Tom’s Graphic Design Journal

Ok so this is my prediction. It's not really far fetched and I'm sure I'm not alone on it...but all TV will be through the internet. Television programming that we watch will come through the internet. We already are seeing this so it's not that big of a leap. I felt this way for a while though - but after AppleTV and Windows Media Center (or should I flip those to be correct), the potential is quite apparent.

We see podcasts too. They now have had video podcasts for a while too. This is what feeds things like AppleTV.. eh does it? Well it does Windows Media Center and XBox. Also your computer (iTunes, that Lemon thing, Winamp and more). Actually, winamp has been streaming video for many years. Aside from Real, Winamp was the pioneer of this stuff and that's ultimately when I knew the future of TV would be over the internet. Think about those...those were still with dial-up in some cases. The video quality very very low. Naturally. Now, we have free streaming HD quality content available to us.

Pretty crazy. In fact, I find more (quantity and interest) content in HD on the internet than I do on tv. There's many steady internet "tv" stations or podcasts. For example; diggnation, rocketboom, techtonic, rawdio, and more. Now some of those right there are in HD resolution. There's literally hundreds (I think) of "channels" available to you through TV Tonic's plugin for Windows Media Center. That's a VERY important plug-in. Everyone should have it and everyone should have windows media center. If not - all is not lost, iTunes picks up podcasts and if you have an XBox...you're set too.

XBox can be used as a media center extender - which totally kicks ass.

Also note how we can store our movies and even get some of our movies now. There's services like Vongo out there that let you download and watch movies straight from the internet. XBox LIVE also has services. Also (though illegal) there's many ways of downloading movies from the internet. Why? Because we have grown acustom to watching them on our computers...or if you have a handy (and they are cheap, like $80 when I got mine a year ago) DVD player that can play divx and such, you're in awesome shape. There's even people who have ripped HD and Blu Ray DVDs.

So do the math and add up the following factors:

1. Drive space is becoming incredibly cheap. A 500GB hard drive is reasonable. Hook that up to things like network storage (also affordable) and you can have two drives in a wireless enclosure ($100 device at Circuit City, I'm sure cheaper elsewhere) and you have a ton of space for media. MP3's, movies, etc. You're spending less than the cost of an expensive blu ray player too here ... then go download HD movies. Ok that's illegal - scratch that.

2. Network entertainment solutions are becoming popular. Things like Windows Media Center, AppleTV (even though I think that bombed), XBox, and other devices are out there and are affordable. Also take note of some of the services out there to share media...sling box, orb.com, and some of the more obvious and less hi-tech sites such as youtube and so on. Also note cheap youtube clone scripts like PHPMotion and Clip-Share. We are sharing a TON of media on the internet now more than ever and there's many ways to do so.
3. Look at services out there like the iTunes store, Rhapsody/Real, Vongo, etc.
4. Now we have the means. Let's get into the rough points. First, the writer strike. Well before that, hold up, there's been a downward trend in quality television shows. More and more crappy reality and game shows. Granted the new game show with people hooked up to a polygraph looks cool - I'm sure the novelty will wear off fast...but yes the strike is hurting television BIG.
5. Lack of HD content. There's not many stations with HD content. ABC, NBC, CBS, etc. have it but not too many shows in HD. Bummer. HBO, etc. also have it but you have to pay on top of your regular cable for premium channels.
6. Costs. Cable sucks ass. Whether it's Comcast, Time Warner, or whoever else...It's super expensive. Paying for the premium channels to get movies in HD sucks too. The cost of HD DVD players and Blu Ray players is also expensive right now. Also don't forget production costs. Any yahoo with a video camera can put up video in a podcast on the internet. Things like Amazon S3 also make for cheap solutions for handling high demand too. HD quality filming costs? Well look at things like the Red camera. While it's super expensive, it's certainly MUCH cheaper than other cameras out there that you'd need...and for most things you don't even need that. You can get high quality video cheap these days.
7. Rules, laws, ethics, and commercials. TV is so limited. Your web server is not. You can put all sorts of content up on the internet if you have the right host in the right country =) So I'm sure at some point there will be some sort of system put in place for adult content and such, but that's so extremely hard to sensor anyway. Kids are gonna get through any security measure. It's a game to them and good training for the future if you ask me. They gotta learn about computers some how...oh and yea that stuff too haha. Anyway, less commercials is a bonus as is less rules.
8. Talent. Quality. The number one thing that's gonna determine if internet tv is a success or not is quality. If there's nothing good to watch no one will. Same can be said for regular tv too though. I'd wager television is less watched these days anyway due to just people getting news off the internet and more hype on movies (especially HD quality movies). I must admit a lot of internet tv is bad...but as I sit here now typing on my laptop and watching an HD feed of a music video channel (ok the commentary is HD - but music video quality is high, I think computer videos stretch better on an HD tv than normal tv but for the most part this must be above 480 anyway)  I feel satisfied. It streams nice. Sometimes it gets stuck, buffers for a min and we're good...but this is less frequent than tv commercials. I only see one tv commercial every so often for wave express or microsoft. No big deal. It doesn't interrupt my show either. It's AFTER it. When commercials should be.

