Hollywood-studios Videos

Phil Leigh Will consumers pay to watch TV shows and movies at the hulu.com website? Hulu.com’s website hosts popular TV shows and movies after they have been released normally. Owners include Disney, NBC-Universal, and News Corporation (Fox). Viewers can watch shows for free but in exchange must also watch commercials since the videos are streamed and not downloaded. Last month, Chase Carey who is the President of News Corporation said that Hulu should start charging fees sometime next year. Presumably he envisions a premium subscription service providing more content or viewing time in exchange for a monthly fee. There are two reasons to be doubtful about the success of such a plan. First, as author Matt Ragas put it, “We all love the information highway, but we don’t want to pay a toll every five miles.” Second, incumbent media companies may be overvaluing their own content. Matt’s remark led me to examine my own subscriptions which are summarized in the accompanying table. Already I pay over $220 monthly for telephone, Internet, and video entertainment. Other services under consideration would advance the total to about $265 monthly.  Such an analysis makes me look for ways to cut, instead of add, services. Phil s Monthly Subscription Fees Naturally, I’ll focus on the bigger numbers first which come from the cable and wireless providers. However, if The Wall Street Journal (owned by News Corp)   editorial viewpoint prevails, the carriers will likely increase ISP fees even higher. That leaves consumers with thinner wallets to buy additional services from Hulu or anyone else. Even if cable and wireless charges don’t go up, consumers may calculate that they’re already paying enough in service fees. Readers of the Baltimore Sun seem to be strongly opposed to paying for hulu.com access. A polling button on the newspaper s website reveals that they voted 20-to-1 against it. You can see the results and review reader comments here. As for content value, the recent success of Paranormal Activity might serve as a reminder to media producers that we characteristically undervalue the works of people who are not like us. It’s reported that the movie was set in a single San Diego home and produced for $10,000. By the day after Halloween it had grossed over $80 million in box office receipts. Much like Internet publishing demolished the value of the printing press, low cost video cameras combined with computer-based film editing and an abundance of people seeking stardom and film-crew careers, necessitates an introspective reassessment of Hollywood’s self worth. Paranormal Activity is more than an isolated echo of The Blair Witch Project. Years from now we’ll look back to see it as data point in a connect-the-dots trend line pointing toward a future of content abundance. To learn more about how your business can exploit or adapt to thye future of media, feel welcome to contact us. You may also want to consider buying our research reports Third Generation Television and Future Developments in Video Advertising.

Phil Leigh Inexorable expansion of the Internet results in a lockstep growth in anxiety about threatened obsolescence among incumbent media participants. Yet whatever the changes affecting media, storytelling remains the timeless value. Even before humanity learned how to record them, the Greek Myths were passed down from generation-to-generation by oral repetition. Itinerate poets travelled around the Eastern Mediterranean retelling the stories of The Iliad and The Odyssey before Homer wrote them down about 3,000 years ago. While the media changed from spoken word to written text, the public appetite for stories was undiminished and may have even accelerated. Sometimes new media tells a story better than the old way, sometimes just about as well, and sometimes worse. Many of the screenplays of popular movies are based on earlier novels. Almost by habit, those who had read the novels often advise us that the book is better than the movie. A good example is Bonfire of the Vanities. Many consider it to be one of Tom Wolfe’s best novels and it was hugely popular. Yet as a movie it flopped at both the box office and by critical acclaim. Failure of the movie is odd considering the strength of the story and crew for the film.  The director had earlier hits such as Scarface and The Untouchables. The cast included Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Kim Cattrall, Melanie Griffith, and Alan King. However, sometimes new media tells the story just about as well as the prior method. For example the film version of Pat Conroy’s The Prince of Tides seemed to measure-up to the novel. Perhaps it was partly because it was the only time that Conroy wrote his own screenplay, but Nick Nolte and Barbra Streisand played the lead characters about as I had imagined them. Finally, there are times when newer media tells the story better as in the 1960 film Home from the Hill. Based on a novel by a now nearly forgotten Texas author named William Humphrey, Vincent Minnelli used his actors with skill to draw the audience into the thoughts and emotions of the on-screen personalities. The screenplay added a character thereby changing the plot, but the changes seemed consistent with the author’s intent and augmented his message. Veteran actors Robert Mitchum and Eleanor Parker seemed born for the roles. Like Ann Margaret in Bye Bye Birdie, George Hamilton provided a debut performance in Home from the Hill that he never came close to matching in his long subsequent career. Similarly, a youthful George Peppard’s acting was never better. In short, from childhood onward we reflect an insatiable hunger when we request “tell me a story.” Whatever the medium, a narrative can be adapted to fit into it with greater or lesser results, depending upon how well the creator uses the capabilities of the medium.

