Phil-leigh Videos

Phil Leigh If you would like to learn what will motivate the CATV and Telco industries to abandon traditional video services in favor of a video-centric Internet, this audio podcast is for you. Since the release of our February ’09 Third Generation Television research report, we repeatedly emphasized that the future of television is Internet Video, period. Ultimately, the advantages to consumers, sponsors, content providers, and even network operators are simply too compelling. Confessedly, many established media and CATV companies presently resist the trend. However, despite the recent Comcast-NBC combination, eventually the cable and Telco network operators will perceive that traditional video services are their least profitable businesses. Like the apostle Paul on the road the Damascus, the scales will fall from their eyes as they realize that most of their profit comes from Internet Connectivity and Telephone services. The epiphany will motivate them to divest the traditional video businesses by either selling them or spinning-them-off to shareholders. Bob Cringely concludes that this will happen around 2015 as the industry leaders prepare to pull the ripcords on their golden parachutes. The single biggest cost to CATV and Telco companies providing conventional TV services is the monthly fee paid to content providers such as ESPN, A&E, Comedy Channel, and most every other cable network. Moreover, in recent years even the broadcast networks and local TV affiliates are “demanding” monthly payments. Finally, content providers are forever seeking increases thereby forcing the operators to raise the consumers’ monthly subscription rates. Unfortunately, subscribers tend to “blame” the higher monthly bills on operators instead of cable networks like ESPN. In contrast, ISP and telephone voice services are highly profitable because operators are only selling access and not content. The chart below from the Time-Warner Cable annual report demonstrates the company’s ISP profit margins exceed 95%. Their direct ISP service costs dropped 12% last year even as revenues increased 11%. A similar analysis implies a gross profit margin of about 85% or more on Time-Warner telephone service. Time-Warner Cable 2008 Broadband Stats Furthermore, owing to Moore’s Law, bandwidth costs for telephone and ISP services should continue to drop.  Right now the typical cable operator allocates the bandwidth of a single analog channel to Internet service. That’s only about one percent of the typical CATV analog system. Put another way, operators could instantly double available Internet bandwidth merely by dropping one unpopular TV channel. Finally, the CATV industry’s central laboratory developed a modem technology called DOCSIS 3.0 which is now available. It can transform four analog channels into a single high speed pathway thereby enabling an approximate 100 megabit-per-second ISP service. Based upon the Speakeasy bandwidth meter the writer is presently only getting about 17.4 megabits-per-second in download speed from Brighthouse Networks. Thus, DOCSIS 3.0 could provide an improvement of nearly 600%. Readers may test their own ISP bandwidth speeds by clicking here. In summary, within five years or so, CATV and Telco operators are likely to conclude that it is in their own best interests to divest traditional video services. Instead they will make more money by selling lightning-fast Internet access and telephony services where they don’t have to pay for content.

Download to iPhone or iPod If you want to learn what the future of television will look like, this video podcast is for you. Despite recent publicity about favorable consumer response to services providing only limited Internet Videos at our TVs, ultimately nearly everyone will demand unlimited Internet access on televisions. Services like Amazon-Video-on-Demand, iTunes, and Netflix Watch Instantly via devices such as TiVo, Blu-Ray Players, and Xboxes are merely going to whet consumer appetites for unrestricted Internet access on TVs. Consider how the ZeeVee box provides a workable methodology for getting unlimited Internet access at all the TVs in a house without disrupting regular CATV or Satellite service. First, the $400 ZeeVee box connects to your computer and the coax wiring already installed in your house for CATV or Satellite video services. Second, once connected the box converts the computer into a “broadcast channel” among the many already available on your CATV or Satellite service. You designate one of the open channels as the pathway for your computer “broadcast”. For example, if you choose channel 129 as your ZeeVee channel then whenever you select that channel your TV will display whatever your computer is displaying. All the other channels work precisely as they did before you hooked-up the ZeeVee. Third, ZeeVee provides an RF remote unit that enables you to control your computer from any room in the house. Thus, if you are watching channel 129 in the living room the RF unit transforms the television into a giant sized remote monitor for your computer. Basically, it enables you to surf the Web, view Internet Videos, do email, or any computer application from sitting on your sofa or even lying in your bed if you have a TV in your bedroom. You can watch free videos YouTube or Hulu.com. Alternately, you can rent movies from iTunes or Amazon-Video-on-Demand. Any video on the Net or your computer is available to your TV. All this is on channel 129. While ZeeVee is a product available today that can deliver unlimited Internet access to every TV in your home, we are not endorsing the brand for two reasons. First, we have not yet set-up one and used it ourselves. Second, based upon some of the reviews we read, we suspect that the set-up is not as easy as the company’s demos imply. In conclusion, within a few years ZeeVee may be regarded as a prototype that demonstrated a proof-of-concept methodology for getting unrestricted Internet access to all TVs within a household. It shows us what the future will look like.

