Assumptions are dangerous. Plain and simple. All the ads on TV today about TV center around Cable & Dish services. I’m not really sure what the Cable advantage would be, to be frank. I haven’t 
watched cable in 5 years. So, it seems that Satellite TV (Dish or DirectTV) has the upper hand in the media slugfest. But what’s not being advertised may be their greatest enemy. It’s the Web. What isn’t on the Web today? I’m not sure what’s driving down Dish/DirectTV prices more, “th*s *c*n*my” (sorry I don’t let myself say those words together) or the fact that they are afraid of the Web, foreseeing what it could do to their businesses.
I remember telling my dad in 2003 before leaving for college the following year that I bet watching a live sporting event would become reality before I graduated in 4 years. At that time, video highlights were big stuff. It was a breakthrough that came faster than expected when in the Spring of 2006, I watched a UNC vs. Duke college basketball game on ESPN360 as part of an expanded coverage broadcast for that game. My prediction went cash!
So, 3 years later, TV on Web has exploded. In the last 12 months, I’ve watched events such as Euro 2008, the NCAA tournament and President Obama’s inaugural address LIVE on the Web. Here’s what I currently have access to on the Web for TV:
- ESPN360 through my ISP | Nearly every ESPN production can be streamed online here.
- Hulu.com | Check out Hulu if you haven’t. They have a plethora of archived movie clips and tv shows for viewing. Free!
- Major news stations | CNN.com and Foxnews.com often cover big stories with live streaming coverage. I was never a 11:00 pm news person. There’s nothing on TV news that I can’t get in 15 minutes by going to CNN or Foxnews online. Plus, I keep up with mainstream news stories through user updates on Twitter.
- Justin.TV | This user-generated streaming start-up describes itself this way on the website:
“Founded in October 2006, Justin.tv is the largest online community for people to broadcast, watch interact around live video. With more than 41 million unique visitors per month and 428,000 channels broadcasting live video, Justin.tv is the leading live video site on the Web, enabling users to create real-time connections with others around the world.…Justin.tv’s live video platform scales to support massive audiences by measuring demand in real-time and intelligently replicating streams to additional servers to meet that demand. Constructed by a team of MIT and Yale graduates, the Justin.tv platform pushes more than 177 Gbps of video at peak usage – the equivalent of 16,946 standard DVDs per hour.”
If the decision comes within the next year or two for me to have either the Internet or DirectTV/Dish at home, I’m not so sure I’d be disappointed to just choose an ISP (probably AT&T) and spend the money I would “save” from a DirectTV/Dish subscription and spend it on a sweet-action HD monitor. (My current plan has me paying over $700 over the 18 month contract.)
I know WebTV isn’t there yet. But considering this was breakthrough only 3 years ago, seeing its rapid progress has me excited about what the next 5 years holds. I’ve yet to branch out to vote for a third-party politician, but in the visual streaming media campaign, my ballot has already been cast.
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This is a good topic, and I’m also interested to see if TV-watching over the web becomes more widespread. But there are some hurdles, many of which Mark Cuban regularly covers in his blog. For instance: http://blogmaverick.com/2009/03/25/internet-tv-vs-music-vs-newspapers-et-al/
I for one had the chance to put this to the test. My previous residence was in a cluster of trees, so I was unable to get DirecTV, and I had no interest in paying Sharter for their meager wares. So for about 4 months, I made do with a bit of over-the-air as well as lots of justin.tv and a subscription to NHL.com gamecasts. Hulu never factored in too much because I don’t like watching TV shows and movies on a small screen.
I am a total snob when it comes to video quality, and the quality I had to put up with on my computer just isn’t good enough. And it’s not surprising, what with bandwidth costs eating into the budgets of these internet video providers. Plus so many things can go wrong. If you lose your internet connection halfway through an Office episode on hulu, tough beans. Some of my friends also torrent, but for me it’s too much of a hassle, and you have to wait anyway. So much for “on demand.” The fact is, since most of us have day jobs anyway, there’s no downside to setting your DirecTV DVR to record stuff to watch later. Now that I’ve moved into my new apartment, I’ve greatly preferred watching DVR’ed episodes and movies on DirecTV than any internet TV experience. There is definitely no comparison. I agree with Cuban that the current distribution channels that cable and satellite have in place are vastly superior to providing high-quality video in large quantities. The internet is not really the place for that type of quality, and in fact Cuban is pushing for internet rates to go up for those who hog all the bandwidth for video watching, an idea I’m definitely on board with. Still, some people simply have low standards when it comes to video quality, and for them the internet is a treasure trove of artifact-laden mediocre video. To them I say enjoy it while it lasts…