HDTV Almanac

Hulu has made some sizeable waves in the television industry pond. The service makes “catch-up” episodes of current television shows available for free; all you have to do is sign up and endure a relatively few commercial interruptions during the show. (The service also has an extensive list of old show episodes and some mediocre movies, but those don’t seem to get as much attention as the current shows.) The fascinating detail about Hulu is that it is owned by News Corp (which owns the FOX networks) and Disney (which owns ABC), and Comcast (which owns NBC). Somehow these three network owners have created a tiger that they now hold by the tail, trying to figure out what to do with it.

So now the New York Post has published a story that Hulu may start requiring its users to log on using their cable or satellite television subscription account information in order to access some of the content that’s available on the site. (Yes, the Post is also owned by News Corp.) In the industry parlance, this is known as “authentication.” I don’t usually spend much time discussing rumors, but this one appears to have stirred up a lot of debate. Some even predict doomsday scenarios if such a practice should come into effect. After all, it is the people who don’t want to have a cable bill who have made Hulu a success, right?

Well, I don’t think the sky is falling yet. First, 80% to 90% of U.S. television watching households already have a subscription to a television service. If you’re looking to drop that and replace it with Hulu, then yes, we have a problem. But most people use Hulu like a super-DVR of sorts, where you can decide to watch a recent episode of a show even if you forgot to record it.

Keep in mind that streaming video over the Internet is new, and the networks aren’t sure what to do to replace the money that they’ve lost due to declining advertising revenues. Authentication may be a way to bolster their demands for greater retransmission fees from the subscription services.

Also, it’s important to remember that Hulu already has an authentication requirement. If you have an account with certain services, then you get to watch some FOX show episodes the day after they air. If not, you have to wait eight days. That went into effect last summer, and it does not appear to have had a negative impact on Hulu’s growth.

It’s early days yet and there’s still a lot of stumbling around in the dark to be done before we settle on just what this new world of video entertainment will look like (and we figure out who is going to pay for it). My advice is to be patient, and let the various services know what you like and what you don’t like. I expect that it will only get better as we go along.

You’ve got a beautiful, big flat screen television. It’s so thin that you’ve put it on a wall mount and it just seems to float in space. Maybe it will just float away! Wait a minute; no, that can’t happen because it’s tied solidly to the ground by a mass of cables that should be enough to connect the Space Shuttle to its launch gantry. There should be a better way.

Fortunately, there’s one industry group working to solve this problem. The Wireless Home Digital Interface Group (WHDI) has developed standards that allow high-definition signals to be sent wirelessly to display devices. This means that all you need is a power outlet and a small receiver at your television set; all the other devices in your home entertainment system can use WHDI to send the picture (and sound if necessary) to your television.

We’ve had this level of convenience for a while now with wireless surround sound speakers, but it’s great that this technology is becoming practical for the more-demanding video part of the equation. Solutions like HDMI could help lead to two important developments in our living rooms.

First, it makes it more practical to put the entertainment components next to the seating area where they are easy to reach, instead of across the room next to the television. If you want to watch a DVD, doesn’t it make more sense to have it in an end table next to the sofa, or built into the coffee table?

The other idea is a bit more radical; maybe the time has come for “dumb” TVs. All most people need these days is a big display. They don’t need tuners because they don’t connect their sets to an antenna. They don’t need their televisions to have Internet support because so many other devices already provide that function (or it’s inexpensive to add using a network media player). And the TVs don’t even need to have complex scalers or video processing built in; other devices such as Blu-ray players already have those features, and can take care of the task of converting other signals into a simple 1080p stream that a dumb TV can understand.

So with just a power plug and a single HDMI port (or built-in WHDI support), a dumb TV would be ready to do just about everything that the average U.S. viewer would want from it. Let the intelligence and source switching be handled by some other box in the room. What do you think? We have nothing to lose but our wires!

A new white paper from Parks Associates reports on the shifting trends in home entertainment. One of the most telling statistics in this document is that the average broadband user in U.S. households now watches 1.6 hours a weeek of Internet video on their television. Not on their notebook or smartphone or tablet or desktop computer: on their television!

When you consider that four out of five homes now have broadband service, that includes a whole lot of people who don’t a Netflix from a KitKat. So the fact that on average we’re watching this much Internet content on our televisions strikes me as being pretty significant. It’s a trend that I expect to continue to grow, and grow rapidly.

Parks also makes a number of recommendations, the most important of which is this one:

Services must offer a subscription or advertising-supported model.

