Boxee launching to compete with Apple TV

This is an exciting new product designed to bring Internet TV to the TV screen. For me the TV is still the place I want to watch TV content – not my PC – call me old fashioned!

But it’s not yet clear if/when this will arrive in the UK…

 

Is this finally the consumer electronic device to bring online content to the living room?

Software creator Boxee announced the launch of its new dedicated hardware device aptly named the The Boxee Box. Designed by Astro Studios and built by D-Link, maker of networking equipment, the device is scheduled to hit shelves sometime in the 2nd quarter of 2010 for around $200 in the US.

Competitively priced against the AppleTV, The Boxee Box includes: one HDMI port, an SD card slot, two USB 2.0 ports, WiFi, and an ethernet jack, while supporting video content from a variety of online sources such as TED, Stanford, FORA.tv, Kid Mango, Next New Networks and more. There is still no word though on the internal hardware powering the device or if the device will be sold outside of the US market.

However access to the Beta will not be available to the public until 7 January 2010 where Boxee will make a further release announcement at CES.

The future of TV, via Broadband

A recent article in the NY Times, In the Age of TiVo and Web Video, What is Prime Time? does a nice job of highlighting the changing landscape of broadcast network TV.

This and another recently in The Independent Online Television: Channel Surfing raise the question many in the industry are starting to ask with little in the way of clear-cut answers:

How will broadband video impact TV broadcasters?

The many developments in broadband video distribution (Kangaroo, iPlayer, 4OD, ITV Catch Up, Joost etc) and the impact of timeshifting (Sky+, Tivo etc), and soon placeshifting (Sling) are raising questions about how the billions spent on TV advertising will be impacted now and in the near future.

A few thoughts on the impacts:

Watching via broadband the video viewers become on-demand consumers and are more empowered than ever, the key is to take advantage not to resist. Broadband is a great way to catch up on episodes missed, conveniently sample programs, build interactivity, involve viewers as viral promoters, etc. More exposure will translate into more broadcast consumption. Of course as broadband viewing audience size builds ad revenues will follow. Broadcast programming is and always will be the most watched, best valued of video entertainment but with broadband opening up all kinds of new revenue opportunities, there are reasons to be cheerful.

However, the glass is really only half full for broadcasters. Broadband will erode the traditional broadcast advertising revenues and it’s unrealistic to think that broadband revenues will ever catch up. Since only a limited amount of ads can be included in online broadcasts, even the higher CPMs received per ad seem unlikeley to deliver the revenue per episode per viewer as the on-air model does. All the interactivity and engagement in the world will never offset this shortfall. As more programs move online and viewers can eventually watch these right on their TVs, the shift from on-air to online consumption will only accelerate, causing permanent erosion to the traditional broadcast business model.

Timeshift TV is so easy now, when will Placeshift TV be easy?

I’ve been working on digital strategy from a number of different perspectives over the last few years – I’ve worked with Telco’s and Media co’s trying to move us closer to a vision of the Digital Home – and at various stages it’s felt like big pieces of the digital strategy puzzle are falling into place.

First it was reaching mass adoption of Broadband, taken for granted now but it felt like a long jouney.

Then the war of Music Downloading, a series of tough battles leaving few standing and most not where they wanted to be, that established a download/on-demand expectation for entertainment consumers.

Along the way much posturing and occasional stuttering progress in the transition from DVD to download, and that feels like another journey that will,be long and painful.

But at the same time the way we watch TV programmes is going through perhaps the most exciting changes. We now take for granted multi-channel TV with a choice of services – the choice of which will extend even further in the UK with Sky introducing services via the ariel and Freeview being joined or superceded by Freesat. Not to mention the fact that BT are making progress with their Vision service, and unfortunately Virgin Media seem to be taking three steps back for every step the others take forward.

