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4K TV – Sooner Than You Think!

April 25, 2013 By Leave a Comment

A few days ago, I was on the phone with the FCC and an interesting question came up. Will broadcast stations have enough over-the-air bandwidth to provide 4K service to the public? I was struck by the question because 4K is such a new idea, and because I’d never really thought about it as broadcast idea.

Compare 1080 pixels (dark green0 with 4000 pixels (red) and you get a sense of how much more picture information (resolution, detail) is available on the new 4K TV sets.

Compare 1080 pixels (dark green0 with 4000 pixels (red) and you get a sense of how much more picture information (resolution, detail) is available on the new 4K TV sets.

What’s 4K TV? It’s a much higher-resolution version of HDTV. And the first 4K TV sets are arriving soon (see below0. In order to provide all of that picture information, more data is required, which means larger storage devices, and, in order to provide that data to connected TV sets, more bandwidth is required, too. That’s the basic theory, but it’s important not to think about 4K in terms of the current systems because of that always-astonishing digital magic trick: compression. Yes, 4K requires a lot of data and a lot of bandwidth. But “a lot” is a relative term. And yes, there are new digital broadcast standards on the way. Good news for consumers and for broadcasters, who will be able to pack more and prettier program material into their TV signals, not-so-good news for broadcasters who are attempting to build a coherent strategy related to the upcoming FCC TV spectrum auction, in which many stations will trade their licenses for cash, or for the opportunity to share a channel with another broadcaster in the market.

panel2_imageAnyway… I woke up this morning to an announcement from Sony… with all sorts of enticing promises: improved detail, improved color rendition, better audio, screen mirroring so what’s on your tablet can be viewed on your new TV (albeit it in lesser detail, a service currently available to Apple users).

How much? $5,000 for the 55-inch model, and $7,000 for the 65-inch model.

What are you going to watch? Well, yeah, that’s always the problem at this stage. Here’s a terrific article about “upscaling” the currently available media, which seems to require 24x improvement. More data will require more robust local storage, and so, we move closer to a complete convergence of television, home network, home digital storage devices in sophisticated home library systems, and, perhaps far more likely, streaming solutions in their next phase: advanced versions of Netflix, Hulu, and so forth, tweaked to serve big files for 4K TV sets.

Which brings us back around to the TV station wondering about its 4K future. Sure, it’s technically possible to broadcast 4K, but in the few years remaining for the current broadcast standard, this seems fairly unlikely because (a) it will be expensive for television stations to install in their master control facilities, and (b) relatively few people will leap from their new-ish HDTVs to 4K sets in the next year or two.

Sony-4KTVDo we want or need even more resolution than 1080i HDTV sets provide? Maybe for microscopy or astrophotography or other science work that demands the highest possible resolution. Do I think ESPN is investing in a whole new 4K operation–cameras, video switcher, storage, transmission, etc. so I can watch baseball in even higher resolution. You know they are, or will soon be, doing just that. And when they do, we’ll buy the sets because, you know, people will come…

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Peacock in the Coal Mine

February 10, 2013 By Leave a Comment
Josef Adalian wrote a very provocative article about NBC and the network prime time model in his Vulture column for New York magazine. Based upon both prime time flops and shifts in audience attention, he wonders whether the network model is still viable, and if so, how much longer it will survive.
It was far easier to climb out of the Nielsen basement when there was just a handful of legitimate competitors. Now NBC is fighting for eyeballs at a time when millions of viewers don’t even watch TV on TV.
You can buy the "NBC Stress Toy" from the NBC Universal Store.

You can buy the “NBC Stress Toy” from the NBC Universal Store. Just click on the image.

Adalian presents a case that’s based upon three key factors: (a) NBC is performing very poorly throughout its prime time schedule, (b) temporary short-term solutions have masked the truth for several years and (c) the media environment no longer allows the kinds of turnarounds that ABC, for example, achieved when LOST, Desperate Housewives and Grey’s Anatomy all caught fire after the responsible programmers were long gone. With all of the noise from so many media outlets, Adalian discounts even the potential of star vehicles and the old tentpole strategy (Cosby and Seinfeld, for example).

