Metered Pricing

Like it or not, metered Internet access pricing is coming your way (if you don’t already have it where you are). The days of downloading torrents all day long for $30/month are going to be over soon.

Like many other ISPs, Comcast is experimenting with traffic shaping/bandwidth caps or whatever you want to call it.

ISPs have allowed their infrastructure to lag and now with HD video, VOIP and other bandwidth hungry applications, their networks can’t provide the speeds and services people want. They tried to get the content providers to pay for needed upgrades, but the whole net neutrality issue nixed that idea. The only other person they could get to pay for it is the consumer (they’re certainly NOT going to pay for it out of their profits).

ISP often quote a figure that about 5% of their users consume 80% of the bandwidth.  These are the people who download music, movies, and other large files all day long.  They do a lot of file sharing so there is constantly data moving over their part of the network.  Contrast this with someone who checks their email a few times a week and goes to Yahoo.com for some news and you can see that it really isn’t fair for both users to be paying the same monthly fee.  The heavy users consume more resources and require the ISP to spend money to upgrade the network to provide a stated level of service for everyone.  All your other utilities are billed in a “pay for what you use” manner so why not Internet access?

By setting the limits high enough where only those 5% of the users will be affected, they can provide good service for everyone while inconveniencing only a small number of people.

However, all this only delays the inevitable.  If you want to deliver high-bandwidth, low latency services over your network, you need to spend the money on upgrades and infrastructure improvements.  At some point in the future those people who were just checking their email a few times a week are going to be streaming music and movies all day long.  The switch to IPv6 and even more connected devices will only place greater demand on networks and ISPs.

So what does all this have to do with video and DVDs?  Well, some people who are delivering content on physical media are looking to electronic delivery to save money and time in distribution.  For now, that might work since I can download your content basically for free as part of my $30/month ISP charge.  But when metered pricing kicks in and I have to “pay” for each bit and consider the value of your content compared to other content, I may think twice about whether I really want to view your content.  The cost of consuming the content has been pushed from the seller to the consumer.  A physical disc returns the economic cost to the seller.

I have no doubt that in the LONG run electronic distribution will be the norm.  Network infrastructure improvements will be made, storage will get cheaper and bandwidth caps and traffic shaping will affect only a small percentage of heavy users.  It’s hard to say when that will be, but until that all happens, there is going to be some pain for both content providers and consumers.

Wilmington, N.C., to test mandatory switch to digital TV

With the switch to digital broadcasting coming in less than a year, your days of analog TV watching are numbered. But if you live in Wilmington, North Carolina, your number is even less.

Wilmington is going to be the first city to test the conversion when the local broadcasters shut off their analog signals on September 8, 2008.

The Federal Communications Commission plans to make the greater Wilmington area a digital-TV test market to work out any bugs before the entire nation goes all digital on Feb. 17.

All four commercial broadcasters in the Wilmington region — with a population of about 400,000 — have agreed to turn off their analog signals and broadcast in digital only starting Sept. 8. The switch will be preceded by an intensive consumer-education campaign, including TV and radio ads.

“This will help us understand what we need to do to prepare the rest of the country,” FCC Chairman Kevin Martin says.

You gotta applaud the government for doing a test first. Usually they make changes and worry about cleaning up the mess later. I wonder if they did this because they realize how important TV is to everyone?

XStreamHD

The Home Theater Blog has a post about the XStreamHD and its new type of delivery mechanism.

The device is an HD media server that receives its content via satellite. The best part is noted by the “HD” in the name:

supposedly XStream has semi-formal agreements from the studios to offer HD content ahead of or directly with disc based release dates

The device is also expected to be fairly reasonably priced at $399.

Learn more about the XStreamHD.

1 Year And Counting

Today marks one year until the February 17, 2009 demise of analog broadcasting.

There seems to be a lot of confusion among some people about what is really happening.

Most people won’t need to do anything.

The only thing that is changing is that analog over-the-air broadcasts are stopping. If you get your television signals from cable, satellite, fiber, Internet or some method other than rabbit ears or a roof antenna, you don’t need to do anything. Also, if you have a set with a digital tuner (one bought in the past year or so) and you use an antenna, you probably still don’t need to do anything.

The people who do need to act are those who get over-the-air broadcasts AND have an analog-only TV. You have a few options. The simplest, but most expensive, option is to buy a new TV with a digital tuner. You can also switch to cable or satellite TV service. You can also purchase a converter box that will take the digital over-the-air signals and convert them to analog so they can be displayed on your analog set. If you choose to buy a new TV or a converter and get digital over-the-air broadcasts, there is a possibility you will need to get a new antenna. Many older analog antennas will not adequately handle the digital broadcast signals.

If you want to get a converter box the government will give you a $40 coupon towards the purchase of one. There are some restrictions and time limits, so be sure you know the box you want is available before getting your coupon.

There is always the possibility the cutover date will be extended, but I wouldn’t count on it. There are a lot of very rich powerful interests involved in this, not the least of which is the multi-billion dollar auction of the airwaves that will be released. None of those parties is interested in waiting one extra day to start making money off their new slice of the spectrum.

Screen Size Comparison

You probably already bought your new HDTV for the holidays, but in case you didn’t you can get a visual comparison between your old 4:3 display and your fancy new 16:9 display.

Head over to Display Wars and see how much you’re missing with your old set (And check out prices and reviews too).

Best Buy pulls plug on analog TVs

The end is neigh.

February 18, 2009 is the scheduled end of analog NTSC broadcasting (although it’s possible that will be extended).

In preparation, Best Buy has stopped selling analog televisions.

I would expect other retailers to follow since no one wants to be stuck with stock they can’t sell.
There really is very little point to buying an analog set today.

Analog Is Dead, Long Live Analog

Even though the FCC has mandated a switch to digital broadcasting on February 17, 2009, it looks like analog will still be with us for quite a while.

The Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously — with some partial dissents — to extend the program-access rules for five years, to toughen its program-access-complaint process and to mandate that cable make must-carry TV stations’ digital signals viewable to all customers, analog and digital, after the Feb. 17, 2009, switch to all-digital broadcasting.

Read the full story

Do You Watch TV On Your Computer?

Despite claims to the contrary by cell phone manufacturers and content providers, an article in the current issue of PC Magazine highlights a Jupiter Research study showing that an overwhelming majority of the people surveyed have no interest in watching TV on anything other than a TV set.

I’m sure this will change as the younger generations (who are more used to these activities) get older, but I find it hard to imagine that anyone would be satisfied watching crappy quality video on a 2-inch cell phone screen when they have a 60-inch HDTV with gorgeous video and full surround sound at home.

Manufacturer’s Reps Reporting Little Interest in Blu-ray, HD DVD

CD Pro magazine has an article reporting that high-end installers are seeing little interest from their clients in either high definition disc format.

They offer several reasons for this, including lack of content and little really high-end hardware.

Both of those are valid issues, but it does seem that if you have laid out the money for a custom install, that dropping less than a grand on a high definition player, that might or might not be the “winning” format, isn’t that big a risk.

HDTV World

Cnet has everything you need to know about HDTV.