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TVU networks logoAfter spending years watching oddball little networks and local stations over free-to-air satellite, I got to thinking: Why don’t *I* create a TV station? (And judging by the number of emails I get on this topic, I’d say it’s not just me.)

Putting a 24-hour TV station on satellite is pretty darned expensive. The last extremely rough estimate I’d heard for a dedicated Ku-band slot was about $10,000 a month. (If you’ve got a better figure, please leave a comment.) And that doesn’t account for all of the equipment you’d need to prepare your content and deliver it on a scheduled basis.

But now we all live in the age of fast internet connections, and an internet-based TV station is a lot cheaper to broadcast. For a good example try the Livestream Broadcaster device, a darling of the 2012 NAB Show. Or you can do what I did, start a channel using TVU Networks’ Broadcaster software.

There are a lot of really good things about TVU Broadcaster:

  • It’s free for noncommercial use. You’re welcome to set up the software and broadcast a channel, and all it takes is your time and bandwidth.
  • It includes a scheduler. It doesn’t have a lot of features, but it really works, and it’s included. The scheduler would be an extra paid (and full-featured) component of any other system.
  • There’s no limit on viewers. With most streaming systems, you have to multiply the number of viewers times your stream rate to figure the amount of bandwidth you need to pay for. TVU is based on a peer-to-peer system, so you don’t have to worry about any of that.
  • TVU provides a dedicated player for iOS and Android. So your channel will be available on a lot of smartphones.
  • There’s enough documentation to get you started. Good stuff such as format type, recommended parameters, and even a test file to broadcast.
  • It has a built-in audience. Anyone with the TVU Player will see your channel in a list with hundreds of others as they look for fun content for viewing.

But there are also a lot of not-great things about TVU:

  • There’s no support. Well, there’s supposed to be support, but I’ve never seen it. The most recent version of Broadcaster was released in 2008, and TVU’s forums tell a sad story of years’ worth of unanswered questions.
  • The scheduler is very rudimentary. It lets you stack your program files, then plays them in that order, and that’s it. There’s no good way to swap a new file in the middle, except to add it to the stack, then move it one position at a time until it’s in the right place, then delete the old file.
  • Relying on peer-to-peer is a turnoff for some viewers. They worry about adding a special plug-in that might use their upstream bandwidth without their noticing. I understand the hesitation there.
  • The player doesn’t work on all platforms. It doesn’t work on Google Chrome in Windows except on TVU’s official Watch TV page. I still don’t know how to embed a player on my site so it’ll work in Chrome, or in Macintosh Safari for that matter. (See: support.)
  • There’s no way for a broadcaster to edit a channel name or description after launching it. Which is why my channel still has “test” in its name and a completely inaccurate description.
  • The TVU channel list is a zoo. There are ways to filter by language and category, but it can be really hard to pick through hundreds of choices to find something you want to watch.

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I visited the TVU booth at the NAB Show in April. A nice woman there listened to my questions and assured me that TVU was continuing to support Broadcaster, and that I should consider a Pro account. I said that I’d be happy to invest in a Pro account if TVU would demonstrate that it truly offered active support. We emailed each other a few times in the following weeks, but that correspondence did not dissuade me that TVU had not turned its back on Broadcaster.

If you try to go straight to the TVU Networks home page, you’re greeted with a popup-style window that asks, “Looking for TVUPack?” with the options “Yes, take me to tvupack.com” and “No, take me to tvunetworks.com”. That says it all. TVU Broadcaster is a surprisingly good tool, but all of its signs point to a dead end.

Update: I guess I was right. TVU’s site now shows that “TVU Networks shut down service to the TVU Player on February 25,2013.” Sure glad I didn’t buy the Pro account.

by ·Comments Off on Michael Jackson's ground-breaking video

Michael Jackson would have turned 54 this week, and in honor of his birthday, here’s my favorite MJ video. Not only is it a great example of dreamy, abstract 80s music video awesomeness, it opened doors at MTV.

At the time, 30 years ago, MTV didn’t want to air this video. Reports at the time suggested that the executives worried that the suburbanites who subscribed to cable didn’t want to watch African-American performers. CBS Records insisted, MTV relented, and the rest is history.

by ·Comments Off on Register now to see CES for free

Cool logo for CES 2013Speaking of trade shows, August 31 is the first deadline to register for a free pass to the exhibit halls at the International CES. Judging from the room rates, they’re expecting an ever bigger crowd than last year’s, so they might actually stop giving out free passes next month. If you think there’s any chance at all that you might be able to attend, the smart move is to sign up now. If you can’t make it, no worries.