He’s close to the industry, and perhaps, a bit too close. He analyzes the moves of senior executives in an industry where those moves often defy logic and reason. And, he makes it clear, this is not really an article about NBC, but about the future of prime time network television on all of the broadcast networks:
Networks can pretend all they want that the broadcast model isn’t broken, but denial didn’t forestall the end of big record-store chains, and it didn’t save Borders Books or Hostess. Five or ten years from now, there’s a good chance we’ll recognize NBC as the Peacock in the coal mine.
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Your New TV: The Ideal Screen Dimensions

November 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Watching television in 1958.

Buying a new television set is not easy. Some stores tweak the settings of their TV sets, some tweak the lighting, some show the sets with no adjustment whatsoever, and others optimize to make each set look great. Of course, all of this is utter nonsense because no store can reproduce the environment where you will be watching at home. The next time you visit Best Buy, do not make any judgment about brightness, color rendition, or other qualities of the image–whatever you see in the store, it won’t be what you see at home.

There is one thing you can do in the store, of course. You can stand in front of the screen and wonder whether the set will be too big, too small, or just right for your room. Actually, you probably shouldn’t stand in front of the screen. Instead, with the set at eye level (not mounted six feet above your head), you can make a reasonable judgment. Here’s how.

Before you leave home, grab a tape measure. You’ll want one person to sit down in the chair where they are most likely to watch TV. Measure from the tip of the person’s nose to the place you intend to place the screen. In most American living rooms, this dimension will be about 10 or 12 feet. In smaller rooms, it might be 7 or 8 feet. Just for the sake of example, let’s assume the measurement equals 11 feet. Jot down this calculation:

  • Feet = 11
  • Inches per foot = 12
  • Inches from nose to screen = 132
  • Divide by THREE = 44 inch screen maximum
  • Divide by FOUR = 33 inch screen minimum

Try that again, this time with a larger distance to the screen, say, 16 feet. That’s pretty far away, larger than most U.S. living rooms. Here’s how the numbers look:

  • Feet = 16
  • Inches per foot = 12
  • Inches from nose to screen = 192
  • Divide by THREE = 64 inch screen maximum
  • Divide by FOUR = 48 inch screen minimum

Sure, we’re Americans! We love our television screens!! We want them as large as possible!!! (You’ll find article after article insisting that bigger really is better. For some people, that’s true. For most people, nose-to-screen distance is not more than 9 feet–not 11 or 16 feet as in our illustrations above). Add 10 or 20 percent if you’re VERY serious about sports or movies. Add 50 percent if your entire life revolves around a home theater.

No doubt. Certainly, many retailers would certainly prefer that you buy a set that costs $2,000 or so instead of $1,000 or less. For most principal viewing conditions, a TV in the 46-55 inch range will be suitable. For a bedroom, the answer is probably under 40 inches.

Hey, one more thought. There’s a lot of confusion about LED vs. plasma screens, and if you’re not lucky enough to connect with a knowledgable floor sales person, you could make a poor (and heavy) decision in the wrong direction. LED sets are bright and ideal for rooms where there’s lots of ambient light. Good for spots, not so great for movies because their color rendition is, well, extended and somewhat unnatural. Plasma sets are not as bright, but they do a better job with skin tones and lifelike color rendition. But they run hot, use more power than LED sets, and tend to be heavier, too. If your room has any significant ambient light (coming from windows or fixtures), you may be spending a lot of time fighting reflections. For several years, plasma sets were not popular, but a renewed focus on this technology, especially from Panasonic and Samsung, has resulted in plasma screens now widely available, even from big box retailers.

Before you buy, study the reviews. Editorial reviewers have the benefit of seeing many sets under the same (simulated real world) viewing conditions, so their comments are often more meaningful than the advice of people on the sales floor. I think cnet does an especially good job with TV reviews.

One more thought. I’m sitting here writing on a 21-inch iMac, a computer whose screen I regularly use to watch videos. The screen is not much more than a foot from the tip of my nose, so there’s no way that my formulas make any sense for those of us (lots of us) who watch videos, and the occasional movie, in this way. That makes me wonder whether we’re again crossing the great digital divide to some new way of thinking about the relative sizes of humans and their screens. Maybe our next screens will seem small at 100 inches. Maybe one wall of every room will be a TV screen. Heck, maybe every wall of every room will be a screen. Lots to think about!

