How our media consumption has changed
Since the 50′s, families have gathered around the TV in their living/family rooms to watch their favorite shows. In the past five to ten years or more, the quality of the show content has been diminished by the need to appeal to the largest audience – i.e., the least common denominator. We’re left then with mediocrity. We are no longer the captive audience of 3 or 4 major networks, however.
As the TV content quality declined since the early 90s, the quality(speed) of this Internet “thing” has continually improved. Its adoption rate is geometric and it continues to skyrocket. The offerings on the Internet are wide and varied. Pretty much anything with which you query your search engine, you’ll find content – sometimes good, sometimes, not so much – mostly not so much. But that is changing rapidly.
Major entertainment providers are now rushing to the net. It is now viable as a channel upon which to feed content; along with advertisements to be sure.
Curiously, there’s now a move back to the living room/family room. A move away from the solitary experience in front of one’s own computer. Why? Well now, you can have that great variety of content easily delivered to that HD screen where the family can enjoy it together.
Then question now is – “So what is now making its way to my TV via the net that I should care about?”
- Movies
- Videos – Youtube and others
- Podcasts – video
- Old TV shows
- Instructional video
- Locally stored – purchased movies, music, home movies and the like.
Here are a few of the products enabling this customized net-to-tv experience. (Note that this is not an exhaustive review or even a feature by feature comparison. The goal is to present a sampling of what’s available).
- The Roku box: Roku has a clear lead in this media delivery scheme. They started in 200x as a way to deliver your instant watch Netflix queue to your home television. It’s a simple, yet elegant solution. Merely connect this small XxX rectangular box to your wired or wireless home network and then to your TV via HDMI, component, or composite connections and that’s it. Just follow some simple on-screen instructions and you’re now able to watch any movie or TV show that you have loaded into your Netflix queue. One small shortcoming is that you cannot browse for selections on-screen. You need to add to your queue via computer. Still, that’s a small inconvenience on balance. There are now three versions of this hardware that physically look identical. Roku has added a lower cost Standard Definition(SD) model at $79 to join their existing $99 HD as well as a their new HD-XR model with support for faster 802.11n wireless at $129.
- Apple TV: If there’s a piece of hardware that Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer, does not gloat about, this would be it. The Apple TV’s debut came in 20XX with several upgrades in hardware and software over that period.This small elegant looking box has not caught on with the same vigor as Apple’s other products like the iPod, iPhone, iMac or Macbooks. Looking closer at the reasons for this are some key limitations. Namely:
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- Where the heck is it? I dare you, go to the apple homepage now and try to find the Apple TV. That speaks volumes about how it has been downplayed since it rolled out. There’s rumor that it may be phased out and replace with something more exciting but I’m not a fan or rumors, especially Apple rumors. OK fine, I did a search via their search box and found the Apple TV page here, under the iPod and iTunes menu no less.
- iTunes store account is a requirement
- The box costs $229. Movie renting is not cheap and can add up quickly. Rent prices range from $2.99 – $4.99 ( with a 24-hr clock that starts running once you begin viewing).
- Vudu: Vudu is premium service that delivers “Your HD On Demand Movie Service” These days “On Demand” should be implicit. That’s one of the main reasons you buy any of these hardware/service solutions. VUDU has a big advantage when it comes to delivering the latest releases – they make available movies the same day the DVD releases. The hardware needed now comes either built-in to select LG or Mitsibishu TVs or as a stand-alone set-top box. More detail at Vudu.com
WD TV HD Media Player: This player from Western Digital, yep the same Western Digital that makes those hard-drives for you computer, has delivered a very flexible solution with their HD player. This player allows you to stream pretty much anything from an USB attached external drive. As they put it “Plug the drive in and play HD movies, digital music and family photos on your TV. It’s as easy as 1-2-3.” (No DRM’d content ala iTunes etc.) 
The menu system is very intuitive and it supports up to 1080p HD. One downside may be adding content. Say you attach a 1 terabyte external drive with loads of content and now you wish to add more. You’ll first need to detach and attach the external drive to your computer to upload it. The upside is that there’s no limit since you can add as many drives as you’d like.
- Game consoles: PS3 – Coming soon Netflix to Sony PS3. It will however require the insertion of a Netflix Instant Streaming Disk which Netflix will provide free of charge. Netflix is already available on the XBox but you’ll need to have an XBox Live subscription.
- Tivo
- HD TVs and Blu-ray Players. Almost weekly you can read about another HD TV or BluRay player that supports Netflix and more. The battle is on for this coveted channel, as it were.
- As an example, a recent announcement from Best Buy stated that they had partnered with Netflix to equip its in-house brand of Insignia connected Blu-Ray players with support for Netflix Instant streaming like Sony, LG, and Samsung all had done to their own players.
What about regular TV?
What is missing from all the above products is your standard network and cable TV. This continues to be provided exclusively by your cable or satellite providers. The writing’s on the wall, however, and it will be interesting to see how that plays out. It seems that in order for these providers continue to be viable, they’ll need to be more open and flexible with the delivery of there content.
Wouldn’t it be nice to custom schedule your evening viewing with say the latest “CSI Miami”, “Mad Men”, and a couple of your favorite video podcasts? Well maybe your choices would be different but until we get network and cable integrated we have not quite arrived so to speak. In the meantime, I’ll continue to enjoy the content delivered to my Roku and hope for the best.
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