Phil Leigh If you would like to learn just how rapidly consumers are gaining interest in obtaining unlimited Internet access on their TVs, this podcast is for you. We have long predicted that consumers will ultimately want unlimited Internet access of their TVs. It enables them to watch any Internet video in a lean-back viewing experience from their living room sofa. Moreover, given a remote mouse and keyboard, it empowers them to use the TV as a giant window into the Internet for any purpose, including e-mail, online shopping, or Web surfing. Since at least the start of this year we have repeatedly noted that consumers are discovering how to get such access by connecting their laptop computers to their TVs. It’s an “under the radar trend” not officially promoted by any of the computer makers, but appears to be getting exponentially more fashionable. In short, we believe the trend will become a “forcing factor” leading set manufacturers to offer either (1) browser-centric TVs, or (2) TVs with an abundance of free applications permitting users to watch videos from the associated Websites. The growing popularity is partly inferred by way of proxy. Specifically, last March we posted an instructional video on YouTube describing “How to Connect PC-to-TV”. Initially we were getting less than 30 views per day, but in October the daily average was about 135. That translates to a 26% compounded monthly increase despite a summer slow-down.  Put another way, traffic was doubling about every three months. If the trend continues, daily viewership could rise to 270 by the end of January and to over 500 by the end of next April. When new factors obtain a green-field opportunity, they tend to grow exponentially during the early periods. Examples include bacteria in a petri dish, influenza virus among people, members of a Ponzi scheme, and nuclear chain reactions. Technologies that eventually become mass market standards also exhibit exponential growth in early adopter phases. Examples include, radio, television, railroads, automobiles, portable phones, air travel, and many more. In our analysis, the growth in consumers attaching laptops to their TVs is also likely to be exponential. Whether the function is 26%-per-month, or some other pace, remains to be seen. One possibility is illustrated by the chart below which projects the viewership of our instructional video based upon the best-fitting exponential equation provided by Microsoft Excel software. Growth in Video Views: How to Connect PC-to-TV The exponential trend-line is defined by: Y = 1,059e (exp.)0.1683x where Y is the number of monthly views and X is the number of months since February, 2009.  The equation predicts that next March our instructional video will have 9,400 views as compared to 4,150 in October and 811 last March. While the increasing viewership of our instructional video is only a proxy, the numbers are large enough for statistical inference. In short, consumer interest in getting unlimited Internet access on their TVs is rapidly increasing. It is important to understand that others posted similar instructional videos at about the same time, meaning that ours is not the only proxy. For example, this one had traffic growth that was about 70% faster thereby implying that consumer interest in unrestricted Internet access at their TVs is increasing even more quickly than the above graph indicates.