 

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FROM: Miss Claire Brown, 6/25/1951……RE: Color TV

July 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment

History marked time for one memorable hour today, and within its span, the promise of the greatest of all the miracles of mass communication became a reality.

At 4:30 PM, Eastern Daylight Time, color television’s triumphal entry into the public domain was emblazoned officiallyacross the log of man’s progress. In the 60 minutes that followed, this newest ,miracle among the electronic marvels was born.

Premiere, the Columbia Broadcasting System’s widely heralded full hour of star-studded entertainment, featuring Arthur Godfrey, Ed Sullivan, Faye Emerson, Garry Moore, Sam Levenson, Patty Painter, Robert Alda and Isabel Bigley, the New York City Ballet, the Bil Baird Marionettes, and Archie Bleyer’s Orchestra, took its place in history as the first commercial color television broadcast to the public. Brief addresses by Wayne Coy, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, William S. Paley, Board Chairman of the Columbia Broadcasting System; and CBS President Frank Stanton signalized, in a dedicatory vein, the start of regular color television broadcast service to the public by the CBS-TV Network.

The history-making broadcast was carried in New York by WCBS-TV, as well as by CBS-TV Network stations in Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., the color signals going out over the stations’ regular transmitters and on their regular channels.

Originating in CBS-TV’s Studio 57, at 109th Street and Fifth Avenue, New York, the color program was transmitted from Studio 57 by coaxial cable to CBS-TV’s Master Control in the Grand Central Building, New York, and carried from there by telephone cables to the WCBS-TV transmitter and by cable to the network. Thousands of the public, as wellas public and industry leaders and members of the press, saw the color inaugural in the five cities carrying Premiere. Many of the public who had completed home made conversions of their black-and-white sets also wereable to see the historic broadcast in color in their homes. Typical were the two junior high school youngsters in Newark who last week revealed they had been watching CBS color television transmissions for the past 18 months.

In New York, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt and Bernard Baruch were among the dignitaries and newspapermen who watched the inaugural on color receivers installed at CBS headquarters. There were also several showings in New York by dealers who are making color television eqUipment which they soon will have ready for the public. Among these were Colortone Inc., which had more than 400 dealers watching the inaugural on sets installed in its downtown headquarters, and Muntz-TV, which showed its new companion-piece in action to the public at its Queens headquarters.

In Boston, the public watched the program on a receiver set up in the Jordan Marsh Department Store, first store in the country to order color television equipment florstore use; Boston public leaders the press viewed the broadcast on CBS-Columbia sets installed in the Hotel Somerset’s Grand Ballroom.

The Philadelphia public saw the color show on a set installed in the lobby of WCAU, CBS affiliate, with clients, public leaders are press watching the program on another color set in the WCAU Auditorium. Baltimoreans viewed the show on sets installed by WMAR-TV in the lobbies of the new Sun Building and the old Sun Building. In Washington, D. C., WTOP-TV had sets in the Warner Building and at its transmitter at 40th and Brandwyne. In addition top government officials viewed the color inaugural on a set in the Hotel Carleton.

The Premiere broadcast was a breathtaking spectacle. His famous red hair and freckles lent an added brilliance to the wit and charm ofArthur Godfrey as he sang and quipped; a  bronzed Ed Sullivan greeted a new audience in a. setting vibrant with full, natural color; Faye Emerson was hostess. On still another stage that brought to viewers all the richness of paintings from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and ·the Museum of Modern Art; and members or the New York City Ballet “were ecstatically colorful in Maurice Ravel’s “La Valse,” staged by Sol Hurok with choreography especially for television by George Balanchine.

“Photo Credit: Ralph Morse / Time & Life Pictures / Getty Images”
“Licensed by Getty Images to Ed Reitan” – (photographed off the screen)
George Balanchine Ballet from “Premiere”
The first commercial CBS Color Television System Colorcast
June 25, 1951

Garry Moore and Sam Levenson added a note of comedy mixed with philosophy, against a setting as vivid as their artistry; Robert Alda and Isabel Bigley of the smash Broadway musical Guys and Dolls sang a duet; the Bil Baird Marionettes cavorted in a riot of hues; and “Miss Color Television” herself, Patty Painter, a. veteran of more than 1,000 CBS color demonstrations and transmissions, brought to life the full, rich, rich colors of the commercial products introduced by the new medium’s pioneer advertisers.

