Welcome to your future
Imagine a future where you can determine your own TV line-up. You can select the television programmes you want to watch and play them in that order, pausing to go make yourself a sandwich or fast-forwarding when the movie gets too boring. In this way, you watch a bit of Heroes Season 3, take a break with Seinfeld and then delve right into Lord of the Rings which you didn’t finish yesterday evening. All this without going to the DVD rental around the corner. Experts are saying: this is the future.
As you might have picked up from the media, television is going digital. And Internet TV has been deemed more of a possibility than anyone thought at the time of its inception. YouTube has made the idea seem more palatable to its users than ever before. Software has been developed to ensure the quality of video distributed over the Net. And companies such as Microsoft are developing products that enable Internet video to be viewed on TV sets instead of only on PC screens.
Apple Computer is trying to do the same thing in the video market. In 2005, it introduced an iPod that plays videos, and launched a department in its iTunes store that sells episodes of popular TV shows, such as Desperate Housewives and Lost. While the iTunes video library is limited today, it’s clear that Apple’s approach is shaking up the entertainment industry and a new distribution model is emerging for video.
As always, the Internet is one step ahead of us: in 2005, a website called Bollywood.tv, which uses EdgeStream’s technology, launched a service that offers more than 730 Indian movies over the Internet.
The future might not be that far away after all.
Links
Slingbox (TV streaming device)
~ by Ines Schumacher on 28 April 2008.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags: apple, bollywood.tv, digital television, future television, ines schumacher, ipod, microsoft, new television, next generation television, tv, youtube
Such a future is already here! You can already buy something called a “Slingbox” which is a TV streaming device that allows you to remotely view your home cable, satellite, or personal video recorder (PVR) programming using a device with a broadband internet connection.
Sling Media has also released a Windows Mobile version of their player which allows users to stream their video over Pocket PCs and Windows Mobile Smartphones, or any Web-enabled, Windows Mobile-powered cell phone.
Read the full story here
Thanks – I’ve added your post as a link in my post.