Download to iPod or iPhone If you would like to learn how to watch movies on your TV that were downloaded to your iPhone, this video is for you. Every iPod or iPhone owner knows they can buy digital music at Apple’s iTunes online store. Most also realize they can rent or purchase movies and TV shows there as well. Finally, many are aware that numerous free video and audio podcasts, some including popular TV shows, are also available. However, few understand that it is not difficult use iPods and iPhones to watch the movies stored on the portable units through a conventional flat panel TV. Today’s video shows how to do it. Apple sells two types of cable assemblies that can connect the iPhone and iPod to a TV. One is termed Component and the other Composite. The Component assembly provides a higher quality picture, but it also uses more jacks. Both assemblies retail for $50. At first glance, the wiring looks complicated for two reasons. First, it is best to provide an external power supply to the portable devices so they don’t drain their batteries. Second, and more importantly, Apple does not support the HDMI standard which can transport video and audio over a single cable. Thus, while both audio and video exit the iPhone and iPod from a single socket the constituent signals must be delivered separately to the TV. In the Composite assembly video is input to the TV via a single wire and audio enters as a stereo signal via two more wires. The Component assembly inputs the video to the TV with three wires (one for each primary color) and also uses two pins for stereo audio. A textual description makes it seem more difficult that it actually is. That is why we urge you to watch the video. The fact that consumers can easily play through a television the movies and TV shows they downloaded on their iPhones and iPods has further implications. The public is becoming increasingly aware that the flat panel TV can also readily function as a giant monitor for a variety of Internet-connected devices. In addition to iPods and iPhones, other popular examples are laptop computers, video games, and specialized appliances like Roku. Ultimately this has profound implications because it induces a trend toward more frequent viewing of Internet Video on the TV.

Phil Leigh If you would like to learn how my media usage changed during a recent period of enforced idleness, this audio program is for you. Owing to medical leave during the past two-weeks I have been relatively inactive at the office. This led to an increase, as well as a change in the pattern of, media consumption. Today’s podcast explains how. The equipment and services available in my home include CATV and broadband Internet access along with a flat panel TV that is connected to both a TiVo and a laptop computer. The laptop functions as an Internet Gateway for the TV. Thus the flat panel unit can function as either a conventional TV or a giant monitor for the Internet-connected laptop. The selection-of-function is done with a conventional TV remote unit merely by pushing one button. When used as a monitor for the laptop the Internet Explorer browser is controlled from the living room sofa with a LogiTech remote mouse and keyboard. On a typical day I would first check the TiVo “Now Showing” selections that had been recorded. About half the time I was not interested in watching the recorded shows most of which were selected by the TiVo service as opposed to ones that I programmed. If there was nothing in the “Now Showing” inventory, I would start channel surfing live TV in hopes of finding something worthwhile. Generally I could not locate anything worth a grown man’s time. However, when I did, I would let the show buffer while I went to my home office to check email and read articles. After TiVo buffered about 30 minutes of the desired show I would return to the living room to watch it. The buffering normally enabled me to watch the entire show without having to look at any commercials because I would fast forward through them. When there was nothing on TiVo or live TV that I wanted to see, I would go to my home office and search imbd.com for interesting movie titles. For example, I browsed the top 250 movies as rated by imbd.com website visitors and found 8 – 10 that I wanted to see. To find them I would first check to see if the movies were available for rental from Amazon-Video-on-Demand through my TiVo. Only a couple of them were available. One I bought and the other I rented. Both were downloaded directly to my TiVo. The first download did not work and I had to call both Amazon and TiVo to get it fixed. The second one worked okay. Second, if the movie was not available at Amazon-Video-on-Demand, I would search for it on free websites such as YouTube. Surprisingly, I found a couple of the movies there. They had to be watched in ten-minute sequential segments, but there were no commercials and it was free. As noted, with the laptop as Internet Gateway I was able to watch them on the flat panel TV screen in my living room. Third, if nothing was available on TiVo, live TV, Amazon-Video-on-Demand, or places like YouTube, I would visit Hulu.com. Generally, on Hulu I chose to watch old movies.  Selecting titles was aided by the helpful reviews of Hulu.com subscribers. Once again, I watched them on the flat panel TV by using the laptop computer as an Internet Gateway. Although they were free, I had to endure the commercials. Fourth, sometimes in the process of searching for movies to watch from the home office PC, I would discover long-tail content that was only available at websites like YouTube. For example, I read a fair number of novels each year and was able to find video interviews with some of my favorite authors. Generally, I watched them on my desktop PC, but sometimes I would watch them on the flat panel TV in the living room. The experience left me with three major inferences. One: We channel surf because we don’t like what is on TV. It is not a cliché to say of cable television, “Hundreds of channels but nothing to watch”. Channel surfing is a habituated practice that points to a future characterized by a video-centric Internet where all content is searchable and immediately available. Two: After only limited exposure to services such as Hulu.com and Apple TV and Amazon-Video-on-Demand rentals, consumers are going to abandon video rental stores like Blockbuster. Their frequency-of-visits to Blockbuster will tail-off sharply. Three: The Long-Tail is going to be far more important than the established media companies would like to think. If consumers can’t find your stuff conveniently at YouTube, Hulu, iTunes, Netflix streams, or similar services, they’re going to discover other shows to like. If you don’t believe me, experience it yourself. Searching videos on YouTube is like channel surfing on steroids. Guys who channel surf the TV are already telling you their not finding what they want. Once they get habituated to surfing for videos on the Web via the TV set, the time they spend on CATV networks will steadily decline.