So those are the points I'd like to make to the world. I hope someone else out there gets it and I hope there's more and more content out there soon. Windows Media Center is the best thing to happen to us people. Who'd a thunk it? A Microsoft project that REALLY REALLY works well. Of course if you can hook your computer to your tv (hey, there's wireless vga adapters) or like watching video on your computer anyway, you don't even need media center.

If I had the time I'd setup a video podcast and support the internet tv movement. We all should. Think about how profitable it can be for the earlier ones in on it all. The money in advertising, the power of having many viewers, airing people's shows and content, etc. Basically, history is starting a new chapter and anyone now could be the head of something as big as a network television station. We're starting from scratch here pretty much. Get on it!

   

Ok so this is my prediction. It's not really far fetched and I'm sure I'm not alone on it...but all TV will be through the internet. Television programming that we watch will come through the internet. We already are seeing this so it's not that big of a leap. I felt this way for a while though - but after AppleTV and Windows Media Center (or should I flip those to be correct), the potential is quite apparent.

We see podcasts too. They now have had video podcasts for a while too. This is what feeds things like AppleTV.. eh does it? Well it does Windows Media Center and XBox. Also your computer (iTunes, that Lemon thing, Winamp and more). Actually, winamp has been streaming video for many years. Aside from Real, Winamp was the pioneer of this stuff and that's ultimately when I knew the future of TV would be over the internet. Think about those...those were still with dial-up in some cases. The video quality very very low. Naturally. Now, we have free streaming HD quality content available to us.

Pretty crazy. In fact, I find more (quantity and interest) content in HD on the internet than I do on tv. There's many steady internet "tv" stations or podcasts. For example; diggnation, rocketboom, techtonic, rawdio, and more. Now some of those right there are in HD resolution. There's literally hundreds (I think) of "channels" available to you through TV Tonic's plugin for Windows Media Center. That's a VERY important plug-in. Everyone should have it and everyone should have windows media center. If not - all is not lost, iTunes picks up podcasts and if you have an XBox...you're set too.

XBox can be used as a media center extender - which totally kicks ass.

Also note how we can store our movies and even get some of our movies now. There's services like Vongo out there that let you download and watch movies straight from the internet. XBox LIVE also has services. Also (though illegal) there's many ways of downloading movies from the internet. Why? Because we have grown acustom to watching them on our computers...or if you have a handy (and they are cheap, like $80 when I got mine a year ago) DVD player that can play divx and such, you're in awesome shape. There's even people who have ripped HD and Blu Ray DVDs.