Of course, “CES is not open to the general public. To attend, you must be affiliated professionally with the consumer electronics (CE) industry.” Heh. To learn how to professionally affiliate yourself for the cost of a few business cards, read my earlier post.

To register, just go to the CES site and click through. The email I got suggested Priority Code LC14, but your mileage may vary. And if you’re going, you should book a hotel now too; if you can’t make it, you can typically cancel in December and get your money back. If you want to go really cheap, stay downtown at the Fremont (or any similar decent hotel there) and ride the city bus.  My choice for convenience, quality, and price is the Riviera on the other side of the convention center parking lot. I think it’s great to be able to walk back to my room to drop off heavy convention swag and take a midday break.

by ·Comments Off on NAB Show is a must-see for TV fans

When last we left this blog, it was almost time for the NAB Show, the annual event produced by the National Association of Broadcasters.

NAB president Gordon Smith presented the keynote speech at the convention. As I’ve written before, I think Smith is perfect for the job, keeping various broadcaster constituents on the same page while using his Washington connections to lobby for the best possible deal for his members. Anyway, a few minutes in, a part of his speech gave my brain whiplash.

(W)e will continue to protect the rights of all viewers who depend on their local TV stations as a lifeline for news, emergency information and, of course, entertainment.

We’re also fighting to ensure that viewers continue to have dynamic content choices, by retaining a free market retransmission consent process.

Notice that there aren’t any ellipses in that quote. Smith really said in consecutive sentences that TV broadcasters are an indispensable lifeline for their viewers, but if the local cable system won’t pay broadcasters enough, they’ll feel free to cut off those viewers.

I don’t blame Smith for stating both of those positions; they highlight the conflict that broadcasters face when they alternately defend their free bandwidth and resist calls to fix the retransmission consent system. I just thought it was a little weird to juxtapose them. He wasn’t going for irony there.

Smith seemed a little distracted. He gamely read the speech from the teleprompters, and the next morning, he was caught looking by a change-up thrown by Betty White. (See next paragraph.) It’s as though he had been working on an important negotiation and had to fly in at the last minute.

Betty White at an NAB breakfastThe second day featured a morning breakfast with TV legend Betty White, who accepted praise graciously, then went to sit down and chat with Smith. They talked about how the industry had changed, about perseverance, that sort of thing. Then Smith, no doubt reaching for a note someone had given him said, “I hear that you’re quite a football fan.” White looked at him as if he had suggested that she kept a cage of squirrels in her house. “No,” was her simple answer. Smith recovered, but we all learned that Betty White does not suffer foolish questions.

There was a lot of other stuff, of course, mostly in the exhibit halls.

  • I met Crook and Chase at a booth for The Nashville Network (launching soon), and I told them about my First Rule of Programming, of which the original TNN was a prime example. (“We are going to have some cooking shows,” Lorianne Crook said in agreement.)
  • There was a big push for mobile DTV, mainly in the form of Dyle TV, but it remains a technology in search of an audience.
  • All the satellite delivery companies were there, and lots of streaming providers. I talked with TVU Networks, since I’m broadcasting a test channel through TVU, but they’re much more interested in selling IP-based newsgathering gear. Much more about that in a future post.
  • I ran into Alexander Wiese, the publisher of Tele-satellite magazine, at his booth. He dropped by FTAList world headquarters the next week and took some photos, but I haven’t seen them in virtual print yet.

Every year, I visit the NAB Show and the International CES. (Don’t you dare call it the Consumer Electronics Show, see the editors note here.) If you want to see the latest Dish or DirecTV receivers, or if you just want to see the latest amazing gadgetry, go to CES. If you want to learn the most about the cutting edge of TV and video delivery, nothing beats the NAB Show. I’m looking forward to it already.

by ·Comments Off on The Best 80s music video?

Whenever anyone does a countdown of the best 80s music videos, or of music videos period, this is what I expect to be at the top. It won nine MTV Music Video Awards in 1987, and its style of animation, including work from the Wallace and Gromit folks, has never been topped. The powerful song helps too.

Got a better music video in mind? Leave a comment. Otherwise, sit back and enjoy.