TV Isn't Broken, So Why Fix It? 839
PolygamousRanchKid sends this quote from a contentious article at CNN that questions the need for further development of TVs and the entire TV-viewing experience.
"The technology industry is absolutely bent on reinventing television. ... But nobody seems to be able to answer the big question: what exactly is so broken about TV anyway? The tech industry is filled with engineers and geeks. They naturally want to optimize the TV experience, to make it as efficient and elegant as possible, requiring the fewest number of steps to complete a particular task while offering the greatest number of amazing new features. But normal people don't think about TV that way. TV is passive. The last thing we want to do is work at it. ... As long as there's something on — anything — that is reasonably engaging, we're cool. Most of us are even OK spending a few minutes just shuffling through channels at random."
So, what do you think is broken about TV right now? Is there a point at which it'd be better for us to stand back and say "We've done what we can with this. Let's work on something else"?
It's broken for me (Score:5, Interesting)
The Middleman is Unnecessary (Score:3, Interesting)
The part which is broken is the networks and cable companies, who add nothing but get between the consumer and the content creators. Those who decide which content gets produced with our money, and who enforce regional distribution restrictions, exclusive digital streaming rights.
Country (Score:5, Interesting)
I want to see channels from any country, in any country.
That's all.
Problem with TV is.. (Score:5, Interesting)
... fixed schedules and they show only the content that will get them the most (average) viewers. So programs cater to the lowest common denominator. You can't simply just watch what you want to when you want to relatively (obnoxious) ad free.
The great thing about the internet is you can find old shows like cartoons and whatnot from earlier in your life that no network will broadcast anymore. As bad as content industries make 'piracy' out to be, they can no longer forcibly send old shows offline permanently (which is a good thing). If anything piracy will be a great boon to future historians of entertainment, the arts and humanity generally speaking.
Mode and Complexity (Score:5, Interesting)
Primarily the mode of delivery. It made sense that the internet would piggyback on existing infrastructure (cable and telephone) but the tables have now turned, and it would make more sense to piggyback TV on a line specifically meant for Internet (fiber).
Complexity is an interesting one. Modern TVs are freaking complicated. My grandfathers set blew about 2 years ago so I helped get him a new one. Trying to find a larger screen TV that doesn’t require a geek to operate is pretty damn hard. There would seem to be a huge market for people that just want something you turn on, change volume, change channel, turn off. Even if you get a geek (like me) to set it up for you, you still end up with either multiple remotes (one for TV/one for digital box, one for DVD player) or a just as complicated “smart remote” that kinda works.
Some very basic functionality that should exist (but I haven’t seen) would be that the TV should detect a signal on an input and auto switch to it via some kind of hierarchy. Turn on the DVD player.. input should go to that.. turn it off.. back to digital box.. turn that off, back to analog cable. This seems basic and maybe it has been done, but when I looked I couldn’t find a TV that supported this.
Re:TV ain't broken? (Score:5, Interesting)
Set-top boxes (Score:5, Interesting)
The thing most broken about TVs today is the blasted set-top box.
Maybe in the living room it's ok to have an "entertainment center" with all sorts of electronic boxes wired together, and to have multiple remote controls, or spend $$ to buy something like a Logitech Harmony. But for every TV you've got?
For the past few weeks Comcast has been putting the "You're not doing this right." messages on some channels on my TV. It looked like it might be merely "going digital", but last week I did a rescan on a digital TV, and didn't find the channels that warn. I'll rescan again Wednesday, after the switchover, but I'm not optimistic. So now the second TV (which actually is digital, unlike the "first TV") is about to need some sort of extra box, extra remote, and of course when the extra box is active we won't be able to get the broadcast HD channels without extra fiddling, etc. (Or we could spend more $$$ for an HD set-top box, etc.)
THAT's what's broken about TV - and I don't see Apple TV or any of these other gizmos fixing that, unless they accept CableCard.
Oh yeah, this upcoming change is going to break MythTV, or at least badly decrease its usefulness.
Re:TV ain't broken? (Score:5, Interesting)
Dave's old porn is great. Think MST3K but to blurry porn
Re:TV ain't broken? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yea, it's been a vast wasteland [wikipedia.org] for the past 50 years.
