BIT RATE
Covering cable TV, broadband and Internet video technologies
Why Google Won't Conquer TV Anytime Soon
If ever. Just look at TiVo: The company has had 10 years to build on DVR, hands-down most awesome interactive TV application of all time, and spent millions of R&D dollars over much of that time researching exactly what people want to do with their TVs. TiVo has crammed a bunch of Internet content, advertising, advanced search features and widgets into its boxes. And it’s teamed up wi ...... Read More
Comments (0)DirecTV Strikes Back Against Dish
Turnabout is fair play. DirecTV last month filed a false-advertising suit against Dish Network over a comparative ad (and was denied its request for an emergency injunction to block the ad — see Dish Can Keep Tweaking DirecTV). Now the No. 1 satellite guy is running a TV ad implying that the rival DBS operator is, well, not telling the whole truth. In the spot, Jeopardy’s Alex Trebek ...... Read More
Comments (0)Comcast Expands Usage-Meter Rollout
Comcast continues to widen the availability of its Web-based bandwidth-usage monitoring tool for customers, making it available today in parts of Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Washington, D.C., Delaware and Maryland. It’s now available in more than 20 states, after the MSO first launched the metering feature last December in Portland, Ore. (see Comcast Tests Data-Usage Meter ...... Read More
Comments (0)FCC Wants Its 'Stupid' Gateway Everywhere Starting in 2013
UPDATED: The FCC’s dumb-TV-gateway plan is perhaps even dumber than I thought (see The FCC’s Dumb-Box Idea: Who Wants Interactive TV, Anyway?). The agency is proposing that all pay-TV distributors be required to install such a device for all new subscribers — as well as those who need a new set-top — within three years. “The FCC should initiate a proceeding to e ...... Read More
Comments (0)The FCC's Dumb-Box Idea: Who Wants Interactive TV, Anyway?
After considering evidence that CableCards don’t work, and the fact that the vast majority of consumer prefer to lease their set-tops from their TV provider, the FCC apparently is proposing to require the cable industry provide severely dumbed-down “gateways” to customers who don’t want a cable box (see FCC Wants Cable To Adopt Open-Standard ‘Gateway’ Devi ...... Read More
Comments (0)Rabbit Ears on a Set-Top? Probably Not
Cable operators and broadcasters are at each others throats over the issue of retransmission fees. In the most recent dust-up, Cablevision subscribers this past Sunday lost WABC for the better part of the day, with the parties coming to terms just as the Academy Awards telecast started (see WABC-TV Returns To Cablevision). The FCC is now looking into whether the retransmission-consent system needs ...... Read More
Comments (0)Cable Ops Didn't Fund Research Into BitTorrent Tracker
Here’s a conspiracy theory for you: Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Cox Communications secretly funded a university research project to be able to better identify BitTorrent users who are swapping copyrighted files. Trouble is, it’s not true. According to a post by an anonymous user on tech site Slashdot, PolyCipher — a joint venture of those three MSOs — partly funded a ...... Read More
Comments (0)Set-Top Data Under Lock And Key
Here’s the biggest barrier to set-top box data becoming widely used as a measure of TV advertising: Right now, cable, satellite and telco TV operators — by and large — simply aren’t willing to share that data. Or even talk about it publicly. The Council for Research Excellence, a group funded by Nielsen, set out in late 2008 to analyze the state of set-top data and its ...... Read More
Comments (0)Scuttlebutt From That ZillionTV Lawsuit
Besides Qwest’s $10 million investment in ZillionTV, there are a few other interesting tidbits from the lawsuit filed against the IPTV startup by a former contractor (see Qwest Plows Millions Into ZillionTV). ZillionTV has declined to comment on the lawsuit, so we can’t get the company’s side of the story on the allegations. And bear in mind that the ex-contractor who’s ...... Read More
Comments (0)The 100-Tuner DVR That Lets You Search TV Content
It’ll cost you around $300,000 for a digital video recorder setup from Houston’s SnapStream Media that can record 100 channels at once and can run full-text searches across the recordings. This mega-DVR would be able to hold some 300,000 hours of TV programming. Who would need such a crazy contraption? No, it ain’t aimed at the consumer market. SnapStream’s DVR applianc ...... Read More
Comments (0)Addressable Ads: Big Opportunities, Big Hurdles
Every advertiser wants addressable ads — but it’s going to be 5 years before there’s significant scale from Canoe Ventures to interest major marketers in the technology, predicted GroupM director of emerging media Michael Bologna at our advanced-advertising event Monday. No doubt, addressable ads work: Comcast’s Baltimore trial with SMG reinforced that, finding that vie ...... Read More
Comments (0)Tipping Point for Advanced TV Ads
When are we going to see a clickable Super Bowl ad? I wonder how much extra, say, Dockers would have paid for the pantsless-men spot to be able to capture the names and e-mail addresses of prospective buyers out of Super Bowl XLIV’s 106 million+ audience. Sure, the ad’s call-to-action directed viewers to its Web site to enter the free-pants sweepstakes. But it surely would have done ...... Read More
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