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Welcome to the new host for FTABlog.com. We ran into some technical difficulties, and it turns out that it might take a couple of days to get them all fixed.

If you need to move a WordPress blog from one host to another, and at least one of them is GoDaddy, here’s a tip: Copying over all of the files isn’t enough. You also need to back up the database, which is stored on a different domain with GoDaddy, then restore it once you’ve moved.

Uh, I didn’t do that. The good news is that almost all the text is cached on Google. The bad news is that I’ll need to copy and paste those posts into new posts here, as well as change more configuration stuff than I expected. (Because a lot of it is in the database, not the files.)

What’s really galling is that, according to a friendly GoDaddy support person, that old database is floating right where they can see it, but to restore it would cost a hefty fee (well, okay) and take over a week (not okay). I’d rather get to work on bringing back the old content right away, so I’m going to be adding it a piece at a time. I’ll shoot for having everything back by Monday morning. Wish me luck!

Update: Almost everything is back to almost normal now. Every word of every post and comment is back, along with every illustration. Some of the internal links are broken, and some of the sidebar stuff needs rearranging, but I’m pleasantly surprised that I was able to salvage such a high percentage of the old site so quickly.

Thanks again for your patience. Check back soon when I’ll type about something fun.

by ·Comments Off on Injunction knocks most channels off ivi.TV

Gavel falling hardThe last show I watched on ivi.TV was Jeopardy, the episode where the two best players of all time lost to an expert system created by IBM. Sure, I checked ivi every day to make sure it was still there, but that historic occasion was the last time I sat down to watch it. And now, thanks to a US District Judge’s preliminary injunction handed down Tuesday, I’ll probably never watch Jeopardy on ivi again.

To its credit, ivi vows to appeal the ruling, and it’s limping along (for free!) with Trinity Broadcasting and a few other odd channels. But the odds of seeing distant broadcast network channels look very weak. You can lose the injunction and win the case, but that’s not the way to bet.

(Speaking of limping along, those irrepressible FilmOn folks keep on streaming their own oddball set of channels. FilmOn’s channel list includes Retro TV, Tuff TV, PBS Hawaii, Fashion TV, ion, parts(?) of WPIX and KTLA, and a few others. But none of the British channels it dangled before us at its launch. FilmOn wants $9.95/month for that motley collection, or $19.95/month for that set plus six “adult” channels. That’s all too pricy for me. but you can take a look to see what you think.)

From a free-to-air TV perspective, we’ve had a great run with the ivi broadcast channels. We had dozens of streaming channels for half a year, all for about the price of a replacement LNB. These channels never felt permanent to me; with so many deep-pocketed players against them, I’m surprised they lasted as long as they did. In the end, it seems appropriate that my last memory of the “old” ivi will be of highly skilled humans beaten by a multinational corporation.

by ·Comments Off on Ancient history now available here

old desk with cobwebsIt always surprised me how many people told me that they wanted to read the old, pre-WordPress posts from FTABlog. It sometimes scared me to discover how many actually discovered the old site that hosted it.

So I can satisfy folks who just can’t get enough old stuff, and so I can shut down the old site, I’ve added a page here that contains all of those old blog posts. Now I need to get back to writing something new.

by ·Comments Off on Seattle court sends ivi to New York

Top of the Brooklyn BridgeTVNewsCheck reports that a Seattle judge has dismissed ivi.tv’s lawsuit there. That suit asked the court to declare that ivi does not violate US copyright law.

That dismissal clears the way for a judge in New York to consider the suit filed there by broadcasters and other interested parties sued ivi for copyright violations. This is the same court that issued an injunction against FilmOn, which argued similarly that an old paragraph in the law allowed them to retransmit over-the-air channels through the internet.

Since that injunction, FilmOn has been limping along with its odd set of international channels (though no BBCs, darn it) and a few OTA channels that weren’t part of the suit against it. What will happen to ivi, and when? Stay tuned!

Update: More details are available at Broadcasting & Cable.

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Roku logoRoku, which makes a device for translating streaming internet content to your television set, made a bit of news this week when it added the cable channel WealthTV. Much more quietly, our old friend ivi.tv added Brush with Life, which is, well, I’m not sure what. Go visit their site, preferably on a wide-screen monitor, and maybe you can figure them out. If you know more about Brush with Life, tell us about it in a comment, please.

Since the handful of corporations that control most TV content have dug in their heels against a la carte pricing, maybe odd little channels like these will be the future of TV programming. If we don’t need blockbuster programming, maybe tightly focused channels could deliver the kind of narrowcasting that pundits foresaw when digital cable channels proliferated. (Instead, as stated in my First Law of Programming, formerly narrow channels change to broaden their appeal. I wrote much more about that law, a la carte and cable channels in October 2009. I’ll try to avoid restating too much of that, so you’re welcome to go catch up if you want.)

As television moves from cable and satellite delivery to the internet, this could easily open the door to true narrowcasting. One of most commonly submitted questions to FTAList has been: How can I start my own satellite TV channel? The old answer is that you need to talk with an uplink center to rent some bandwidth, figure how to get your content to that uplink center, and oh yes, find a way to generate enough TV programming to fill every hour of every day. But internet-based delivery removed the uplink from that equation; if you can get the programming to the internet, that’s most of what you need. Then the real trick is to get enough paid subscribers to make payroll.

Some channels like these are already broadcasting on sites such as TVU and Justin TV. If any of these can put together enough original content for a 24/7 run, they could provide more choices for viewers who don’t want to pay for 200 channels to get the five they really watch. It’ll be fun to see how this shakes out over the next few years.