Monthly Archives: March 2010

ESPN 3D on DirecTV

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Conventional wisdom says that hardware precedes software. We’ve seen this over and over again in the personal computer industry; we had USB ports on PCs for years before there were many practical applications for them. Now we have programs that run directly off of USB thumb drives, as well as a host of peripherals and accessories that can use USB connections.

So it appeared that hardware would once again precede the software (content) in the 3DTV market. Samsung and Mitsubishi have sold 3D-capable rear projection sets for years, and now the first 3D-capable flat panel HDTVs are starting to ship. We’ve got a lot of 3D content that has been shown in cinemas, but it would seem that we’d have to wait before we get to a critical mass of 3D content that is ready to deliver to the home. (Presumably that’s why Toshiba and Panasonic both have included real-time 2D-to-3D conversion features in some of theire HDTVs.)

But that does not seem to be slowing down the services that deliver video content to consumers. The Sky satellite service in the UK has announced a dedicated 3DTV channel in April. In this country, Comcast plans to provide some 3D cable coverage of the Masters golf tournament in April. DirecTV previously announced plans for a pay-per-view 3D channel and an On Demand 3D channel. This week, it announced that ESPN 3D channel will be added to its HDTV offerings, and will be included at no additional cost for any HD subscriber who already has ESPN.

ESPN’s 3D channel has already received a lot of attention for its plans to cover the FIFA World Cup soccer tournament this summer, starting on June 11 with South Africa vs. Mexico. ESPN also plans 3D coverage of the XGames, college football championships, and both college and professional basketball games in 2011.

All of this seems to me to put the content horse slightly ahead of hardware cart. Yes, we’ve now got 3DTV flat panel models entering the retail channel, but the installed base for April will have to measure in the single thousands at best. When viewing audiences are measured in the millions, this seems like a ridiculously small target market. There can’t possible be enough 3DTV viewers to recoup the extra costs of the 3DTV production. I suspect that two motivating factors provide the incentive for these services. First, it’s a chance to plant your flag at the top of the technology mountain, in hopes that you gain a reputation for being an innovator and a source for 3DTV content for consumers when they get around to buying a 3D-capable set. And the other reason is that it gives them a chance to work out the bugs of this new technology in a relatively low risk setting; if you don’t have a lot of people watching when you make a mistake, the damage is limited.

I still hold that adding a few dozen hours of sports programming a year to the fifty hours or so of 3D movies being produced by Hollywood does not add up to enough programming to make it worth getting a 3DTV yet. Even Twentieth Century Fox doesn’t think that there’s enough installed base to warrant releasing a 3D Blu-ray version of Avatar, so I think that any efforts at broadcasting 3DTV content at this point has to be viewed as experimental. Many people will happily choose to participate in these experiments, but I think most of us will wait two or three years for sufficient content to be produced (or converted from existing 2D programming) to make it worth investing in a 3DTV.

HDTVs: Is that Model Available in Mauve?

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Runco continues to be the high-end home entertainment display company that defies gravity and demonstrates that there is still room for an exclusive home theater company. The company has announced a new program called “ColourPallette”, which lets customers order the full line of Runco home theater projectors and flat panel displays in any of 13 different colors.

According to Runco VP of Marketing Jennifer Davis, “It is easy to see why designers may view display technology as a necessary evil that detracts from their vision for the space, instead of enhancing it. Runco is affording designers new ways to embrace and integrate technology into their designs, and even use it to complement a room’s aesthetic.”

The 13 colors are not immediately discernable by their names, which include “Runco Magic”, “Runco Artisan”, and “Runco Expert”. You can check them out for yourself, however, at the Runco Web site where you’ll discover that “Runco Extreme” is a purple shade.

Cable and Satellite Ask FCC for Help

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A group of subscription television providers — both cable and satellite – have petitioned the FCC for some protection against networks pulling the plug on their program as part of licensing negotiations. The most recent round of brinkmanship was between Cablevision and Disney leading up to the Academy Awards coverage, but we’ve also seen other cases where college football and the SuperBowl have been held hostage to get the subscription services to pony up more per viewer.

Naturally, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) reportedly does not see that there’s a problem here. All their members want is fair compensation for the content they provide, and if they don’t get paid enough, they shouldn’t have to provide it.

It is interesting to note that one giant is apparently keeping mum on the subject: Comcast. Perhaps its strategy is affected by the fact that it may be both a subscription service and a content provider once it completes its takeover of NBC.

The issue gets pretty complex quickly. How do you balance the “rights” of the subscribers to content that they think they’ve paid for, with the rights of the networks to not be forced to distribute their content at a price that they deem is not acceptable? Well, the FCC is not going to try to sort this one out in a vacuum, and they’re soliciting public input. You have until May 4, 2010 to weigh in with your opinions on the subject. You can post your comments online at www.fcc.gov/cgb/ecfs/; reference your comments to Docket No. 10-71. You can also file comments by email or on paper. The FCC announcement contains all the details.