Phil Leigh If you would like to consider the implications of a video-centric Wikipedia, this audio program is for you. As reported in Technology Review, the Wikipedia Foundation will soon be launching an editable online video encyclopedia. According to Alexa, Wikipedia is the World’s seventh most popular website. Consider how often you visit the site and ponder your reaction if many of its articles provided relevant video. In our analysis, the implications of a video-centric Wikipedia are profound. Perhaps the most important result will be transcendence in the public perception of media itself. The walls separating earlier silos of radio for sound, television for video, and newspapers for print, will collapse. In response, our culture will begin to routinely use the Internet as a mixed-media resource. This will lead to an expectation that users can access media on-demand in whatever form desired whether it be text, graphics, animation, video, or audio. Consider the following. First, the Wikipedia could become the-center-of-gravity for news. It could replace television, radio, and newspapers as the preferred destination.  Topics can be updated nearly instantaneously from a large number of self-policing “journalists”. Furthermore, the updates might include on-the-spot video and audio recordings. Finally, since most topics were prepared earlier as Wikipedia articles, each addition is automatically connected to an abundance of background and context along with branching links to sources and related material. Second, after a critical threshold of Wikipedia articles contain video we’ll expect the website to be available on TV. If the set-makers and CATV operators don’t provide it then we’ll connect our TV to a computer. That way the TV can function as both a monitor for the (Internet-connected) computer as well as a conventional TV. For example, consider someone with an intense interest in the history of World War II. Eventually, a video-centric Wikipedia will have an abundance of public domain video footage posted and indexed within the applicable article.  Moreover, the videos will be continually updated with new postings from archives from various nations. Third, once a video-centric Wikipedia is accessible on our TVs, we’re going to require a user-friendly search device. For example, a Yahoo Widget that merely transports us to the Wikipedia home page is going to be all but useless. We must be able to navigate to the desired content easily and also to explore related articles without difficulty. Such needs may imply a consumer preference for (as yet unannounced) browser-centric TVs as opposed to a Widget platform. Fourth, if Internet access to copyrighted TV shows and movies is too expensive, or limited, viewers are going to start watching other Internet videos. A video-centric Wikipedia is merely one example. But it is a potentially profound one since it is already such a popular website and has the potential to grow infinitely.

[See post to watch Flash video] Download to iPod and iPhone If you would like to learn the latest thinking from Parks Associates about Internet-Video-to-the-TV, this interview is for you. Our guest today is Kurt Scherf who is a Vice President and Principal Analyst at Parks Associates. He narrates a PowerPoint summarizing his latest white paper “From Boob Tube to YouTube”. It is available for free at his website. We found three of Kurt’s conclusions of particular interest. First, the two most popular items jacked-into TVs and also connected to the Internet are (1) console video game players and (2) computers. In the United States, about 13 million consoles and 7.5 million computers are thus connected. Inside Digital Media concludes that most of the computers are used for providing unrestricted Internet access to the TV whereas only a minority of the game consoles are accessing Internet Video. Moreover, most of the game consoles are getting videos either via rental or purchase as opposed to free ad-supported web sites.  Consoles are primarily connected in order to enable multiplayer gaming. Second, Parks surveys conclude that consumers are frustrated by the user interfaces presently available. In our analysis, those using hand-held remotes are more confusing than the familiar web browser that a computer-to-TV connection provides. This is one reason that future TVs may become browser-centric. Third, consumers want more than mere access to web videos on Internet-connected TVs. In point of fact, Parks surveys reveal that they want (on the TV) email, search, and gaming, more than Internet Video, per se. This is Third Generation Television. To learn more click here where you can purchase a copy or our research report or download a free Prospectus.