The US subscription model is the most broken thing (Score:5, Interesting)
Here in the USA we basically have to pay some provider a monthly subscription fee. Yes, you can try to watch over the air (OTA) TV for free if you are lucky enough to get a good signal where you live, but the channels are very limited. So we get suckered into buying more channels than we want just to get the channels we do want. For example, you may want one particular sports channel but you have to buy 15 different ones in a package to get it and you'll never watch the other channels. TV providers fear letting customers buy channels a la carte as they know that their income would plummet. Off the top of my head I would think that most people would probably be happy with paying a lot less money for only 20-30 channels if they could pick those individual channels themselves. I have to admit that I have just about reached my limit with TV charges and another rate increase might just make me drop the whole thing and resort to cheaper alternatives to watch the shows I want to see at a later date and time. Some people argue that "Oh if you switched from cable to satellite" or vice-versa that you would "save a lot of money" but the reality is that once the introductory offers expire, the prices are pretty much the same whoever you get your TV from. What we really need in the USA is a way to drive down the costs to the consumers to subscribe in a way that doesn't take away our favorite channels. As long as the providers are able to get away with avoiding a la carte pricing, they've got us trapped.
However, I have to say that I am not at all an Apple fanboy, but I am really impressed at how Apple took mobile telephones and pads and turned them into something actually useful that were generations ahead of earlier attempts to do so. It's been rumored for some time that "Apple TV" is going to debut next year and I am curious to see if Steve Jobs figured out something on TVs that Apple can make better in a way they did for portable music players, mobile phones and pads.
Re:Tied to a time and place (Score:4, Interesting)
TV is broken because, with a few exceptions, content is tied to a specific time and location.
I agree
TV is a system where the broadcaster pushes content at you according to their schedule
Entertainment on the Internet on the other hand is largely a system where the user pulls content when they wish to use it.
People prefer to pull content when and where the want rather than have it pushed at them. For that reason, in the long term, TV will lose out to internet based entertainment
Re:TV ain't broken? (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem with TV is the cost to get what I want. My FiOS TV costs half of my $200 Verizon Bill (Internet and Phone are also on it). Which isn't much value to me, but is to my wife and son. I watch 3 shows regularly: Daily Show w/Jon Stewart, Pawn Stars, and now for some reason American Horror Story. I also watch the NFL and sometimes Baseball. If it wasn't for my wife, I would definitely cut off TV out of the equation, but she is a stay at home mom (cost of Daycare doesn't justify her working and having someone else raise our kids). Things like Sesame St. and Disney programming are great for my son. But of 150+ channels, we maybe hit 6 or 7 of them in a week.
Here is how you improve TV: Offer A la Carte programming. Let me choose about 20 channels, and cut my bill about 70%. Right now, the Internet is a pain in the ass to watch TV on, but it's the best way to get the programming I want. If I could choose the channels I want, with the simplicity of DVR and a remote, for a cost that is reasonable, then TV would be in the golden age.
The UI, stupid (Score:4, Interesting)
Channel-flipping worked fifteen years ago when we had maybe 50 channels. The hundreds we have today, often duplicated in different formats? Not so much. The entire experience is just awful and broken:
* Content discovery is awful
* The menus, channel guides, and other navigation stuff are some of the worst experiences I've seen (I generally avoid TV, so when I see them in use at friends' houses I cringe)
* We still have the idea of content being delivered by channels in timeslots. Talk about being stuck in the past. Everything is delivered digitally now, yet we still push content in a way that was built around the restrictions of analog broadcasting. I realize it's not exactly the same, but given that we re-use the lines for cable internet connections, it's clearly possible to have two-way communication. We use DVRs as a lousy hack to get around this, but the future is clearly a more iTunes-like experience in the sense of "get the three most recent episodes of the show"
* Pricing is a mess. They try to hit you everywhere for all sorts of different things. Six levels of TV service, PPV options, premium channels, rental fees, etc. There are so many things they could do to make this simpler, and yet they continue to make it more confusing, presumably to trick people into being upsold. That can't be sustained indefinitely.
* Content overload - and nothing worth watching (obviously that's a matter of opinion)
* Extremely complicated set-up. All of these digital systems have such poor integration with each other, despite decent attempts to make systems smarter. HDMI was designed in part to alleviate this, but I'm still trying to get everything working in harmony. Even just some UI tweaks and speedups to flip between input sources would be a huge improvement. Why must I slowly (very, very slowly!) scroll through a list of uselessly-named inputs? Just put up a grid of things that are receiving content and let me arrow between them. And for the love of god, make it more responsive.
I may be a poor case study not being a big fan of "I'm bored; placate me with mindless content", and I find TV to be a very ineffective way to get news; however, I can still look at the overall experience pretty objectively. Hulu and iTunes among others are making steps in the right direction, but that experience is still largely limited to the computer, and what's done on TVs is kludgy at best. The AppleTV is decent and the Hulu app for internet-enabled TVs is, last I used it, extremely buggy and also requires a premium subscription.
I've wasted enough time thinking about it for now, but the headline of "TV isn't broken" is just absurd. I can hardly think of an experience that would be a better poster-child of "barely-functional, bordering on unusable".