Sixteen national advertisers participated in the epoch-making inaugural, constituting what is believed to be the largest such group ever to sponsor collectively a single network broadcast. The pioneering advertisers were General Mills, Lincoln-Mercury Division of the Ford Motor Company, Longines-Wittnauer Watch Company Inc., Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer, William Wrigley Jr. Company, Revlon,Thomas J. Lipton Inc” National Biscuit Company, Toni Home Permanent, Monarch Finer Foods, Procter &Gamble Company, Standard Brands Inc., Quaker Oats Company, Best Foods Inc., Pepsi-Cola Company and Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company.

Fred Rickey, executive producer for color at CBS, produced Premiere and shared directorial duties with Frances Buss, under the over-all supervision of Jerry Danzig, CBS color program supervisor. Set designers were Paul Sylbert and Michael Baronoff.

The launching of CBS’ regular color television broadcast service to the public was accomplished merely by the addition of the three color cameras, plus monitors and associated control room equipment, to black-and-white studio facilities already existing before the inaugural program in Studio 57, which was chosen for the color broadcast simply because it had suitable time availabilities.

So effortless was the inauguration or regular color television service that the necessary technical work and installations in the studio were made in a 12hour period, between 10:00 PM last Wednesday, and 10:00 AM, the following morning, when rehearsals for the first commercial color telecast started.

A cue, thrown this afternoon from the control room of CBS·TV’s Studio 57 to technical personnel on the studio flooritself, opened the color Premiere. A still life picture of an orchid and a book was transmitted to waiting thousands, and the curtain was raised on history’s first commercial color television broadcast.

Today’s inaugural broadcast, establishing regular color television service to the public by CBS-TV, will be followed by daily morning and afternoon network-programs, commercial and sustaining, beginning tomorrow. A pattern of gradual expansion will be carried out, with a color schedule of approximately 20 hours a week expected by fall.

First of the regularly scheduled color programs, which will have its premiere tomorrow (Tuesday, June 26), is titled The World Is Yours! and features Ivan T. Sanderson, noted naturalist. The five-times-weekly show (CBS.Color TV, 4:30-5::OO PM, EDT. Mon. thru Fri.), “starring the earth’s natural treasures,” will be sponsored in its initial telecast by General Mills. Frances Buss will direct the CBS production, in cooperation with Ivan Sanderson Productions Inc. The World Is Yours! will present the wonders of the animal, vegetable and mineral worlds as “a sort of intellectual vaudeville show, informal in manner and functioning without benefit of script, featuring Ivan Sanderson and his “friends, II who comprise a bewildering array of nature’s creatures, including distinguished representatives of the human species. A frequent Visitor and featured participant will be Patty Painter, “Miss Color Television.”

Second or the regularly scheduled color programs, Modern Homemakers,” will make its bow before the color television audience, as a five-a-week series, on Wed., June 22 (CBS-Color.TV, 10:30-11 AM, EDT Mon. thru Fri,).

A cookery and homemaking program conducted by culinary expert Edalene Stohr, Modern Homemakers will specialize in menu-planning, food preparation, and demonstrating the eye-appeal of well-prepared foods, with emphasis on other facets of homemaking as well.

Opening of regular color broadcasting acted as an additional spur to the public to order color equipment from television dealers. Manufacturers or color TV adapters and converters reported they are receiving thousands of calls for such equipment. Typical was Arnold H. Klein, Vice President of Colortone Inc., who said his company was turning its full facilities over to the production of adapters, and that he expected to have 3,000 units in the hands of distributors by the weekend. He said he had received calls for more than 5,000 sample units from leading department stores and distributors from all over the country.

More info. A complete rundown on color TV’s early history. And, a review.

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Green, Blue, and Extremely Portable

June 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment

One side is green and the other is blue. It stretches so your chroma-key productions have a lightweight, flat background. But it’s a good idea to stretch even more with clips.

Or: chroma-key, anywhere.

