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I'm ready for the TV revolution to hit!
Renegade:
I saw a glimmer of hope...
I had some work come across my desk that included some corporate strategy information on Smart TV, and it gave me a glimmer of hope that all may not be lost. We'll see though.
If there is any salvation, it will come from Smart TV, I believe. The Internet is too software-based, and everyone is scared of software because it lets anyone do anything. Hardware can be controlled much easier, and as such, is less scary.
barney:
I'm kinda dubious about a hardware resolution (save, perhaps, for hardware allowing a new delivery method). That is what currently exists, and any hardware solution to this would be naught more than an extension of existing broadcast technology.
True innovation - and Smart TV may be such, I don't know - is going to be software technology related, whether a new application or a new delivery method or, mayhap, a new display method. But it's going to have to take into consideration existing technology trends - laptops, desktops, tablets, smart phones - as well as make some effort toward predictions of technology to come (imagine a tablet laying on a table - or your lap - with a holographic display transmitted above it, for instance).
I suspect there'll always be a place for a flat-panel home television, but if the TV folk are going to advance, they're going to have to concentrate on software and delivery thereunto. Yeah, a Star-Trek-like holodeck in your living room would be nice, but I want to catch that same holographic effect on my laptop for the noon news break, perhaps for the State of the Union address. Oh, yeah ... I'd like to have that without eye fatigue or damage that some of the current 3D efforts are predicted to provide ;D.
Renegade:
I'm kinda dubious about a hardware resolution (save, perhaps, for hardware allowing a new delivery method). That is what currently exists, and any hardware solution to this would be naught more than an extension of existing broadcast technology.
True innovation - and Smart TV may be such, I don't know - is going to be software technology related, whether a new application or a new delivery method or, mayhap, a new display method. But it's going to have to take into consideration existing technology trends - laptops, desktops, tablets, smart phones - as well as make some effort toward predictions of technology to come (imagine a tablet laying on a table - or your lap - with a holographic display transmitted above it, for instance).
I suspect there'll always be a place for a flat-panel home television, but if the TV folk are going to advance, they're going to have to concentrate on software and delivery thereunto. Yeah, a Star-Trek-like holodeck in your living room would be nice, but I want to catch that same holographic effect on my laptop for the noon news break, perhaps for the State of the Union address. Oh, yeah ... I'd like to have that without eye fatigue or damage that some of the current 3D efforts are predicted to provide ;D.
-barney (August 26, 2010, 11:27 PM)
--- End quote ---
Agreed. Like I said... A "glimmer" of hope...
But check this. It's a start. Albeit a pathetic start given what I'm sure most people here would like to see. Still... a glimmer...
Carol Haynes:
It would be nice but I am not sure it will happen - and ironically I am not sure it would be good if it did (at least in the UK).
The big question that hasn't been asked is who will pay to make the content if it is just distributed on demand via ISPs? If it is on a 'pay-per-view' basis then two things will happen - all digital content will quickly shift to torrent sites (even more than they do now) and if you follow the rules TV will become MUCH more expensive to watch.
The problem is that advertisers don't like pay per view and without advertisers commercial channels can't survive (without them watching would be come prohibitively expensive).
The other major problem is that a huge proportion of the population doesn't have adequate broadband to actually do this - and if broadband was upgraded to the point where everyone did have sufficient bandwidth there would be insufficent overall bandwidth for the population (unless technology changes radically).
Actually I think it would be an interesting experiment to have TV companies stop broadcasting and have ondemand paid services. Two outcomes would be likely (IMHO): consumers realise that 99% of TV production is utter tosh and not worth paying for and there would be a renaissance as people discover there are more things to life than watching TV. Alternatively I would be extremely depressed to see mass rioting breaking out because the opposite happened!
Try reading "The Machine Stops" by Saki !
barney:
Try reading "The Machine Stops" by Saki !
--- End quote ---
An interesting read - seems prophetic in some parts - but some of the premises appear questionable.
On the TV front, I'd expect the relevant execs to learn from the music industry - and from The Machine Stops, should they bother to read it - that the writing is on the wall. They - and the advertisers! - will have to adapt. However, if they take a leading stance, as opposed to the reactive stance of RIAA, ASCAP, et.al., they could lead the way in non-console video presentation rather than reacting to it. The advertisers are already adapting - fancy that! - and if the TV folk can find a way of making advertising less obtrusive and more relevant to the program being presented, and if they don't get greedy, they should fare reasonably well.
Many of us are already conditioned to pay for cable, so it's not a great stretch to adapt that payment mentality to other venues.
[Sidebar: one of the big selling points when cable first came out was the lack of advertising - how soon we forget :o]
And with the tracking systems already in place in the wireless/Internet/mobile arena, it would be no great trick to produce advertising both relevant to what is being watched and to the person watching it. Hey, we already see a lot of in situ advertising, some of it near-subliminal, in film and TV presentations, so this would be a very doable thing, methinks.
The mobile equivalent of broadcast and cable TV will come - not as soon as superboyac would like, but it will come. The technology will adapt - see app103's comment on broadband - of that I'm certain. It always does when enough people produce a perceived need. As a for-instance, consider how the porn industry has driven several technologies in the past. Color magazines, enhanced video technology, Web imagery, Web video, all were driven, at least in part, by the pornographers. Oh, yeah, the technology enhancements were taken over by mainstream media, but only after the technology became popular - and effective.
By and large, what we are discussing is not technological, or even financial; it is temporal.
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