by ·Comments Off on How did nimbleTV add OTA sub-channels?

nimblesub2When it comes to online TV viewing, Aereo and FilmOn get all the headlines, partly because they also get all the lawsuits. Our old friend nimbleTV, on the other hand, stays supremely quiet, content for now with its single programming point of presence and its unusual relationship with Dish Network.

So I found it remarkable today when nimbleTV added over-the-air digital subchannels from New York City to my package. (Remember that I only get NYC locals because I have a NYC mailing address.) Normally, I receive the NYC locals exactly as Dish delivers them; for example, when Dish upgraded WNYE from SD to HD, so did nimbleTV’s version.

We still don’t know exactly how nimbleTV retransmits its Dish channels to its subscribers. My best guess is that nimbleTV records every program from every channel it receives, then streams a copy of that to every subscriber who requests it. If that’s true, and if Dish and nimbleTV have an agreement for such virtual Dish subscribers, that all makes sense.

So how can nimbleTV add these extra OTA sub-channels that it can’t get from Dish? Well, I know that nimbleTV’s offices are on a 12th floor in Manhattan, and when I was in a hotel room about that high, I could pick up those same sub-channels with a simple OTA antenna. (What, don’t you pack one?) In the absence of any direct knowledge, my guess would be that nimbleTV has hooked its own OTA antennas into its content retransmitter. For the reason why, I’d guess that after watching Aereo and FilmOn connect their subscribers to NYC OTA antenna banks, nimbleTV figured that it was fair game.

As we teeter on this potentially unstable pile of guesses and theories, let’s try to add just one more. If all that I supposed happened to be true, then local broadcasters would probably pounce on nimbleTV because, according to these guesses, each nimbleTV subscriber probably isn’t directly connected to an OTA antenna Aereo-style. So that means that I’m probably wrong about this logic problem somewhere along the way, but at least I showed my work.

Mind you, I do enjoy these OTA sub-channels, although they might not be available to me for long. A worker there told me that nimbleTV was just “running a test with our platform”. But as I type, those channels are still there. Update: Between the time I posted this and when I tweeted its link, the sub-channels were gone again. Let’s see whether they return.

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Judge with gavelOne of these days, FilmOn is going to win a case in court, but it probably won’t be today. Washington DC District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer slapped down FilmOn’s request to be allowed to stream over-the-air TV in Boston. Her earlier ruling that bans FilmOn from carrying OTA TV without permission still applies everywhere but in the New York-based Second District.

This chapter of the FilmOn saga began last Thursday, Oct. 10, when Boston District Court Judge Nathaniel Gorton denied broadcasters’ request for a preliminary injunction against Aereo, allowing it to continue to stream OTA TV in Boston. Within hours, FilmOn founder Alki David announced that he would “defy” Collyer’s earlier injunction and begin streaming major network stations from Boston.

Yesterday, FilmOn officially requested that Collyer revise her order to reflect the Boston court’s finding. Tim Bukher at LawTechie.com saw this as a slam dunk. “It is fairly likely that Washington will accede to FilmOn’s request. If it does not, FilmOn could just sue for declaratory judgment in Massachusetts nullifying Washington’s injunction within its borders,” Bukher wrote.

Instead, Collyer responded today with what I would consider a worst-case scenario. Not only did she refuse to modify her order, Collyer also asked FilmOn why she should not hold it in contempt for streaming Boston TV stations before her ruling. According to Multichannel News’ John Eggerton, “FilmOn countered that was only an antenna test.”

As of this writing, the Big Four network stations in Boston are no longer available on FilmOn, but it’s still carrying Boston’s PBS, CW, and ion affiliates. (Probably still testing those antennas.) And as of now, FilmOn is still looking for a US court that will give it a win.

by ·Comments Off on Will Canada provide a test of a la carte?
The Honourable James Moore, Canadian Minister of Industry

The Honourable James Moore, Canadian Minister of Industry

Canadian Industry Minister James Moore made a bit of news over the weekend when he told The Canadian Press that the government plans to require cable and satellite TV companies to offer a la carte programming choices to their customers. “We don’t think people should be forced to buy bundled television channels when they’re not interested in watching those channels and those shows,” Moore said, according to a story in the Edmonton Journal.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, which regulates TV in Canada, had already nudged the industry in that direction in 2011. Rogers, one of the country’s largest cable operators, responded by offering London, Ontario viewers a “skinny basic” package with extra channels available as add-ons, and that plan proved very popular there. But many other companies resisted such plans, which were optional, so Moore said the government needs to step in.