Cisco to Turbocharge the Internet

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Ah, the Law of Unintended Consequences is always hiding around the corner, waiting to bite you in the butt.

I’ve been writing a lot about watching movies and video content over the Internet, and this has prompted some readers to question whether or not the Internet can stand up to the load of all this increased traffic if the majority of people started getting all their entertainment content streamed over the Internet. I may be a Polyanna on this score, but I expect that the Internet will grow to meet the demand. I was on the other side of the fence when Internet radio first started; it was over-compressed and stuttered, and I thought it had no business on the system that we depended on for sending and receiving our text email. Then I stuck to my guns when the Web arrived, and people wanted to send pictures and fancy colored pages, and actually start using typefaces and video clips over the Internet. Surely the system would buckle under this load of pretty bytes that it was not originally intended to handle.

Well, clearly I was wrong then, so I’m betting on the expanding universe side of the question this time. Look at the experiments that Google and others are making for 1 Gbps Internet connections. (I just upgraded to 25/25 Mbps service, so I’m already 2.5% of the way there!) And then there’s the CRS-3.

In case that model number isn’t familiar, it’s a new router that Cisco announced earlier this month. According to Cisco, it provides triple the bandwidth over the previous model: 322 Terabits per second. How fast is that? Cisco says it’s so fast that “every motion picture ever created to be streamed in less than four minutes.” (emphasis added)

Pretty cool, huh? Who wouldn’t love to have this sort of power running the Internet? But wait; remember that Law of Unintended Consequences? Erik Heinrich provided an interesting analysis of this development in a recent Time Magazine article. He pointed out that Hollywood might not be ready to embrace this new development. Keep in mind that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) fought both the VCR and the DVD on the grounds that they would make it easier to steal copyrighted movie and television program content. Given the problems that various operations including Hulu and Netflix have had in getting licenses to stream this sort of content, it’s clear that some folks in Hollywood are not ready to release all their latest productions on streaming services.

From my vantage point, it’s inevitable that the studios and networks will come around, and see that Internet streaming is going to take a big bite out of the traditional distribution channels sooner or later. It’s already providing consumers with the a la carte option that cable and satellite services refuse to offer. And as more discover that they can already get most of the programming they want over the Internet for a lot less than they are paying for subscription TV services, the Internet services will gain increasing leverage for their negotiations with Hollywood. Developments such as Cisco’s new router and 1 Gbps broadband experiments will only bring that day that much sooner.

HDTVs: What Recession?

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According to a press release from DisplaySearch for a new research report, TV unit sales rose 32% in 2009, and are projected to rise another 24% in 2010. LCD TVs are expected to make up 180 million of the total 228 million units forecast for 2010, as it continues to expand its domination of the flat panel market. In contrast, plasma models are only expected to account for 15 million units worldwide.

LCD TVs with LED backlights are forecast to account for more than 35 million of the 180 million total, up from just 3.6 million units in 2009. Increased competition is expected to drive down the price premium charged for LED to less than 70% for 40″ and larger models, and as little as 17% at the 22″ to 24″ range. DisplaySearch also expects that 90% of the LED backlight models will use edge-lighting, trading away the ability to do localized dimming in return for a smaller part count and much thinner panels.

Based on the the increased share of the premium-priced LED backlit models, DisplaySearch is predicting just a 5% price drop for LCD TVs (and 10% for plasma), compared with the 24% price erosion in 2009.

DisplaySearch’s numbers sound plausible, but if I were a betting man, I’d take the over on the 5% price drop prediction. The economic recovery for consumers is coming much slower than some anticipated, even though we’ve been seeing positive signs in parts of the economy in this country and worldwide. Home foreclosures are going to keep a tight lid on the housing market, which will limit the demand for new TV sets, so manufacturers are going to have to resort to lower prices to entice buyers if they’re going to sell all those sets that they plan to build. And Japan has now experienced 12 months of deflationary pricing, which may give Sharp an edge with its product pricing for exports. We may see that 5% price drop get used up by this summer, which could create the need for even deeper cuts by the time next fall’s holiday buying season rolls around.

190 Million Watch NBC Winter Olympics

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According to a report in Multichannel News, NBC racked up more than 190 million Americans who watched at least some of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. In spite of the nail-biter men’s hockey final that pitted the U.S. against host Canada in an overtime gold medal game, the audience count still came up with a silver medal. It trailed the record set back in 1994 for the games in Lillehammer: 204 million viewers.