Phil Leigh During the first three decades of the twentieth century the most promising invention was radio. Scientists could see a clear evolutionary path for the technology that would revolutionize everyday life. The trip from the dots-and-dashes of Morse code, to audio transmission, and eventually to television, was all a matter of learning how to manipulate the electromagnetic spectrum. Unlike a fanciful speculation like teleportation, such things were undeniably possible within the theory underlying Maxwell’s equations. In 1912 the day following the rescue efforts prompted by Titanic’s SOS signals, American Marconi shares jumped in price on the stock exchange. From 1919 to 1929 revenues for RCA (Radio Corporation of America) rose from $2 million to $180 million, translating to a compound annual growth of nearly 60%. In 1928 RCA stock increased from $80 to $420 per share. It had formed the National Broadcasting Company in 1926. From a growth and stock perspective RCA was the Apple, or Google, of its time. But unlike (I trust) today’s Apple and Google it would compromise its innovative instincts in a Faustian bid to hold back the clock. Entering 1929 everything looked rosy from both a business and technological viewpoint. Recorded music was at the threshold of major advances from the pending launch of high quality vinyl long-playing standards. Two young television companies, Jenkins Television Laboratories and Television Laboratories, Inc., issued public shares. Both were respectable, although Jenkins utilized a mechanical image scanning technique that was much inferior to the CRT methodology developed by Television Labs. Despite the promising vantage point, broadcast television would not become a reality for another 17 years. Two developments strangled television in the cradle. One was the economic depression which also destroyed consumer demand for new recorded music formats. The second was RCA’s efforts to monopolize television. Companies like Jenkins and Television Labs found it hard to maintain funding as the financial markets collapsed. In 1932 RCA bought a nearly bankrupt Jenkins and put its technology on the shelf. Essentially, RCA was making too much money from radio to welcome the advent of television. For example, despite the Great Depression radio advertising grew from $27 million in 1929 to $185 million in 1939, thereby recording a 21% compound annual growth rate. Simultaneously, NBC grew even faster as it increased its share of stations. Since RCA controlled nearly all key wireless patents competitors could not introduce new products without licensing at least some RCA rights. In the matter of television, however, RCA faced a formidable rival at Television Labs where founder Philo Farnsworth pioneered CRT scanning. Ruthlessly, RCA attacked Farnsworth’s company with a multi-year barrage of legal patent challenges designed to bleed them white financially. When Television Labs gained temporary funding from Philadelphia Storage Battery (Philco), RCA threatened to deny renewal of key licenses for Philco radio products. The Farnsworth-RCA struggle unmistakably echoes the David-and-Goliath drama. For example, as a boy Philo entered the Naval Academy with the second highest entrance examine score, but dropped out after a few months to focus on television.  Despite having no college degree he was funded by San Francisco businessmen who unwittingly became the first venture capitalists. To demonstrate the safety of air travel for advantageously speedy business trips he took his wife aloft only to have her shout, “If you don’t make (the pilot) land, I’ll jump!” While the radio Goliath did not exactly win, its holding action combined with the Great Depression and the advent of World War II, delayed commercialization of television for nearly two decades. By that time Farnsworth was sadly alcoholic and worn out. Today the situation is similar. Revolutionary media changes are predictable based upon Internet and semiconductor technologies.  Unfortunately, we have stupidly led our economy into great difficulties. We bought houses we could not afford based-upon the obvious folly that prices would always go up and we could sell for a profit to an even greater fool. Our bankers lent money to unmerited borrowers simply because the lenders could divert the risks to the taxpayer while keeping all the rewards. We let ourselves forget that things that can’t continue forever, won’t. While the stock market recovery over the past year suggests that things might soon return to normal, rising unemployment and thinner consumer wallets cannot be ignored. No matter how promising our innovative products and services consumers need money to buy them. The new “normal” is not going to be so comfortable. Simultaneously, much like RCA in the 1930s certain powerful companies today would welcome a delay of innovations. Again, like RCA, they typically only want to compete in the court room or in Washington. They don’t want any changes unless they make them. Before he died in 1971, Farnsworth recovered from alcoholism and drug addition. Occasionally he was able to take on the role of obscure but venerated industry statesmen. When asked what he thought would be the future of television, he responded with a question: “What do you want it to be?” “If you can imagine something, sooner or later you may achieve it; conversely if you don’t imagine it, then there is no hope of it becoming a reality.” The natural evolution of media is toward the Internet. The advantages of immediate access, collaborative contribution, and massive economical distribution are overwhelming. Is that what we want media to be? To learn more about how your business can exploit or adapt to such changes, feel welcome to contact us. You may also want to consider buying our research reports Third Generation Television and Future Developments in Video Advertising.