It’s amazing how easy portable video production has become. You can shoot high definition video with a smart phone, a tablet, a FlipCam (and similar products), an inexpensive video camcorder, a digital still picture camera… The list goes on.

Most of the time, the recorded video is real life… people in action, scenery, and so on. Sometimes, it’s interesting to explore new creative domains. Often, these explorations involve the placement of people or objects in imagined places, and this is often achieved through a technical miracle called chroma-key.

What can you (and some kids) do with chroma-key? Here’s a step-by-step example that’s fun to watch. (Click to watch the video.)

You know chroma-key: it’s the technology used to place your local meteorologist in front of a digital weather map. The subject performs in front of a green screen, and then, all of the green is (miraculously) dropped out of the image so that it can be replaced with your choice of alternative video. In fact, any color can be used as the chroma-key color, but most often, a deeply saturated green or blue is used because these colors are not (usually) seen in the colors of human skin or hair or eyes. The colored area is usually painted, or created with a cloth stretched very tightly and lit evenly. When using chroma-key, folds and shadows cause difficulty.

With these challenges in mind, I had very high hopes for the FlexDrop2 from Photoflex. The portable package is a big, lightweight fabric disc, not quite a yard in diameter. It sets up with not much more than the flick of a wrist, and opens to a taut five foot by seven foot panel. Very cool.

Mostly, the FlexDrop is flat, but the use of a small clamp here and there is necessary to eliminate all visible shadows and wrinkles. Unfortunately, it’s not a standalone device…it is designed to be attached to a lighting stand or other pipes or tubes (and these are rarely lightweight).

Hands on, FlexDrop2 really works. One person can stand in front of a field of nothing but blue (one side) or green (the other), and then, live or with a good edit application, the chroma-key process can be used to drop out the blue or green and drop in any video still, animation, graphic, or footage. Two people? Hang the FlexDrop2 horizontally. Another good use: as a background for stop-motion animation, but you will need to dress the tabletop surface with an additional green or blue cloth (exactly the same color as FlexDrop2).

At $165, the FlexDrop2 is a nice-to-have, a bit expensive unless you use it often. And, of course, there are less costly ways to make chroma-key happen: buy a cloth and stretch it yourself, paint a wall, etc. But this one is handy, portable, stretches nicely, stores without taking up much space, and does the job in a professional manner. One catch: it’s not so easy to collapse and pack away. This video shows you how to pack it up.

BTW: Thanks to Kristy and to Rebecca for their help with this article.

Filed Under: Creative, Photography & Videography, Products, TV & New Media Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

I Want to Watch TV on My iPad (The Plot Thickens)

March 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Here’s the original story published on March 6, 2012:

You’re looking at an array of television antennas. These antennas are used to capture local broadcast signals that you can watch, if you pay a monthly subscription fee, on your computer, tablet, or phone. Aereo (formerly Bamboom) is the company behind the scheme, and, as you might expect, they’ll be spending a lot of time in the legal system as they argue with broadcasters regarding the rights and wrongs of live retransmission (that is, if Aereo is to survive, the broadcast networks want to see monthly cash–just like they receive from the cable operators).

Ah, the free airwaves, the ones that broadcasters use for the public good. Ah, the intellectual property that broadcasters carry over those airwaves, the IP that cable service providers pay to carry. Ah, the unresolved legal gotcha!! Any company that attempts to make those signals available via a secondary distribution scheme must pay for the right, or so say the broadcast networks.

The price for the service? $12 per month. The debut date? March 12. The place: for now, the New York metropolitan area.

For cord cutters, this may be a terrific deal. But it’s unclear whether the courts will block Aereo’s progress, as they have with ivi.tv and others who attempted to climb the walls of the castle without paying the required tribute (or, as I’m adding in my updated version of this article… others who attempted to challenge the current system of copyright and payments for distribution rights to intellectual property).

Slingbox? That’s okay. Over-the-air mobile TV? That’s not ready yet, except in a few markets on a test basis. Watch over-the-air TV? Sure. Watch via cable or satellite? As long as you’re paying for the privilege. Watch on another device? Nope, not yet. Or, maybe the answer is yes. We’ll find out in a few weeks.

