Well, Yes and No! If traditional broadcasters migrate to delivering content over IP, I think it then becomes only an issue of the transport technology protocols used and does not abrogate them from being accountable to the public and local municipalities.

If, on the other hand, we are talking about small Indie startups (I would classify as being similar to low power radio stations), then regulation should be minimal from a cost and compliance perspective. The reason, if compliance and fees are too great then small producers will not likely be able to clear those hurdles. The net effect will not only close off opportunities for Indies to succeed, but will stifle choice and will result in precisely what we have today: content as determined by traditional broadcasters.

There is also another concern about content and decency laws. Who will determine what is acceptable for IPTV, and is it more like cable or over the air TV? One of the reasons Howard Stern went to Satellite radio was precisely because of restriction on his content, which the public appears to want.

As I understand, the test for what is appropriate is based on "local standards". That raises the question, which is, how can content be local when an IP connection means content can be viewed anywhere, witness the Sligbox™.

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/tech/article/0,2777,DRMN_23910_4480980,00.html

According to the Brandeis Hoot, the campus is launching their second effort in broadcasting IPTV content campus-wide, this as a side-by-side test with cable. According to the article, they will offer content channels in four genres: sports, news, local programming, and entertainment in addition to a classroom and BTV channel.

Apparently the roll-out of their system saw quality and service interruption issues last year. It goes on to note that no matter how good the transmission system gets it is still limited by the quality of the user's system, specifically their video card and bus speed.

I would like to see the implementation of a wireless network, be it Wi-Fi or perhaps a high-speed trial with a provider, such as Verizon, using their Broadband network.

In addition, if you were to couple an IPTV and social networking UI layer together, such as with Jambo, you could have collaboration and networking between individuals while viewing media content! Aside from commenting on the latest episode of Greg The Bunny™, students could view content related to classroom assignments at their own pace while discussing it with each other. If only I had these toys--I mean tools--when I was in school. Look for my article on Social Networking and Jambo in a future post.

It appears Rocketboom has found that the seven-day ebay sell cycle is more to their liking than the traditional Media Buyer route. With the final bid at $40,000, Rocketboom claims the winning bidder will reach one million viewers.

Rocketboom indicated they would have complete control over the commercials they create, "This auction is a bid for advertisement space on Rocketboom, in addition to payment for our creative services" but they will "work closely with the winner to make sure that their message will resonate with our viewers in a beneficial way for the winner".

A couple of thoughts about their complete control statement from a production perspective:

- As a Director/DP, I have just given up 100% creative control of my client's message to someone else that may or may not understand and be able to translate into a final spot.
- In addition, as a DP, Rocketboom's creative and technical services do not meet high enough standards from my perspective. I calculate their production expertise may be worth about $2,000 or what you might find in a 125-sized market, which means the rest of the winning bid, or $38,000, is for ad placement.

This approach takes a page from a politician's playbook; go around the mainstream media and get your message out to the public. While Rocketboom has earned some money and used a novel approach, I wonder if this is a long-term strategy or a one-time play. Too be more specific, will advertisers want to bid the second, third or tenth time around, and will it work? In addition, will Rocketboom's metrics be meaningful for the winning bidder?

The bidding has closed for now, stay tuned.

You know the real estate maxim about location, so what is the state of video programming online? From what I have seen so far, it is not yet beachfront property.

Will the situation change when Yahoo!, AOL and other media titans spin up their production departments or harvest vaults of existing content? These folks will have large budgets and staffs to implement strategies for people like Lloyd Braun, who Yahoo! brought in from ABC to chart their course. Will Mr. Braun look to former platforms like FinanceVision™ or Platinum,™ what he refers to as "almost like a television set", as a guide in building Yahoo's offering? Will Time Warner's deep vaults prove sufficient, or will AOL need more programs, like the well-produced Live8 concerts, in addition to creating other original programming? Is there another HBO channel in the offing for Internet television and will it be Yahoo!, AOL or the player to be named later?

Some items to consider which I will also explore in further posts:

- Yahoo! and AOL can afford to make some mistakes along the way, but what about Indie producers? Will they stand to gain from IPTV aggregation sites, new or established networks? How will the revenue model work?
- Will numbers alone drive a site or project it to success? In addition, even if you can attract 100,000 users to your site as rocketboom.com claims, does that translate into a business model, which will attract advertisers? Will viewers be willing to pay for content, or will they simply move to another free site?
- Will there be a lowering of quality as more non-professionals pick up low priced high-quality DV cameras or the latest generation of video equipped cell phones, such as the Nokia N90 and decide they are producers? Do you remember the effect camcorders and newbies had on established producers and DPs back in the eighties when we were working with Ikegami HL79EAL's? It was a negative but it was also an opportunity depending on one's ability to adapt to technology changes.