Download to iPhone or iPod If you want to learn how to set-up a Google AdWords account and start placing ads to sell merchandise from your website, this video is for you. Perhaps the best way to teach others how to use Google AdWords is by concrete example. Thus, today’s video shows how we set-up an AdWords campaign to sell copies of our market research report, Future Developments in Video Advertising. First, we show you what the report for sale looks like. Second, we illustrate the difference between Google AdWords links and Google Organic search results. Third, we demonstrate how to set-up a “landing page” as an entry point at your website for those who click on ads deployed thorough AdWords. There are three features to the page. One is a video summarizing five major conclusions in the market research report offered for sale. Another is a link to a free prospectus requiring those clicking on it to first provide name, email address, and phone number information. This transforms them into sales leads. Finally, a text summary of the video is available for those who chose to read a synopsis of the report as opposed to watching a video summation. Fourth, screen capture software provides step-by-step video instructions describing how to set-up an AdWords account and organize your first campaign. Factors covered include (1) geographic targeting, (2) network selection, (3) device inclusion, (4) key word selection, (5) pricing, (6) ad construction, (7) calls-to-action, (8) budgeting, (9) weekend exclusion, and (10) landing page targeting, among others. Google’s third quarter financial results document that AdWords use is leading the way as a sign of overall economic recovery. In short, it appears that advertisers are first returning to the Internet before incumbent media channels such as TV, radio, newspapers, and magazines. This could have profound implications for the future of advertising in general. Not only do sponsors seem to prefer the Internet per se, but they may also become conditioned to the AdWords practice of only paying for ads that users actively select. As applied to future video advertising, sponsors may come to demand that they only pay for video ads that actually get watched. For example, they recognize DVR users often fast-forward through commercials. But if sponsors apply the AdWords convention to video commercials, they’ll only pay for commercials that get watched. This could be the subtle, but most significant, implication of the fact that AdWords advertising is leading the recovery of the entire advertising industry. To learn more about how your business can exploit or adapt to such changes, 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.

Dr. Joseph Turow, University of Pennsylvania If you would like to learn what the public says about their attitudes toward behaviorally-targeted advertising, this audio interview is for you. A recent study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California at Berkeley concludes that a two-to-one majority of Americans do not want marketers to tailor advertisements to their interests. The 1,000-person survey further indicates that nearly 90% of us particularly object to anonymous tracking of our Web-surfing for purposes of creating behaviorally-targeted ads. Our interview today is with Dr. Joseph Turow of the University of Pennsylvania who was one of the authors.   Despite the study’s conclusion it appears that consumers actually respond favorably to such ads. For example, both Amazon.com and Apple’s iTunes Store are hugely popular, yet both serve ads based upon our prior purchases and peregrinations within their websites. At Amazon.com the ads are presented as “suggestions”, but they are nonetheless advertisements. Such ads are thought to have some of the highest click-through rates on the Web. Similarly, the newspaper industry reports that the behaviorally targeted ads provided by Yahoo are among the most effective on newspaper websites. Although we sense that Dr. Turow would disagree, we are inclined to believe that the survey results partly reflect a natural human tendency to reject changes that we ourselves do not initiate. For example, a dozen years ago many parents tried to deny, or restrict, Internet access to their children. Today they recognize that the Net is as indispensible as TV. Although concerns remain, parents are unlikely to totally preclude Web access to their kids. Consider also that many terrestrial retailers have been tracking our behavior for years, but there seems to be little objection. For example, I get regular emails from Borders Books featuring special offers. Most of the time I simply delete them, but in a recent instance I was browsing at the store and recalled that I had received a 40% discount offer on any book of my choice. While at the store I read a few pages of Hallelujah Junction which is an autobiography of the contemporary classical composer, John Adams. When I got to the checkout desk, I merely showed the clerk the email discount offer on my iPhone. He said it was good enough, meaning that I did not have to print-out the coupon. In short, I saved 40% on the book. Furthermore, while reading it at home I discovered that I could sample some of Adams’ operas (Nixon in China and Dr. Atomic) on YouTube. The YouTube samples led me to Amazon.com’s download store where I purchased the symphonic version of Dr. Atomic. Unfortunately it was only available as complete album, so I had to also buy a second composition that I really did not want.  The second selection turned out to be okay, but I resented the fact that the label forced me to buy the entire album. I feel confident that label executives would similarly resent being forced to buy a $10,000 dealer-applied rust-proofing job merely because the new car they are buying is in short supply. In sum, everybody benefited from the behaviorally-targeted email from Borders Books. First, I got a 40% discount on a book that I would otherwise not have purchased at Borders. Second, YouTube got more traffic and a proselytizer for their Long Tail music videos. Third, John Adams connected with a potential buyer via the free YouTube samples. Fourth, the record label sold the music in the form of a $10 album instead of three individual tracks that would have generated only $3 in sales. (We may have more commentary on this in a later post). In conclusion, the basic premise of behavioral-targeting is to place more value in what people do as compared to what they say. Thus, maybe Turow’s study is more about what people say than what they will do.