The network reportedly lost $200 million on the Winter Olympics, but the hope was that the games would lure viewers back to the network. The coverage did post a 13% increase in rating shares over the 2006 Winter games, but it’s not clear that any of that has carried over beyond the closing ceremonies. The NBC prime time ratings are up about 45%, but whether that’s due to the Olympic coverage or the fact that the network moved Leno out of the 10 PM slot and back to the late night position isn’t clear.

Avatar Blu-ray Goes Flat!

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You are likely one of the many who helped push Avatar into the record books, grossing more than $2.6 billion worldwide (and still counting!) So you may be anxiously awaiting the release of the high definition Blu-ray version of the movie so you can enjoy it all over again at home. (It will also be released on DVD, but who wants to watch a low-res version of this blockbuster epic?)

The news is that you’ll only have to wait until April 22 to get your hands on Avatar on disc. There’s just one catch; it won’t be in stereoscopic 3D. According to reports, the release will only be in 2D versions, as the installed base of 3D-capable Blu-ray players and HDTVs is still too small to make it worth launching the product. It’s inevitable that you’ll be able to get a 3D version eventually, but you’ll have to wait a while before you’ll be able to reach out and try to touch those little floating creatures in your own living room.

Netflix Coming to the Tiny Screen

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Netflix has a hit on its hands with its streaming service, which allows anyone with an unlimited Netflix subscription to watch movies and TV episodes for free on the Internet. So it should come as little surprise that the service is looking to expand its coverage. It has been widely reported that Netflix demo’ed streaming on the Windows Phone 7 operating system at Microsoft’s MIX10 developer’s conference earlier this month.

Naturally, the images won’t be in high definition, but few mobile devices have that resolution on their displays anyway. It would take a lot of expensive bandwidth, and for a small, personal, portable viewing experience, a lower resolution image should be sufficient for now. (Hey, even Apple’s big iPad doesn’t have high definition resolution.)

Still, this is an important step. If Netflix can continue to grow, it could become the new source for streaming video content wherever you are. This could challenge the traditional broadcast, cable, and satellite services, and even put a crimp in the growth of the new mobile TV broadcasts. And once the company has extended its reach, you can expect that Hollywood will be willing to talk about licensing more recent content for the streaming service.

3DTV: It Starts with Sports

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With some consumers willing to spend hundreds of dollars per seat to attend some sporting events, it should come as little surprise that live 3DTV programming is going to begin with sports coverage. The press is still writing pages about the first 3D-capable sets from Samsung, Sony, and Panasonic — many of which have not shipped yet — and already we’re hearing about efforts to broadcast 3D programming.

For example, Comcast will provide free 3D coverage of the Masters golf tournament. The cable company plans to show two hours on each of the first five days.

CBS has announced 3D coverage of the late rounds of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. While this won’t be broadcast to TVs, it will be shown in about 100 movie theaters across the nation.

Both of these initiatives are important. They have an aura of exclusivity that may lead some sports fans to think that they’re missing something by not having 3D. So this could help increase the early “pull” demand on the part of consumers for 3D-capable sets. In addition, this will let the producers of sporting event programming start to climb the learning curve for real-time live 3D coverage of sports. Just as in the early days of HDTV, the new format requires new hardware and all the production facilities required to process and deliver the content. These are not trivial challenges, but as we’ve seen with HD, once they are ironed out we can expect to see the use of 3D stereoscopic imaging spread rapidly through other types of content, right down to the local TV newsroom.

Universal 3D Glasses

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One of the complaints about 3DTV that is often repeated in the press is that “there are no standards“. I may be the only one who does not see that as a major obstacle. After all, there are a lot of different digital image file formats out there, yet programs like Microsoft Word or most browsers seem to be able to handle all that variety without breaking a sweat.

XpanD's X103 active glasses are designed to work with any 3D-capable HDTV.

Apparently, XpanD agrees with me. The company is a leading manufacturer of glasses for 3D movies and televisions, and have sold more than 2 million of their earlier model X101 active 3D glasses. They manufacture many of the glasses sold by the different TV companies for their 3D-capable TV sets. Each brand uses its own method of syncing with the glasses in order to deliver the stereoscopic images. And XpanD now makes an X103 universal model of the glasses that can respond to signals from all the different brands. Part of the motivation for this comes from the TV makers themselves, as well as retailers. Stores don’t want to have to stock 15 different models of glasses to work with 15 different brands; the X103 lets them stock one model of glasses for use with all the TVs.

And since XpanD technology is used in more than 2,700 digital cinemas, people will be able to bring their own private glasses when they go to the movies. This could ultimately save the cinema’s the significant cost of providing glasses for all audience members.

The company press release did not mention pricing, but did indicate that they intend to come out with 12 different colors (including the basic black, which goes with everything).