The U.S. connected consumer does not want to get nickeled and dimed when watching television and movie content at home. We didn’t like paying for phone services by the minute or the text character, and the phone companies responded with flat rate options. There’s no reason to expect that we’d react any differently to getting our entertainment content. That’s why the “all you can eat” plans from Netflix and Hulu Plus are so much more successful than the a la carte rental (or purchase) plans offered by so many other services such as Cinemanow or Vudu. So if you’re going to get money from the consumers, get it as a subscription.

Or get it from advertisers; just don’t expect the traditional model of insert commercial interruptions to work much longer. Creative ways to effectively connect a viewing experience to a relevant brand message are needed if commercial advertising for video is to survice.

From Blu-ray players to video game consoles, from low-cost network media players to Smart TVs, more and more devices in the living room are making it easier to bring content from the Internet to the largest screen in the home. Get ready to watch those hours-viewed-per-week stats climb!

Once again, Panasonic has move the goalposts in the “Mine Is Bigger than Yours” contest. The latest is a 145-inch diagonal plasma television; that’s more than 12 feet from corner to corner. According to a news report by Tech-On, the behemoth was a joint effort with NHK (Japan Broadcasting System) and was produced in one of Panasonic’s idle plasma panel fabrication lines. It’s not a big surprise that NHK is involved, because they have been at the forefront of higher-than-1080p resolutions for a long time.

There are several points of interest about this demonstration. First and foremost is the resolution; the panel has 7,680 by 4,320 pixels. I’ve done the math for you already, and that is the equivalent of sixteen 1080p resolution panels tiled together. The tiled panels would be only about 36-inches diagonal apiece, which is on the small size for current plasma products. As a result, the display has a pixel pitch of 60 ppi, which is smaller than a typical 42-inch plasma. This means that each sub-pixel is smaller and has less surface area for phosphors, which would mean that the panel can emit less light per pixel. This is one of the limitations of plasma technology.

One detail that is a surprise is that Panasonic engineers have come up with a way to divide up the scanning signals for these panels. Apparently they scan multiple horizontal lines at the same time, in order to refresh the 4,320 lines without flickering.

Finally, the article quotes Yoshio Ito, director of Display Devices Business Group and senior vice president at AVC Network Co, Panasonic: “It is possible to experience video with realistic sensations from a distance of 1.6 meters, which is the optimal viewing distance.” That’s just over five feet, folks. (That’s just about the distance that I’d recommend for a 36″ 1080p screen, which would have the same pixel size.) So I don’t want to hear any more complaints when I recommend a bigger screen for your viewing distance; here’s the SVP from Panasonic saying that five feet from a 12-foot diagonal screen is “optimal.”

From the What Will They Think of Next Department:

Do you enjoy the convenience of shopping in your BVDs at any hour of the day or night, but still feel a little queasy about sharing your credit card information on the Interwebs? Are you the type who thinks that “left pocket, right pocket” is all you need to know about domestic bookkeeping? Do you still prefer to use old-fashioned “folding green” to pay for your purchases?

If so, here’s a back-to-the-future innovation from Walmart that you’re going to love: pay for your online purchases with cash! No, they don’t come out to your house and install a tiny reverse-ATM on your computer. Instead, you place your order online, and then you have 48 hours to get to any store to pay for your purchase. Walmart will then ship your order; you can choose to have it shipped directly to your home or to the nearest store.

According to the Walmart press release, the FDIC reports that about a quarter of U.S. households do not have access to a credit card or bank account. For these people, cash is the most convenient payment option. Until now, however, this has left them shut out of the larger product selection and special discounts available through online shopping at Walmart’s website.

So when you’re shopping for your next consumer electronics device — or perhaps even an HDTV — you now have the option to shop online and still pay with cash.

Are you curious about how your local television station charges for political advertising? If the FCC has its way, you won’t need to guess much longer. On Friday, the commission passed new rules that require stations to post the information on a public website.

At first blush, this may seem to be a strong blow for transparency in our political process, but I have to wonder if it will ever be implemented. First, it singles out television broadcasters. The rules do not apply to radio, newspapers, billboards, or even cable and satellite television networks. Just those stations that broadcast free over-the-air television.

In addition, only 10% of the stations will have to comply with the new requirements, at least at the start. The rules will apply to just the 200 largest stations that are affiliated with the major networks: ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox. The other 1,800 stations will not have to start making their disclosures for another two years.