So do the math and add up the following factors:

1. Drive space is becoming incredibly cheap. A 500GB hard drive is reasonable. Hook that up to things like network storage (also affordable) and you can have two drives in a wireless enclosure ($100 device at Circuit City, I'm sure cheaper elsewhere) and you have a ton of space for media. MP3's, movies, etc. You're spending less than the cost of an expensive blu ray player too here ... then go download HD movies. Ok that's illegal - scratch that.

2. Network entertainment solutions are becoming popular. Things like Windows Media Center, AppleTV (even though I think that bombed), XBox, and other devices are out there and are affordable. Also take note of some of the services out there to share media...sling box, orb.com, and some of the more obvious and less hi-tech sites such as youtube and so on. Also note cheap youtube clone scripts like PHPMotion and Clip-Share. We are sharing a TON of media on the internet now more than ever and there's many ways to do so.
3. Look at services out there like the iTunes store, Rhapsody/Real, Vongo, etc.
4. Now we have the means. Let's get into the rough points. First, the writer strike. Well before that, hold up, there's been a downward trend in quality television shows. More and more crappy reality and game shows. Granted the new game show with people hooked up to a polygraph looks cool - I'm sure the novelty will wear off fast...but yes the strike is hurting television BIG.
5. Lack of HD content. There's not many stations with HD content. ABC, NBC, CBS, etc. have it but not too many shows in HD. Bummer. HBO, etc. also have it but you have to pay on top of your regular cable for premium channels.
6. Costs. Cable sucks ass. Whether it's Comcast, Time Warner, or whoever else...It's super expensive. Paying for the premium channels to get movies in HD sucks too. The cost of HD DVD players and Blu Ray players is also expensive right now. Also don't forget production costs. Any yahoo with a video camera can put up video in a podcast on the internet. Things like Amazon S3 also make for cheap solutions for handling high demand too. HD quality filming costs? Well look at things like the Red camera. While it's super expensive, it's certainly MUCH cheaper than other cameras out there that you'd need...and for most things you don't even need that. You can get high quality video cheap these days.
7. Rules, laws, ethics, and commercials. TV is so limited. Your web server is not. You can put all sorts of content up on the internet if you have the right host in the right country =) So I'm sure at some point there will be some sort of system put in place for adult content and such, but that's so extremely hard to sensor anyway. Kids are gonna get through any security measure. It's a game to them and good training for the future if you ask me. They gotta learn about computers some how...oh and yea that stuff too haha. Anyway, less commercials is a bonus as is less rules.
8. Talent. Quality. The number one thing that's gonna determine if internet tv is a success or not is quality. If there's nothing good to watch no one will. Same can be said for regular tv too though. I'd wager television is less watched these days anyway due to just people getting news off the internet and more hype on movies (especially HD quality movies). I must admit a lot of internet tv is bad...but as I sit here now typing on my laptop and watching an HD feed of a music video channel (ok the commentary is HD - but music video quality is high, I think computer videos stretch better on an HD tv than normal tv but for the most part this must be above 480 anyway)  I feel satisfied. It streams nice. Sometimes it gets stuck, buffers for a min and we're good...but this is less frequent than tv commercials. I only see one tv commercial every so often for wave express or microsoft. No big deal. It doesn't interrupt my show either. It's AFTER it. When commercials should be.

So those are the points I'd like to make to the world. I hope someone else out there gets it and I hope there's more and more content out there soon. Windows Media Center is the best thing to happen to us people. Who'd a thunk it? A Microsoft project that REALLY REALLY works well. Of course if you can hook your computer to your tv (hey, there's wireless vga adapters) or like watching video on your computer anyway, you don't even need media center.

If I had the time I'd setup a video podcast and support the internet tv movement. We all should. Think about how profitable it can be for the earlier ones in on it all. The money in advertising, the power of having many viewers, airing people's shows and content, etc. Basically, history is starting a new chapter and anyone now could be the head of something as big as a network television station. We're starting from scratch here pretty much. Get on it!