In addition to all that we have Timeshifting and Placeshifting – two concepts that sound like they belong in a dodgy Sci-Fi movie but actually are happening in more and more households right now. Timeshifting is easy enough now with the introduction of PVRs like Sky+ mean that we are increasingly making our own decisions about when we want to watch our favourite programmes rather than being dictated to by the programmers schedule (also of course many of us fast forwarding through the ads) which is causing much disruption in the industry. The next step is Placeshifting, and I’ve decided I need to rise to this particular challenge in my TV viewing this year. We have multi-channel TV at home (no need to go into whose service it is because that’s not the point here) and we are lucky enough to spend a few weekends and some of the summer in an apartment we own in Southern France – I want to Placeshift my TV choices from the UK to my place in France. It’s early days but already I know it’s technically possible (I can install a Slingbox at home aand recieve the programming via Broadband on my PC in France) but how and when is it going to become easy and convenient? I want to watch it on a decent sized TV screen and that means I will need Fast Broadband (something I can’t rely on currently) and I will need to port what i recieve from Slingbox across to the TV (not exactly a convenient and easy user experience). So my challenge for 2008 is, will this become possible with a decent user experience and without a technical training course for the average punter?

I will be keeping my eyes on it!

2008 to be the year of online TV

In 2007 there has been a dramatic increase in usage of internet for television, at the same time viewing has declined for the terrestrial TV channels - figures from Nielsen Online suggest that almost 21 million people in Britain visited a television, video or movie-related web site in September 2007, a 28% increase on the previous year.

In the UK the TV broadcasters have seen their share of television viewing slide – Channel 4 has seen its share of viewing fall by almost 12% over the year, while Five has fallen by nearly 10%, BBC One and Two are also down by 3%, while ITV dropped nearly 2%. This is no more than a percentage point in the share of each channel, but collectively the trend is clear. Viewing of other channels has increased correspondingly by nearly 9%, partly as result of more people having access to multichannel digital television.

John Chambers, CEO of Cisco, speaking at their global forum in San Jose, suggested that by 2011, between 15 to 20% of internet traffic will be video delivered to the television. He dismissed plans by broadcasters to offer their programmes online, saying he could record any show he wants and watch it on his personal vide recorder.

Valerio Zingarelli, the recently appointed CEO of new entrant, Babelgum says, “the intense competition can only lead to greater innovation and a substantial increase in service quality for viewers, and we’re certainly expecting more new entrants to arrive in 2008. Whilst traditional television platforms such as cable and broadcast TV still serve a large audience, those viewers unwilling to wear the straight-jacket linear TV offerings put them in are seeking new ways of accessing content tailored to their specific taste, whether it be sport, news or entertainment. Broadcasters worried about web television should realise internet TV is not trying to replace traditional TV, but is merely giving increasingly savvy viewers greater control and choice. It is this greater control, and choice, which will see internet TV take its place as a conventional platform alongside broadcast TV in 2008 and beyond.”

Meanwhile research from Nokia predicts that in five years up to a quarter of the entertainment enjoyed by people will have been created, edited and shared within their social circle rather than being produced by traditional media companies. Their study, entitled A Glimpse of the Next Episode, carried out by The Future Laboratory, surveyed over 9,000 consumers aged between 16-35.

Mark Selby, vice president of multimedia at Nokia said, “from our research we predict that up to a quarter of the entertainment being consumed in five years will be what we call ‘Circular’. The trends we are seeing show us that people will have a genuine desire not only to create and share their own content, but also to remix it, mash it up and pass it on within their peer groups — a form of collaborative social media.”

All these indicators point to a continued shift away from TV, and this could be accelerated by another trend – place shifting is remotely accessing personal media from another location over the internet, and is destined to become a standard feature of personal computers and set-top boxes.

A new report on this emerging market is called – Bending the rules of time and space: Trends and analysis for place shifted media, and will be published by The Diffusion Group in the first week of 2008 to coincide with the CES in Las Vegas.

Colin Dixon, senior consultant at The Diffusion Group, suggests that even if place shifting proves to be a compelling application, it will not be capable of acting as a stand-alone revenue driver or support an independent hardware platform, but with place shifting embedded in devices from set-top boxes to digital media adaptors and games consoles, it will have a significant impact on how people interact with digital media.

So all in all it seems like 2008 will be a big year for TV via the internet – but one thing hasn’t changed – we are still at the mercy of our internet connection and the bandwidth available incoming to our PC. We all know what an awful viewing experience that can create, so for me in the foreseeable future it will be downloads only! Whilst downloading video content requires a little planning ahead, at least it ensures better viewing quality than streaming.

I just realised I’ve been pushing similar views about digital entertainment for about 4 years now, here is an interview from 2005 when I was working with BT on a proposition for movie downloads to exploit the emergence of broadband access as a mass market – that work was later subsumed into BT Vision led by Dan Marks.