I recognize that I’m treading a fine line here, but I believe that this issue transcends political party divisions that have polarized the discussion of many issues in the country. However, I believe that there are many people to the left and the right who have grave concerns about the amount of money spent on political advertising, and that more transparency could be a safeguard against abuse. On the other hand, I am a business owner and I would be distressed to have to put this much detail about my company finances in the public view. According to some reports, the television broadcasters offered to provide aggregate figures about total time and costs broken down by candidate, but the FCC apparently was not interested in this compromise. They want the specific rates paid to be posted online. I can see how this could lead to complications with commercial advertisers, once they see what the politicians got to pay for airtime.

On the other hand, the television stations already have to make this same information available for public inspection at their offices, so how much difference does it make that they also have to post it online?

I’m not sure what is fair in this dispute, but the one prediction that I can make with confidence is that the television networks will make sure that this ends up in court before it takes effect. And I hope that the final outcome will result in a positive change in television that has become a political battleground.

An article by Stacey Higginbotham for GigaOM cites a fascinating statistic from the Sandvine Global Internet Phenomena Report. According to last fall’s version of the report, half of all our Internet use is related to video. Netflix and YouTube alone account for more than 37% of the total traffic. And according to the recently released spring update to the report, when you include audio streaming the total “entertainment traffic” accounts for 64.5% of all Internet downstream traffic on fixed networks in North America, and 51.6% on all mobile networks in North America. Sandvine predicts that entertainment traffic will consume more than 60% of all mobile downstream traffic by 2014.

Should we be worried? Are we going to start getting the data equivalent of a busy signal when we try to send or receive email on our phones and tablets? Or even on our connected computers and other devices?

Fortunately, there are a number of factors that suggest that we’re not headed for a crisis. New technologies keep coming along that increase the amount of data that can be carried by the fiber optic backbones of our nation’s Internet system, with the result that capacity increases anywhere from two to 100 times. All that has to be changed are the encoding devices at the end of the existing cables; the labor-intensive and costly laying of new cable is often avoided.

Also the data itself is becoming more intelligent. For example, some video codecs support “adaptive bitrate streaming” which adjusts the quality of the image based on the bandwidth available in the connection.

All the same, there is the possibility of unintended consequences that could arise from broadband shortages. Already, we see the imposition of data caps on mobile device plans, even though it is a small minority of users who consume the largest share of bandwidth. And we’ve also see the rise of favored treatment for some data over others, which threatens the concept of “net neutrality” that most people appear to favor.

It would appear that the correct reaction at this point is to remain optimistic but vigilant. Watch out for changes from your mobile data or broadband service providers that could cost you more for your Internet service, or limit or slow your access to certain types of content.

Have you seen the new IKEA Uppleva television? It apparently is designed to make it easy for consumers to choose a new HDTV that fits in with their Scandinavian decor. The set hasn’t been released in this country yet, so we don’t know what the price will be. Without this detail, it’s hard to assess the value of this new product, but it clearly marks some interesting changes in the market.

First, if you don’t think that the LCD TV has reached the commodity stage, this should convince you. Here’s a television branded not by any consumer electronics giant, but a furniture maker. This also conveys a message that this set will be as easy to install and use as the IKEA furniture (or with any luck, even easier). It bundles everything for you, including a Blu-ray player.

It is also interesting that a furniture maker should decide to market its own TV. I remember when Magnavox made a big deal about the furniture surrounding its massive cathode ray tube console sets, but I can’t remember another case where that was turned around.

And you don’t have to worry about being overwhelmed by a lot of choices. The Uplevva comes in three sizes; that’s it. You don’t have to deal with a lot of the specifications that you might encounter in an electronics store, such as lcd vs. plasma tv, or whether the screen is 120 Hz or not, if it supports 3D TV, or how the contrast ratio compares. Just pick the television that fits your space and you’re good to go.

Is this the start of a trend? Will you be able to buy a television branded by Sterns and Foster that is designed just for your bedroom? Maybe the major supermarket chains will offer their own television brands; buy one at Thanksgiving and get a free turkey. The price of a flat screen tv has fallen to the point where they could be sold by retailers other than the traditional consumer electronics, shopping club, and discount chains. IKEA could be the bellwether for a whole new approach to selling televisions.

You can be sure that the Uppleva experiment will be watched closely to see if it is a strategy worth emulating. Of course, the company may have to endure a little rib-pocking before the new HDTV can be deemed a success, as has already been ably demonstrated by late night television host Conan O’Brien:

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Did you ever hear the squeal of feedback in a public address system? It occurs because a sound coming from the amplified speakers finds its way into a microphone, where it travels to an amplifier that makes it louder. This louder sound comes out of the speaker and goes back into the microphone louder than before, where it gets amplified again. And the cycle repeats until someone turns down the amplifier or the equipment reaches its limits. Or it breaks.