Download to Computer, iPod, or iPhone If you would like to learn how even primary market research can mislead, this video is for you. Instinctively we tend credit consumer surveys with validity because they are based upon “primary research”. Our instincts are good, but if the questionnaire ignores reality the results can be worse that valueless. For example a recent survey found that a third of broadband respondents want cable set-top boxes to provide Internet content. Furthermore it found that over half of such respondents wanted the connection so they could watch premium content. In our analysis, such points are misleading because they overlook the point that consumers basically want unlimited Internet access on the TV. Moreover, unrestricted access trumps a Walled Garden of premium content because the Walled Garden would merely be a subset of unlimited access. If given a choice between unrestricted access and the Walled Garden, the 50% interest level likely drops to zero by comparison. When surveys are commissioned by industries that choose to ignore reality, then the research results are misleading. Clary Shirky cogently makes the point in Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable. Like the record labels, newspapers saw the Internet coming 10 years ago. But they could not permit themselves to “think the unthinkable” by recognizing that it would be nearly impossible to retain their prominence. The question the industry’s researchers should have investigated was “How is news going to be distributed post-Internet and how can we fit within such a context?” Instead they essentially asked, “How can we transplant our product to the Net?” A similar question should be posed by video distributors. Specifically, the question is “How are post-Internet consumers going to employ network endpoints (e.g. televisions) and how should we function within that context in order to provide value?”  For CATV operators, the answer might imply that they concentrate on providing ultra-high-speed ISP service thereby permitting the consumer to optimize the endpoints for communications or entertainment depending upon his ephemeral needs. In short, when reality is ignored even primary research is worse than valueless because it can lead to false conclusions. This is Third Generation Television.

Download to Computer, iPod, or iPhone If you would like to learn how to connect a HDMI laptop computer to a flat-panel television, this video is for you. Seeing is believing. Too many of the uninitiated assume that connecting a laptop computer to a flat-panel television is “geeky” and complex. Our instructional video today shows you how I did it with a HDMI-equipped laptop. Not only does the video demonstrate that it only requires a single cable, but also convincingly documents that connecting-up the cable set-top box and TiVo is far more complex than connecting the laptop to the TV. After searching the Internet we discovered that most of the instructional videos about computer-to-television connectivity are indeed “geeky”. One reason is that most focus on the use of older connection technologies that require multiple cables. The beauty of HDMI is that a single cable transports both High Definition audio and video. It also has built-in piracy protection thereby enjoying endorsement from copyright holders. This is Third Generation Television. To learn more click here where you can purchase a copy or our research report or download a free Prospectus.

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If you would like to learn about a company that makes browser-centric semiconductor chips enabling televisions to visit any Website and display any Internet Video, this interview is for you. Our guest today is Gordie Campbell who is the CEO of Personal Web Systems. During a 30-year career he pioneered many technological innovations including the first Ethernet chip, the first electronically erasable microcomputer, the first PC-on-a-chip, and the invention of the chipset upon which today’s PCs are based. During the past month we repeatedly noted that consumers are discovering that they can get Internet Video to TVs by connecting a laptop computer to the TV. Essentially the TV acts as a giant monitor for the laptop which gets to the Internet via on-board WiFi. However, we also noted that the laptop-as-TV-Media-Controller is merely a “forcing factor” that will eventually result in televisions being factory-equipped to connect directly into the Internet. Ultimately the TV-set becomes a dual-purpose device that can function as either a display for conventional TV or a giant monitor into the Internet. Personal Web Systems (PWS) is a fabless semiconductor supplier of chips that enable such a scenario. Since the company originated in India, the first product will be marketed in that country within a month or so. It is an appliance about the size of a paperback book that permits TV-sets to jack directly into the Internet. A similar product is expected to be offered in the United States by the end of the year. Eventually the company hopes to sell chips to set manufactures directly so that TVs come-off the factory floor as browser-centric displays. In our analysis, set-makers would be well advised to consider offering browser-centric TVs promptly for two reasons. First, consumers want unrestricted Internet access at their TVs. The TV set is becoming a dual-purpose device, much like the iPhone. When consumes use an iPhone for a telephone call they think of it as a phone. When they use it to visit Websites, they think of it as a hand-held Web-browsing device. The laptop-as-TV-Media-Controller phenomenon is leading them to conceptualize the TV as providing both Internet access and conventional television. Second, if conventional set manufactures are slow to innovate they may well be forfeiting the digital living room to Apple. If Apple introduces an iTelevision centered on iTunes and its own App Store, then Apple might emerge as the leader in the future market for smart televisions much like it leads in smart telephones. For example, if the broadcast networks were to provide their programming to iTunes as ad-supported podcasts, the (hypothetical) iTelevision could become the dominant set-of-choice for consumers. This might lead providers of other popular video, like Cable networks and Hollywood studios, to focus on Apps for the iTelevision to the exclusion of whatever smart televisions the conventional makers may be offering at the time. This is Third Generation Television. To learn more click here where you can purchase a copy or our research report or download a free Prospectus.