Broadband Content on This Year’s Emmy Awards
The organizers of the Emmy awards–or more accurately, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Interactive Media Peer Group–have signified that they have started to include online, interactive content on their roster of nominees. This is great news for independent content producers and developers, as inclusion in the Emmys would give some sort of legitimacy to the medium, not only being confined to the geek and tech subscultures, but now raised to the mainstream status.
The announcements of the finalists represent the growing connection between television and interactive capabilities.
“This is monumental–that any TV distribution over broadband will now be eligible across all categories for the Primetime Emmys” … content created exclusively for the broadband platform now can compete against network content.
Finalists in the category of enhanced or interactive programming include AOL Music On Demand from AOL/Time Warner Cable/Zetools, CNN Enhanced, DirecTV Interactive Sports, and TiVo service.
The winners of this year’s Emmy Awards will be announced on July 26th, and shall be awarded on August 19th. While it’s still more of the established media outfits that are included in this year’s list of nominees, we do hope that independent producers and creators would also get the chance at being recognized for their new media/internet-television efforts.
Cablevision in Legal Battle Over Copyright
Cable provider Cablevision is being sued by major studios for using Digital Video Recording Technology. Cablevision’s remote-storage DVR or RS-DVR is being marketed as a device that basically lets users record shows on schedule and watch these on demand, with the option to zip past advertisements.
The issue here: the studios say that Cablevision isn’t paying license fees for “video on demand,” which the technology they are selling is, by definition.
In a case that could reshape copyright law, Fox, NBC Universal, Paramount Pictures, CBS and Disney asked a U.S. district court here to stop Cablevision Systems from rolling out a service that lets an ordinary digital set-top box function as a DVR, like TiVo. There are 45 million such digital boxes in use.
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The studios argue that means Cablevision is selling not a DVR, but a video on demand service, without paying the studios a license fee as they do for VOD. “Unlike with a set-top box, Cablevision will copy copyrighted content and retransmit it without authorization,” says Kori Bernards of the industry’s Motion Picture Association of America. “Cablevision’s refusal to seek a license has left the plaintiffs no option but to sue.”
Cablevision argues that the service is not video-on-demand, but simply a digital video recorder, even if the actual “recorder” is not in the premises of the subscriber, but in Cablevision’s own facilities. This is the basic premise that would be argued in court: whether such a facility should be considered as in fact offering video-on-demand, or simply as a remote-DVR, analysts say. Further, the issue could take years to resolve, even reaching Supreme Court-level, much like the landmark MGM vs. Grokster case.
Is Web Video the Future of TV?
CNN reports on the merging of the Internet and TV, and concludes that we’re nearing a point where the preferred mode of distribution for video content would be over the Web–it’s nothing like how it was imagined in the early dot-com days of the 1990’s.
From independent producers like Mondo Media to big media companies like MTV, and even kids who post videos on community sites like YouTube.com, the World Wide Web is becoming a sort of worldwide TV network for audiences seeking offbeat entertainment not shown on mainstream television.
… this new wave of Web video is fueled by the rising number of people with high-speed Internet access which makes video watchable on PCs. Moreover, younger audiences are increasingly accustomed to watching video on PCs and laptops.
I’m personally not too optimistic about this all. I just don’t get why some people are so enthusiastic about being able to view videos on the Web. In reality, it’s really crappy and slow, no matter the speed of your broadband connection or your computer’s processor. And then there’s no really interesting content people would want to watch, unless you’re a techie (think DIGGnation, Digital Life TV, TWiT). It’s like that because there is still no standard means by which video content can be delivered via the Web.
There are early attempts at compressing videos good enough for Internet delivery, such as the .H264 MPEG-4 standard. But until these protocols and standards are finalized, and all video-producing websites adopt the standards, then we’ll be stuck with a hodgepodge of different technologies. This means one website will offer different quality and speeds as compared to another. And most sites just offer crappy Flash or Swf versions of videos at very small resolutions with very low refresh/FPS rates.
As for content distribution, the mainstream media people are still, well, for mainstream media. There isn’t much of a business model from Internet video content, anyway, at this point. Consider that not everyone has broadband access, and that not everyone is keen on watching shows online. We still haven’t hit that sweet spot in the convergence between home entertainment and computing. So people would rather watch videos and shows on their television sets, and not on their computer screens. There’s the cool factor of video-on-demand, of course, but showing crappy 5-minute imagery on your computer would prove to be very uncomfortable. I’m a geek, and I love tech podcasts, but I seldom have the patience to download high-quality video versions (takes half a day in my speeds). What more if I were just your everyday, ordinary person?
To me, the point when the Web has turned into a world-wide TV network is when most of the civilized world already has IPTV set-top-boxes or IPTV-ready television sets, and could just surf for shows or subscribe to shows on their television sets, right in the comfort of their living rooms. Otherwise, we would just be fooling ourselves with overhyped video-on-Web systems that are likely to be unsustainable.
British Telecom to launch IPTV
UK’s largest telco, British Telecom, will be launching an Internet-Protocol TV service within the year. Dubbed BT Vision, the service will be initially offered to existing BT Broadband subscribers. Features include on-TV instant messaging, a PVR-like video recording service, and video-on-demand.
Later this year we’re launching a brand new digital TV service in the UK that’s set to inject a bit of vision into your TV. Our next generation TV service will be a doddle to use. It’s rammed full of entertainment and best of all there’s no compulsory subscription, so you only pay for what you want to watch. BT Vision will be available first to all new and existing BT Broadband customers.
The set-top boxes for use with the service will be provided by Philips, and will be powered by Microsoft software.
The Internet is changing the way we watch TV!
[via the Register]
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