This is called a positive feedback loop, because each time the sound passes through the system, it gets louder. A negative feedback loop does the opposite; it causes the sound (or signal or whatever you’re measuring) to decrease with each cycle, until it finally disappears. We also call this a “death spiral”.

A story in the Washington Post reports that by the third quarter of 2011, we were down to just 5.8 million U.S. homes that rely solely on free, over-the-air broadcasts for their television content. That’s a decline of more than 7% from the 6.25 million of just one year earlier. Many of these viewers are elderly, poor, living in sparsely-populated rural areas, or some combination of those three factors. And from a marketing perspective, these are not demographics that appeal to major advertisers.

It is the advertisers that drive the “free” broadcasts, but smaller television stations have found it increasingly difficult to attract advertising dollars. Companies are already dealing with constraints on their revenues as a result of the down economy, and at the same time, their marketing budget is being stretched to cover new media channels such as the Internet.

Larger stations have been able to replace some lost revenues by demanding larger retransmission licensing fees from subscription television services — though this is coming under increasing scrutiny from Washington D.C. and other quarters — but smaller stations often don’t have this luxury. In fact, many have to forego any retransmission fees at all, trading them instead for a guaranteed slot on the local cable system’s channels which increases their reach and helps improve their appeal to advertisers.

Should we allow the free broadcasts to simply spiral down into oblivion? This is a national question, and one of many similar thorny issues such as preserving the US Postal Service or subsidizing rural air transportation. What would be the impact of a national broadband plan? Is it time to replace the 1930s mandate for free television with a 21st Century mandate for free access to broadband? Six out of 10 U.S. consumers now get their news online in one form or another, according Nielsen. Would free broadband service be enough to provide access to streaming audio and video, replacing current over-the-air radio and television broadcasts?

These are not easy questions, but it’s clear that change is going to come whether we plan for it as a society or not. And we certainly won’t have a plan if we don’t start discussing it.

We’re a society that is joined at the hip to our technology: literally. With smartphones in holsters and ebook readers and tablets in our shoulder bags, we now take our digital connections with us wherever we go. But you may be in for a shock when you try to read your indispensable device when you’re out and about, wearing your favorite shades.

I made this discovery years ago, the hard way. Our sailboat has a GPS that doubles as a depth finder, and as we sail on the Chesapeake Bay, knowing how much water separates you from the bottom is essential information. I was making a tricky approach to a creek when I glanced down at the LCD screen to see what the depth was, and I saw a black screen. In a moment of panic, I thought the power had gone off on the device and I whipped off my sunglasses to start troubleshooting the problem. And the image on the screen magically reappeared.

What happened was that the polarization of the display and my sunglasses cancelled each other out. Polarizing films only transmits light waves that are oriented in a specific direction. This helps eliminate glare, and it creates a dimmer image because it blocks the light waves that are not in the correct orientation. You can witness this for yourself; look through two pairs of polarized sunglasses, and then rotate one until it is at right angles to the other. All the light should be blocked and you’ll just see black. (This is also a handy way to check to see if the lenses are really polarized.) You also can demonstrate the same effect using a pair of hair combs. When they are aligned so that their teeth line up, you can see through them. Rotate one to right angles, and your view will be blocked where they overlap.

So much for the science lesson; what does this mean in the real world? As I mentioned already, LCDs rely on polarized light to create their image. So it is possible that the light will not be correctly oriented to view when wearing polarized sunglasses. And that’s exactly what happens.

Take an Apple iPad and look at it in landscape mode while wearing a typical pair of polarized sunglasses, and the image will just look a little dimmer. Take that same table and turn it to portrait mode, however, and it goes black. You might think that OLED displays would not have this problem since they are emissive and do not rely on polarization to create the image, but some models like the Samsung Galaxy S actually go dark when held at a 45-degree angle because it uses a polarizing film to reduce internal reflections.

These observations were made by Raymond Soneira of DisplayMate, who also points out that there is a readily available solution for the manufacturers. They could use a “circular polarizer” — which is what is used in the 3D glasses at your local cinema — that will not block the image. Instead, there is a small color shift. According to Soneira, both the iPhone 4 and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 use this technology to eliminate the sunglasses problem.

So if you’re planning to catch up on some Netflix movies or other video on your next picnic, be sure to make a test run while wearing shades. You don’t want everything to go dark when you go outside.