On one side: using low priced gear like the DVX-100a, Sony Z1 or even the Nokia N90 does not mean these devices are or will be unwelcomed tools for Indie professionals. Having spent a few minutes with the N90, I can see situations where its small form factor would be useful as a second unit camera or for the creation of micro-documentaries especially since the image quality is about VHS grade, from what I've seen. After all, the DP can create compelling content with less then broadcast gear owing to their eye and use of motivated natural or artificial light.

However, on the other side: This is really about people without any experience flooding the market with low quality produced content, which will make it more difficult for the viewer to sift through to find good content.

I'm not suggesting you need a Sony F900 to shoot with, though it would be nice :-} I am more interested in seeing the best level of produced content given the tools used to foster the growth of IPTV among Indie producers. There will always be a market for consumer-produced content, and some of it will find its way into the same aggregation and portal sites that are promoting more professional content. Hopefully, we as professionals can benefit from the exposure which sites like Brightcove can offer.

On the other end of the pipe, will viewers be able to find content they want? What about content they don't know about yet, and how will they have that serendipitous moment when they find something compelling? In addition, what if they want to find a specific episode of The Sopranos™ but they only remember a scene or part of it? Will tagging systems be smart enough to sift through and deliver that episode to them?

In the end, if people cannot find content quickly and be able to manage their own shopping cart, so to speak of media, they may find the process too complex and tune out.

Yahoo! was ahead of the curve!

Back in early 2000, Yahoo! rolled out a delivery platform for streaming live video and text content targeting financial viewers during market hours. It was unique yet I'll bet you never heard of it. The Vision™ platform was innovative in that it allowed users to create a customized My Yahoo!™ type page, which consisted of a multi-pane browser. This contained a live video feed, data pushed into another pane by a person referred to as a Data Wrangler, as well as the user's own stock or email information and lastly another pane for searches and displaying web pages.
There were two field reporters, Bertha Coombs and Mary Snow, one at the NYSE and the other at the NASDAQ, reporting on stories throughout the day. Feeds were sent from small booths at the exchanges to a local New York City fiber hub, which then sent the content to the main Yahoo! studio in California via a Vyvx™ MPEG-2 compressed TV-1 circuit, at 3Mbps as memory serves. Content was edited in some cases or fed raw via tape playback down the line.

The delivery side of the user's page was somewhat customizable as you could view the entire browser, parts of it or collapse to see only the video window, which was 288x216 pixels. The content was streamed at 56 Kbps or 100-300Kbps. Both WM and Real players were supported.

What made this early attempt at IPTV so remarkable, aside from the fact that it ran five days a week, was it had significant interactivity for the user to view live or archived content as well as participate by answering polls or emailing questions, which could be addressed to someone being interviewed live from their California studios. In addition, the Data Wrangler would push text content and links into the data window during a live interview so that viewers could obtain more information about the story as it was happening, it was not passive viewing. Also, it had advertising spots and the final product looked like television.

Why did Yahoo! pull the plug on FinanceVision? I was not in the room so to speak, however, there was no major advertising for it (many people I knew in the financial markets had not heard of it), some complained about the laid-back style of the California based studio anchors, they were competing for eyeballs along with the likes of CNBC, and lastly perhaps Yahoo! did not yet possess the Vision of what FinanceVision represented to their viewers: the first example of prime time IPTV. It was ahead of its time, from the application of the technology and the UI, to the people who were working in a brand new medium. In the end, it failed to reach a sustainable market share to make it profitable.

Perhaps it will rise again in a new form.

Also See, Return of Y! Vision Platform

DVBlog
February 14, 2006

Welcome to this first installment of DVBlog or Digital Video Blog; Internet Television, technology, trends and the user! The mission of this site is to cover various aspects of the emerging field of Internet Television (IPTV) as well as some interconnected technologies.

There has been a flurry of articles in the past several months about IPTV becoming a disruptive technology; a contender in delivering video programming to consumers, be it wired or wireless delivery. My interest in this topic spans a background in television and Internet production, which is highlighted on other parts of the site. Some of my goals for the blog are listed below.

- Discuss IPTV, its roots, where it is today and where it is going
- The technology, the user and a timeline for getting all the parts to work
- My perspective (from ground level) on what producers and DP's need to consider when producing for IPTV
- Social Networking--why I believe its an Interconnected technology
- Interviews
- Content Posts; Video content applied to different ideas for UI's and searching.
- Production Tidbits, Tools like WM Encoder and Sorenson Squeeze
- Contributions from Indie Producers

What I have learned from experiences in various interconnected technology fields, is that often we (technologists) are easily enamored with the hardware, software and the wiz-bang factor while often ignoring the end users and how a new technology adds value and/or makes their lives more productive, if it does at all.

An important site goal is to hear from others who are currently using the technology, to promote their work and to discuss the technology and challenges ahead. With that all said, welcome, and I look forward to hearing from you.

--Gilbert