“It’s not a command economy, we’re not going to put in place onerous regulations. We’re a government of deregulation,” Moore insisted. “But from time to time, we think that the best interest of consumers need to be enforced in the marketplace.”

Now there are plenty of people who will tell you that a la carte pricing is not in the best interest of consumers. At the CEDIA Expo last month, I was fortunate to share a table with Bruce Leichtman, brilliant president of the Leichtman Research Group. Our conversation about various topics was always friendly, but when I mentioned a then-recent a la carte news story, Leichtman launched into an impassioned lecture on the naivety of a la carte’s supporters and the widespread collapse of TV programming that would result if a la carte were ever implemented in the US.

I respectfully disagree. The vast majority of broadcast and pay-TV channels in the US are owned by just six corporations. These corporations routinely pad their packages with extra channels filled mostly with reruns from other channels they own. These extra channels serve to occupy space on cable and satellite operators’ finite channel bandwidth, blocking potential competitors and often eventually rebranded as ready-made launch platforms for completely different channels. If viewers actually had to pay 10 cents for H2 or MTV2, those programmers would probably throw them in for free with something else.

In an a la carte system, some current channels might die. Many others would experience profound changes. ESPN is getting around $5 per month per subscriber. If viewers could save $5 by opting out, ESPN would lose a lot of cash, but then what? Disney, ESPN’s owner, would be intelligent enough to set its price to achieve maximum overall profit. Considering that its advertising revenue is based on number of viewers, I think that ESPN’s price would stabilize at a point where any sports fan would want to buy it.

Even if some channels died, that would make room for new channels, and they’re out there. Just check out the continuing growth in digital sub-channel networks broadcasting over the air. These are networks that aren’t getting a dime of retransmission money, but they keep popping up. Maybe there’s something to this advertising-supported TV model.

For a long time, I’ve talked about Canada whenever the topic of a la carte came up. Canadian satellite TV companies Shaw Direct and Bell TV (and their predecessors) provided basic programming packages and a lot of small bundles of channels that were available to add on to those packages. Maybe it’s the smaller Canadian market, but this system hasn’t precipitated programming apocalypse. Even though channels such as Slice aren’t in every core package, they somehow survive.

Nobody really designed cable TV to be a bundled system; the technology at the time of cable’s origins demanded it. Nobody really knows exactly what would happen if each viewer were now allowed to choose individual channels. Some media companies would probably lose profits in an a la carte system, but maybe it’s something worth trying anyway. We’ll see what happens in Canada.

by ·Comments Off on Rare video of a haunting Stray Cats song

As we continue our occasional returns to music videos of the 1980s, I present one by Stray Cats that you probably haven’t seen before. In 1985, EMI released a “Video 45” VHS tape of the band’s four US top-40 hits to date. Three of them were well-known chart-toppers. Stray Cat Strut and Rock This Town got the band its first serious US exposure when they hit #3 and #9 respectively on the Billboard chart in 1982. A year later, (She’s) Sexy + 17  reached #5. Also in 1983, one more Stray Cats tune peaked at #35.

I Won’t Stand in Your Way by Brian Setzer sounds as if it had been written in 1959. The doo-wop harmonies mingle with the band’s signature three-piece style. (In fact, the flip side to the single had the same song recorded in doo-wop a cappella.) As with the best from that period, Setzer’s lyrics and performance add plenty of emotional depth.

Peter Heath, directing his first music video, did a magnificent job of using a few vintage vehicles and a lot of dark street scenes to take us back to 1959 New York. A young, shirtless Setzer looks vulnerable and dedicated during his guitar solo. Only one blatant anachronism always bugs me when I watch this, but the rest of it is so moody and so well crafted that I can’t help but overlook it. Enjoy the ride.

by ·Comments Off on You can learn a lot from CEDIA

“Whether we like it or not, we’re a proving ground for the masses.”
– Dave Pedigo, CEDIA Senior Director of Learning and Emerging Technologies

Virtual golf booth at 2013

One of four virtual golf products I saw at CEDIA Expo 2013

At first glance, the CEDIA Expo, held in Denver last week, might not look all that relevant to those of us who are more interested in finding new ways to watch TV than in where to buy rows of theater seats. Pedigo, speaking at a panel discussion sponsored by Dish Network, summed up the counterargument in that sentence. Today’s 4K video upconverters are tomorrow’s $40 Walmart DVD players. Okay, maybe day after tomorrow.