_____

Here’s the update that I wrote on March 12, 2012:

From Bloomberg: Predicting a “great fight” with traditional media companies, billionaire Barry Diller said he plans to expand his new Aereo Web-based television service to 75 to 100 cities within a year, reports Bloomberg.

Diller, speaking at the South by Southwest Interactive festival in Austin, Texas, noted that efforts by Walt Disney Co. and other media companies to cite copyright violations were “absolutely predictable,” since entrenched companies always protect their turf, the story says.

Want to know more? Here’s a bunch of links:

The tech explanation:

http://www.techspot.com/news/47467-aereo-offers-tv-over-internet-with-antennas-engineered-to-comply-with-law.html

The consumer angle:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/dorothypomerantz/2012/02/29/how-much-are-you-willing-to-pay-to-cut-the-cord/

The business story:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204059804577229451364593094.html?mod=wsj_share_tweet#printMode

The investment story:

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2012/02/14/iac-l20-million-aereo-barry-diller-vc.html?s=print

_____

Here’s the update as of July 17, 2012

Again from Bloomberg (July 13, 2012): “A U.S. district judge this week allowed Aereo to continue operating while television networks pursue a copyright lawsuit against the company. Aereo captures broadcast signals with small antennas and streams them to devices such as Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s iPad, without paying for the programming.” As a result of the ruling, Diller is now planning a nationwide rollout.

As I pondered what all of this might mean, I read an essay on TV NewsCheck’s website, written by television executive Lee Spieckerman. I contacted him, and we spoke for a while about the ruling and its implications. In short, he believes that Judge Nathan bungled the decision:

“We see loopy rulings from Federal judges all the time, and I think this fits into that category… She misread the governing law!”

Spieckerman’s argument is based in part upon law and in part upon common industry practice. His legal argument tracks back to a 1993 law which requires operators of paid television systems to secure the necessary rights from local broadcasters. The concept is called “retransmission consent” and that ruling has proven to be something of a windfall for local broadcasters as a result of the fees paid by cable operators in exchange for this consent. According to  Spieckerman, these fees are now worth about $2 billion to the commercial broadcast network, plus an additional several billion dollars to local stations. This, plus the additional revenues from political advertising resulting from the Citizens United decision, provide the advertising base necessary for local television news to survive. (Seems to me, we should all understand the economics and consequences of this new approach to journalism funding–a worthwhile topic for a future article). Back to his other argument: “there is no tradition in this country for renting antennas–nobody rents antennas!”

Digging deeper with Mr. Spieckerman, and the real argument emerges. This is all about copyright infringement, and protection of distribution rights associated with intellectual property. Judge Nathan’s ruling begins to disrupt a system by which cable operators compensate owners of cable networks and local stations. ESPN receives $4.69 per cable subscriber–do the math and that’s about $50 per year per subscriber multiplied by 100 million subscribers, and that’s $5 billion per year in subscription fees. Spieckerman believes local broadcast station fees to be 20-50 cents, but acknowledges that these deals are confidential. (Consider that Comcast, Time Warner, and other cable operators charge consumers charge those 100 million subscribers over $1,000 per year–1o0 million x $100 = $100,0o0,000,000, or $100 billion, also good raw material for another Digital Insider article.)

Of course, the local station operators are anxious to negotiate with Diller’s Aereo. And Diller is anxious to go with the Judge’s ruling because it requires no fees. For now, according to Bloomberg,

We’re going to really start marketing… Within a year and a half, certainly by ’13, we’ll be in most major markets.”

To which Mr. Spieckerman counters:

Who is going to be next? This is a pandora’s box, and when you start circumventing and tearing down the few elements there are in the industry and inviting the destruction of an important industry. If I have any intellectual property that I want to distribute, I do not want anybody able to steal my material.”

Filed Under: Mobile, Products, Trends, TV & New Media Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Apple TV in 2012?

December 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Here's one of several pictures of the current Apple TV interface. For more, visit http://www.apple.com/appletv/

Apple has been experimenting with home television since 2006, when the company introduced Apple TV. Released last year, second generation Apple TV has sold over 2 million units. Apple TV is an accessory. The new product will be a complete solution: a TV set with an Apple logo, Apple software, and Apple’s reinvention of yet another product category.