Re:TV ain't broken? (Score:5, Interesting)
You're forgetting the guns. The guns. History used to also be the gun channel, or as some have put it: The Guns and Hitler channel.
At least that stuff was on topic.
Re:TV ain't broken? (Score:4, Interesting)
Agreed. The technology is just fine. The technology was just fine 10 years ago too. What's broken is the content. (actually this describes the state of the internet too)
Too much in the way. (Score:5, Interesting)
I pay a content provider a subscription for a show. For instance, $0.75 for a season of House without ads, or $0.05 for a season of House with ads. $1.50 for a season of "The Daily Show" without ads. $10.00 for a restart of Firefly without ads (Yes, I went there), and so on. The greater the demand, the less the cost (and, obviously, the greater the show run, or the more cost to create, the higher the subscription cost). This will put much more money in the hands of the content providers directly, rather than having the cable middlemen taking a large chunk, and will still keep all but the most obsessive tv-watcher's cable bill at about the same price as it already is.
Content providers can poll me on my interests for new shows. They can also use those interests to customize the ads I get, if I am agreeing to get ads.
The content provider releases episodes on their regular schedule via a private BitTorrent tracker (or similar methods) in a DRM-unencumbered format, so I can watch it on any device I choose. This releasing is done using a customized-to-the-user RSS feed (only the shows I subscribe to from that provider appear in that feed), which is secured using HTTPS and a unique "user key". Trailers and pilot episodes for new shows can also be published on the RSS feed (especially if they may match my recorded interests). Keys cannot be shared, and abuse of such will result in the key being revoked (or at least, changed, so the user has to update his client with the new key if he wishes to continue, which will make it difficult enough to make sharing of feeds like this unfeasable).
News channels and current events can be subscribed to for live streaming using Multicast (preferably) or Unicast systems, in much the same way.
Cable companies can then become "content aggregators" or local CDNs, So rather than having to go to hundreds of different content providers, you can just subscribe through your cable company, and they aggregate all the available feeds for you and serve your content to you from local servers. Of course, going directly to the source is still an option, if you wish to track more directly, or if your particular cable company doesn't carry that provider's content. Cable companies can then either add a small surcharge to the price of each subscription, or charge a "content distribution" fee for running the local cache.
Emergency broadcasts can be implemented with special RSS feed items, or signed and timestamped playlist files that point to a live stream, to be picked up and (dis)played immediately by boxes or computer systems. This is about the only part that isn't possible right now, and I shouldn't think it'd take that much work to implement.
This way, when you go to the TV, there's always something you're interested in watching available. You never miss an episode of your favourite shows, and you directly support the people who make it.You don't have to get, and don't have to watch, anything you don't want to, and you can do whatever you like with what you've paid for. It also means that niche shows don't get canned, and providers have a completely accurate dollar-based view of just how popular shows really are (rather than having to rely on a very limited number of Nielsen households), and it also means that shows aren't competing for ratings by being forced into a timeslot, giving a false impression of popularity (or lack thereof). It would also make it easier for indie TV producers to get up and running. You'd probably also have a fast addition to Google in the form of "Which provider makes this TV show".
Unfortunately, the way Hollywood, and the MPAA/RIAA/Media fatcats see the TV industry, and television consumers as a whole, this will never come to pass. They are so much more fond of their walled gardens and "Prime time slot"s that the idea of abandoning them and allowing people to live their lives not beholden to their scheduling whims is abhorrent. It would be so very nice, but I hold out little hope in it happening. And
Re:TV ain't broken? (Score:5, Interesting)
My dad used to say something along these lines: "Of all the technologies that he was aware of, television both had the greatest potential, and was the furthest from even approaching its potential." It took me some exploring, but I've decided he was spot-on.
Exactly. Why is it we have 800 channels of TV, and not one of them carries college level lectures? There are professors out there giving lectures every day. It would cost next to nothing to record them and air them, and would give the 5% of us who actually like to use our brains something to watch.
Re:TV ain't broken? (Score:5, Interesting)
...and this brings us to the OTHER thing wrong with TV, which is ads.
According to this artucle [bloomberg.com], advertising to one viewer during one show costs between two and four cents. There are, what, maybe ten commercials per half-hour. Thus, broadcasters should be able to sell me a show for between twenty and forty cents, and INCREASE their profits because now they don't have to pay ad salesmen and all the other nonsense surrounding ads.
So far, I don't know of any broadcaster offering me prime-time content for twenty cents. If any ever does, I'll put the pennies on the table; but if they want me to pay ten times MORE than that, then I decline their unethical offer and choose to get my entertainment ethically, by downloading it for free.