CEDIA stands for the Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association. These are the people who assemble and install wonderful entertainment goodies in the houses and mansions of clients who can afford the very best. They’re the type of folks who think that a $4000 Kaleidescape movie server would be a good fit for their home theater project. As a rep at the Dish booth told me, “This is not our typical customer.”

Pedigo’s statement also contained another truth – today’s new tech standard might be tomorrow’s Betamax. Already buzzards are circling around 3D TV, the tech darling of 2010. (I think that 3D will come back strong once it works out glasses-free, big-screen displays, but it’s not here yet.) Standards and technologies that are only recently available will be what we live with 10 or 20 years from now.

“Good design is about removing complexity from users’ lives.”
– Zean Nielsen, President of Bang & Olufsen America

Bang & Olufsen announced at its CEDIA press conference that it will be the first to launch a product certified by the Wireless Speaker & Audio (WiSA) Association. According to the WiSA site, it’s “an industry group dedicated to promoting the adoption of WiSA-compliant wireless audio technology.” That should give you a good hint about the nature of that product, for which I’m under an NDA until October 30.

I mention that announcement as another good example of what’s going on here. Companies line up behind different standards, and some of those standards are destined to be ubiquitous in a few years. Sure the prices are not those experienced by the median Dish customer. (A Sound & Vision magazine distributed at CEDIA Expo raved about the “crazy-affordable” Fluance XL7F speaker system, available at the “unbelievably low price” of $800.) But their wave of influence will reach that average Joe eventually.

“Convenience is Number One for consumers. Give them the best product so they won’t look elsewhere.”
– Vivek Khemka, Dish Senior Vice President of Product Management

SonyBlurWhat more can I tell you? Here are more of my notes:

  • More than 470 exhibitors and 17,900 attendees from 84 countries attended CEDIA Expo this year. That’s about an eighth of the International CES’s numbers from January. In almost every way, CEDIA Expo resembled a scaled-down CES, except that its training sessions seemed a lot more down to earth. Teaching real installers how to work with different technologies is useful no matter where you are.
  • Sony held its press conference in its 4K demonstration theater on the CEDIA Expo exhibit hall floor just as the show opened. Around 35 guys crowded into a black room designed to seat 20. As the Sony reps began to show off their newest and most dazzling products, the convention’s announcer’s voice boomed around us that CEDIA 2013 was underway. Even as the screen in the dark room showed the amazing glitter of the Carnaval in Rio (captured to the best of my iPhone’s ability here), we heard the swarms of conventioneers passing within a few feet of its walls. It felt as though we were taking cover from a hurricane in a packed storm shelter.
  • Dish Network opened the APIs for its Hopper, and that effort began to pay off as it announced its upcoming integration with Control4, one of the leading home automation and control companies. Dish promised that it will be working with more partners soon. As a Dish shareholder, I’m glad to see it go after this high-end market.
  • Only one exhibitor even mentioned over-the-air TV. Veteran satellite and OTA antenna manufacturer Winegard had a small booth to promote its new FlatWave AIR outdoor amplified antenna. On the other hand, TiVo was promoting its Roamio line of DVRs. Unlike the TiVo models that I fell in love with a decade ago, the Roamios have no OTA inputs.
  • On a related note, Bruce Leichtman of Leichtman Research Group pointed out that those early TiVo models, which were so influential and game-changing when they were introduced, never reached more than 2 percent of TV households, while today over half of households use a DVR. The lesson there is “consumers like it better when it’s incorporated in their receiver.” Personally, I can just imagine the sea change once a serious over-the-top service gets integrated with a standard pay-TV receiver. Dish Anywhere and Roku are closing in on this idea from different directions. Who will be the first provider to include include dozens of OTT-delivered channels in its receiver’s live TV guide?