For those unfamiliar with Apple TV, here’s the Apple blurb:

“With Apple TV, everything you want to watch — movies, TV shows, photo slideshows, and more — plays wirelessly on your widescreen TV. No managing storage. No syncing to your iTunes library. HD movies and TV shows from iTunes and Netflix play over the Internet on your HDTV, and music and photos stream from your computer. All you have to do is click and watch.”

According to Smarthouse, there will be three Apple models: 32″, a mid-size, and 55″. It will include “A totally new software interface has been written that allows users to call up programs using voice commands via the new Siri personal assistant app…” It may be operated by your existing iPad or iPhone (provided it’s Siri-ous).

Add Apple’s FaceTime and the TV becomes a big-screen video conferencing center, fully compatible with millions of iPhones and iPads.

How might the new TV look? The first place that answers come together tends to be MacRumors, my favorite Mac site for its up-to-the-minute coverage, its willingness to republish rumors from reliable sources (often with smart commentary), and the site’s Buyer’s Guide, which tells consumers when to buy each Mac and Apple portable device.

How much will it cost? I’m guessing $1,199 for the low-priced model, and $1,99 for the high, with a $1,499 price point for the in-between model. Just a guess based upon Apple’s past practices. If I was in charge of television at Sony, or any other high-priced television manufacturer, I would be very, very concerned. And I would not bother to convince myself that, somehow, DroidTV (or whatever) is likely to win the race.

Why?

1. With the iPad turning three years old, Apple’s huge base of early adopters will be ready for a new, high-priced toy.

2. For a decade, Apple has been studying this market, figuring out the best integrated hardware, network, usability, operating system and app plays.

3. Apple already sells an accessory product with the base functionality already in place and operating in two million homes (three or four million by launch time).

4. Apple has a well-developed retail network–people like to see a TV before buying. Best Buy, Radio Shack, and Target sell Apple products.

No competitor enjoys these advantages.

Filed Under: Products, TV & New Media Tagged With: ,

Moyers to Public TV: Reinvent Yourself!

November 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

These are some of my favorite excerpts from an inspiring speech by one of public television’s long-term heroes, Bill Moyers. He delivered the speech in November, 2010 at a gathering of public television programming executives…

“The core problem is that we still don’t have an expansive national vision of what we’re about, where we want to go and what we want to become. Until we are able to say clearly and comprehensively what it is we really want to do, how much it will cost, and how we intend to get there, we can’t blame Congress, the White House or even the foundations for not supporting us more fully.

…There’s a huge vacuum between the [public television] system, nationally and locally, and the big foundations and no one has yet been inspired or capable enough to link the two at the level of a consensus national plan.

There are always people who remain afraid of change or an unknown process, fearful of where it might lead.  But by contrast, the British and Canadians go through periodic charter reviews that invoke a national conversation; there’s a culture of discussion and planning for public media in those nations that help them survive even the worst assaults from detractors or vested interests. This could be a reason that public support for public media in nations like the U.K. exceeds $80 per capita, while we’re still limping along on $1.49 per capita.

…In the meantime, I’m here to tell you that even within the fiscal crisis public television currently faces, we have an opportunity to serve the public — to renew our bond to our communities.

You may not have money for in-depth documentaries or other high-end productions but you have cameras, microphones, studios and the trust of the community. You can be the ombudsman for the public within your reach, provide the venue for forums, teach-ins, town meetings, and debates over the issues that matter to people where they live, telecast in an atmosphere of openness and clarity without the mean and mindless rhetoric or cant that are so triumphant today. Civic engagement is the lifeblood of democracy and the bedrock of its legitimacy. No media can nurture, foster, and empower it the way we can.

…Meanwhile, let me offer just a few other ideas for you to consider:  Take a whole evening of primetime and give it to a forum for the fight in your neighborhoods over charter schools. Do the same for other distressed public institutions — your libraries, for example.

Or how about one week inviting as many social workers as you can get into your studio and asking them to share what they see every day — how people are coping each day with these worst hard times?  Do a series of workshops on Occupy Wall Street, pro and con.  Out there in Iowa, find the lady carrying the placard I saw last weekend on television that read: “I couldn’t afford to buy a politician so I bought this sign.” Bring her into the studio with her local member of Congress — have them talk frankly to each other about their different perceptions of money in politics. Do an evening of primetime on the fight going on right now in your state over redistricting — gerrymandering — the outcome will influence your state’s position and power for the next 10 years. Get folks aware and involved. If you don’t, who will? Certainly not the commercial stations in your market, that’s for sure.

