-rate and digital exacerbate everything. The good looks better and the bad looks worse. So we have to have an even higher standard with the quality we’re delivering.”
For those films already fixed on celluloid, there’s a different problem: Once theaters are all digital, how will prints be seen? What’s more, how will they be preserved?
“The problem is as the prints disappear, the world of the film collectors disappears,” Scorsese says.