BetterTV

One day we will have the all singing, all dancing set top box in our house.

This set top box will have a few terabytes of storage and it will connect to a massive hard drive in the sky. We will have a fiber to the home. And tons of bandwidth going up & downstream. We'll have multi-room DVRs. We'll have intelligent media sync across all devices in the household. And it will connect everything in the home in an intelligent way.

And while I believe this is all going to happen sooner rather than later - we aren't there yet.

But there is so much that MSOs can do now with the existing network and existing set top hardware in the home. Few ideas.

1. Enable the hardware that exists. I've owned Comcast's state of the art HD DVR for a few years now. The Motorola 6412 (yes that really is the name) has 1394, USB and ethernet. And none of these are enabled. So silly. Let me connect hard drives, WiFi, NAS, or other stuff. If you are worried about copyright than go-ahead and give me some flexible DRM. But my god, what are you waiting for? Let me connect it to my home network.

2. The electronic program guide is broken. The model for todays EPG worked when we had 100 linear channels. But it doesn't work when you have hundreds of broadcast channels, plus thousands of hours of VOD content plus a DVR. Why must i remember HBO in HD is on channel 870?

Instead please just give me a real search engine. Give me a way to customize the guide. My guide shouldn't look the same as everyone else. Give me a web browser interface so i can skin my guide, take out unnecessary channels, highlight channels I love.  Let me re-arrange my guide like I rearrange my.yahoo. Look at how Buzzwire allows me to customize my phone's media thru a browser. And just do the same sort of thing for TV. (disclosure: Buzzwire is a Spark Capital portfolio company)

3. Most set top boxes don't have a cable modem yet. So the return path is very weak. But there is a return path. That's how VOD works. Use the same skinny return path (either QPSK or DAVIC) and let users tag and share links to content. Wouldn't it be great if there was a verison of StumbleUpon for TV. Or how about a way to post links to Tumblr from TV. None of these things would require a fat upstream network. None of them would even have to be real time. Just batch them up and do them off peak.

4. Give me Rhapsody over VOD infrastructure. Integrate with the MSO's internet portal as well.

5. Do more with your internet offering. If I buy a show over VOD, give me a window to also download the same show to my Mac or PC. And the other way around.

6. Make the DVR software smarter. If there isn't tuner contention then just record every show an additional 10 minutes just in case it goes over. Or 20 minutes. Or let me choose.

7. Do more in the network. Time Warner's StartOver is a fine idea. Except don't force me to watch commercials. Instead pay attention to which ads I'm watching and which ads I'm skipping. Give me better ads.

8. Support Veoh, YouTube and Flickr with existing VOD infrastructure. I know some very cool startsups that can help you with the transcoding to MPEG2 since the current settops don't do flash or mpeg4.

9. TiVo software & service is about to ship on the Motorola 6412. Promote it everywhere. Don't price it out of market. It's way better than the current DVR software. Customers will rejoice.

10. Let me program my DVR from my mobile phone.

Comments

[Steve Kane]

hell yes

but i dont think the existing STB return path could handle the load, could it? i mean even simple tags contain a whole bunch of bits

also, the existing DVR software on the 6412 (and everywhere in comcast's network i think) does allow you to record extra time before and after scheduled program times. its a deeper menu setting, not top layer, but its there

as for the idea that networks should not force people to watch commercials, i'm afraid i'm a deep skeptic here. for one thing, advertisers cant look for new customers if they only show ads to people who show some prediliction. that's a huge myth that we geeks like to spread, because we want to preserve the advertising economy while getting rids of those pesky ads. but think about it -- have you never had the realization that you were indeed inrterested in something new or unknown -- something you would never have indicated a theortical interest in, if asked? happens every day to everyone, i think. and smart markerters know this and will never want to only market to people they know are predisposed. therefore there will always be a huge need for "invasive" ads. and btw, marketers typically pay much more for new business than for reinforcing existing business, so the networks will always also want "invasive" advertising, not just preaching to the choir

[bijan sabet]

Ah, I didn't see that option on the DVR for extended times. I'll take a look.

I guess I don't agree with you on the ad front. It has to be about getting smarter ads in front of people. I'm not opposed to ads. Just give me better ones. The system doesn't have to be smart upfront/initially but it has to get smarter over time.

We are never going to buy a pickup truck in our household. so why do we keep seeing those ads.

[Steve Kane]

"Never" is a long time. Maybe you will want a pickup someday. Or your kid will. Or your business will.

Also, your use of the word "household" is a little off. When you say :"in our household" you mean the specific people currently in your house at this particular moment in time.

When marketers target ads by "household" they know they can't possibly map to the essentially infinite variety of individuals and circumstances in a home. So they dont even try. Instead they rely on the common or shared characteristics of a household: household income, presence of pets, number/ages of children, etc. then they target their ads knowing some impressions will be wasted but feeling good that their basic stretgy is sound

so you will always see the pickup truck ad!

[nabeel]

Hmm.. Most of these are currently available via Tivo HD (and no, not the Tivo interface coming to Comcast).

1. Even though the media companies keep things pretty tight here, Tivo HD is still well ahead of Comcast. There are tons of services to add additional storage to Tivo HD, or you can do it yourself. And with the Tivo media server you can stream audio, video, and photos from the web or your home machine.

2. Tivo has a web browser interface, I use it through my iPhone all the time. They also recently added "SwivelSearch" which is a service I've been screaming about for years -- the ability to look at the details of a show and then say "if you like this, you'll like this.. or, this stars Dustin Hoffman, want to see what else stars Dustin Hoffman?"

3. Allowing users to tag and share would be great. Right now Tivo only has this as the implicit ThumbsUp function, but it could be better so I could send YOUR box a specific recommendation. Still so much better than Comcast.

4. Rhapsody is not on Tivo... yet. It was announced in Jan (http://www.tivoblog.com/archives/category/rhapsody/) and is supposed to be in the next software update, prior to Xmas.

5. TivoToGo.. been doing this for years. Even let's you burn to a DVD.

6. Over-recording is a dead simple Tivo setting.

7. Man.. I don't even know what StartOver is, so no help here.

8. Support Veoh, YouTube and Flickr with existing VOD infrastructure. Tivo needs a YouTube interface... it does have a link to Yahoo Photos/Flickr. And it does have Internet video from folks like Next New Networks, but the lack of Internet video is a big downer.

9. If you had a Tivo.. this wouldn't matter. :)

10. Tivo mobile is out, although only for Verizon users. I actually just use the Tivo website on my iPhone and have great results.

Okay.. I'm done with my Tivo fanboy-ing... back to watching my regularly scheduled programming.

[bijan sabet]

@nabeel. my biggest reason to holdout on HD Tivo is the lack of VOD.

I want DVR and VOD.

But i'm tired of waiting for my Comcast DVR to improve...

[Margaret]

You can also use the DVR program to keep track of your household or even your office remotely. You can simply download the program into your PC and configure your security camera.