BIT RATE
Covering cable TV, broadband and Internet video technologies
Boxee: Who Needs Cable? Actually, We Do
Cut the cord! Save hundreds of dollars a year by not paying for cable TV! Only, you know, not exactly. Boxee, the Internet-video software startup, is engaging in some interesting rhetorical gymnastics. On the one hand, it’s trying to pitch Boxee Live TV, a $49 dongle for use with the $167.99 set-top made by D-Link, as a way to junk cable TV — just get your favorite programming over t ...... Read More
Comments (8)Verizon's Internet-Streaming Service Could Include Live TV
Verizon isn’t ruling out adding live TV programming to its still-to-be-named Netflix challenger, which it’s developing with Coinstar’s Redbox — raising the specter of a “virtual MSO” that could challenge cable and satellite TV nationwide, not to mention AT&T U-verse (see Verizon, Coinstar Tag Team On Netflix Rival). When I asked Eric Bruno, Verizon ...... Read More
Comments (2)Rogers Pulls Plug on Internet Throttling
How do you fit eight lanes of traffic onto a four-lane highway without traffic jams? They’re about to find out in the Great White North. Rogers Communications, Canada’s biggest cable operator, on Friday told the country’s communications regulatory body, the CRTC, that it will start phasing out its bandwidth-management system starting next month, targeting a complete shutdown b ...... Read More
Comments (0)DirecTV Teases Addressable Ads
After months of delays, DirecTV appears to be imminently prepared to launch addressable ads — able to target spots geographically and based on household demographic info, such as income — if it hasn’t already. The satellite operator’s ad sales website, DirecTVAdSales.com, now features a prominent banner touting the feature, claiming that marketers can “deliver hi ...... Read More
Comments (2)Can You Turn Pirates Into Purchasers?
You’re a manufacturer of high-end racing bicycles. You make your newest bike models available to specialty retailers several weeks ahead of wider distribution, since they’re your most valuable sales partners. But a crypto-anarchist cycling gang — with the nom de guerre Bikes Want to Be Free! — hates this policy because it inconveniences them. So, the day the newest prod ...... Read More
Comments (7)An Antenna-Connected Cable Set-Top Still Won't Fly
Over-the-air TV is free. So why should cable, satellite or telco operators pay anything to offer broadcast TV stations to their customers? Just give ‘em an antenna, right? Reality, unfortunately, is more complicated. Boxee has run a version of this idea up the antenna pole again. The Internet-video startup is selling a $49 USB stick with a TV tuner and antenna, which plugs into a Boxee-bas ...... Read More
Comments (14)What If Cable Networks and Movie Theaters Blacked Out for a Day?
Well, among other things, they’d lose millions of dollars in advertising and ticket sales — not to mention piss off their customers and partners. A mass-media blackout, like the one Wikipedia and others engaged in on Wednesday to oppose Congress’s proposed SOPA and PIPA antipiracy legislation, will probably never happen. Even Google didn’t put its money where its mouth ...... Read More
Comments (0)Keeping the Web Safe for Pirates
Let no one doubt the rabble-rousing power of the Internet. Incited largely by Google and Wikipedia’s calls to protect “free speech” online, millions of Americans on Wednesday bombarded congressional representatives to voice opposition to the House’s Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Senate’s PROTECT Intellectual Property Act (PIPA). Both bills were destined t ...... Read More
Comments (2)'Good Wife' Inserts Fake IP Address Into Primetime
Internet engineers, take note: The IP address has been added to the pop-culture vocabulary. This Sunday’s episode of CBS’s The Good Wife tackled a ripped-from-the-headlines story about Bitcoin, a “virtual currency” that the U.S. Treasury is trying to shut down as enabling money laundering and transactions among child pornographers. The drama hinges on the fact that nobo ...... Read More
Comments (0)CES: Can Broadcasters Dyle Up a Mobile TV Ecosystem?
On my flight to Las Vegas, I happened to be sitting next to an employee of the Mobile Content Venture — the joint venture formed by NBC and Fox to develop a nationwide mobile TV service, using the broadcast industry’s Mobile DTV standard. My seatmate gave me a demo of the venture’s Dyle mobile TV (well, more like a presentation since we were 30,000 feet in the air). The Dyle a ...... Read More
Comments (0)CES: Dish Pumps Up a Big Hopper
Las Vegas — Dish has dropped a chunk of change on some primo real estate here at CES to prop up a gigantic, inflatable kangaroo. It’s to promote Dish’s new multiroom DVR, the Hopper (the client set-tops are “Joeys”) — which the satellite operator brags is 40% smaller than DirecTV’s latest multiroom DVR box (see CES: Dish Adds Whole Home DVR, C ...... Read More
Comments (3)CES: The Game's the Thing
Las Vegas — Let’s say it: The title game of the Bowl Championship Series for college football was a humongous, raging dud. ESPN screened the LSU-Alabama snoozefest here in glorious 3D, at the Las Vegas Hotel & Casino (née the “Las Vegas Hilton”… though all the stuff in the rooms still says “Hilton” on it). The 3D was good (the same feed, I& ...... Read More
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