…since David H. Koch of Koch Industries is on the board of both WGBH and WNET, I’d ask him to round up his billionaire buddies — and in a nonpartisan spirit reach out to civic-minded progressive billionaires like George Soros — and together create an independent, fully endowed, self-governing production center (free of any partisan strings or influence) for American drama that would bring our epic history and culture to the screen just like we’ve brought over the Brits’ Downton Abbey, make room for Jefferson’s Monticello! Now, there’s an Upstairs Downstairs story the public would make a pledge to see.

…What we need is a makeover of our own — a rebirth, yes, of vision, imagination, and creativity, but above all a structure and scheme for the 2lst century, one that uses the resources that the digital platform provides to realize the goals of our founders: diversity, public access, civic discourse, experimentation, a welcoming place for independent spirits.

The whole speech–including his idea for public television’s equivalent of a constitutional convention– can be found here:

http://www.current.org/pb/pb1122moyers-remarks.html

Filed Under: Creative, Learning, Trends, TV & New Media Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

The Inadequacy of TV

March 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Last night, I watched a PBS documentary about an extension of 19th century learning at Chautauqua and another about 21st century learning in several advanced schools.

People living in the 20th century may have been amused, engaged and enthralled by the miracle of television’s ability to deliver Chautauqua or in Science Leadership Academy into their living rooms, but living here in the 21st century, both television experiences left me cold.

Helen Gayle, C.A.R.E.

I had questions. I wanted to get in touch with Helene Gayle, the C.A.R.E. CEO whose family had been vacationing at Chautauqua for generations. Every morning, Chautauqua features a speaker at 10:45 a.m., and I wanted to access Gayle’s speech–and the ones by David McCullough and Daniel Pink, too. I wanted to take a walk with McCullough, or do the virtual equivalent. Sound bites in a documentary? That’s all we get from television? It’s not enough. Not any more. Not in the era of the iPad and YouTube and TEDTalks.

I wanted to see a full class at Science Leadership. I wanted a full-scale Q&A with some students, some teachers, some parents. Cutesy camera angles don’t make television a modern medium. Neither does HDTV. It’s the connection that makes my “post PC device” magical. And that’s not TV. Not now, not at this 21st century moment.

Filed Under: Trends, TV & New Media Tagged With: , ,

Rules of the Digital Road

March 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Last week, the leader of a national new organization was taken down under dubious circumstances.

Apparently, a filmmaker set a trap, edited the resulting footage for a desired effect, and ignited an anti-NPR fuse that resulted in the explosion of its leadership.

Whether you are an NPR fan or against them, the situation highlights a significant disconnect between technology, ethics, and current law.

Today, I can invite you to lunch, ask any number of leading or embarrassing questions, record your every word without your permission, edit your responses so that you seem to be the embodiment of evil, include a closeup shot of your credit card and signature, distribute the resulting video throughout the world, publicize it throughout the blogosphere and the news media–all without your knowledge, and with little if any vetting by any responsible editor, gatekeeper, or other adult supervision.

And, I would be within my rights to do so. And, there is little you could do about it–without drawing even more attention to a miserable situation.

We’ve launched a global system of instant communications, based upon low-cost, high-access tools in an environment where free speech trumps all. Errors, whether by omission or commission, result in revision, or deletion of a few references, but never erasure.

It may be that this is our new reality. And it may be some sort of ultimate test of free speech rights. We don’t want to place a gate between bloggers and their readers. Without a gate, readers have no way to evaluate truth, fact, or bias; with a gate, those decisions are made by others who, presumably, possess the necessary time, training and ethical policies to assume such responsibility in our free society. Without a gate, every opinion can be heard (or, read)–right, wrong, biased, malicious, disguised, or squeaky clean. With a gate, there is control and protection–terms we like when they’re used in transportation, not so much when they’re used in communication. With digital media, transportation and communication converge–and we need to define some rules of the road.

Filed Under: Trends, TV & New Media Tagged With: ,
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