Download to iPhone and iPod here. Last week I was on a panel at a conference for the Entertainment Law Institute of the Texas Bar in Austin. Our panel topic was “The Future of Video Distribution”. This video podcast summarizes my presentation. Andy Grove, who was the last of the three original Intel leaders to leave, liked to encourage employees to ask “What if?” questions. He felt they could lead to new discoveries about future change. Thus, we ponder, “What if all video were on the Internet instead of Cable TV?” Consider the impact on three constituencies, (1) Consumers, (2) Sponsors, and (3) Copyright Holders. Consumers will benefit in four ways. First, all programs will be available on demand. Broadcast schedules will be irrelevant and there will be no need to remember to TiVo anything. Second, shows will be viewable on any screen from mobile phone to TV. Third, content will be searchable. You’ll find what you want to watch by Googling it. Fourth, the Long-Tail will stretch to near infinity. Sponsors gain a number of advantages. First, viewership will be measurable. Second, commercials can be held accountable. Sponsors might be able to choose to pay for only those that actually get watched. Third, ads can be interactive thereby generating sales nearly instantaneously from the viewers. Fourth, ads can be addressable in a variety of ways including demographic, geographic, and behavioral targeting. Copyright Holders also stand to benefit. First, Internet distribution provides a Global market. Second, revenue opportunities for Long-Tail content become viable because there is no need for a minimum economic production run as would apply for DVDs. Hollywood studios will be able to sell downloads from their back catalog that are seldom available in the form of physical DVDs. Third, consumers will be able to make impulse purchases since the Internet is constantly available 24/7. Fourth, the Net provides opportunities for multiple revenue streams. Among them are (1) rentals, (2) downloads, (3) subscriptions, and (4) advertising. Inevitability. For the past 30 years we’ve been gradually attaching an increasing number of appliances to our TVs. In the first half of that period the devices were not Internet-connected and included items like Cable Set-Top boxes, Video Tape Players, and Video Game Consoles. However, during the last 15 years most such appliances are Internet-connected. Examples are laptop computers, Apple TV, (modern) Video Game Consoles, and even the iPhone and iPod. As a result, the TV is being transformed into a dual function device. In one context it remains a TV as we have always known it, but in a second it is becoming a giant window into the Internet Cloud. Thus, the question is not “What if all video were on the Internet?” but instead is “When will all video migrate to the Net.” To learn more about how your business can exploit or adapt to such changes, 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 What if sponsors paid for video ads only when they are actually watched? As John Wanamaker put it long ago, “I know that half of my advertising is wasted, I just don’t know which half.” For over half-a-Century Nielsen audience rating have supposedly addressed Wanamaker’s question for television ads. It’s the foundation supporting a $70 billion annual business. It’s supposed to tell advertisers which programs viewers are watching and for how long. Given present computer technology it’s downright stunning when one learns Nielsen’s techniques for collecting its data. With so much money on the table there’s a lot at stake. Some industry constituents want to update the measurement technology while others want no changes at all. Any changes are likely to upset somebody’s apple cart. That’s probably why progress in measurement methodology has moved at the pace of continental drift. Nonetheless, sponsors pay the bills and ultimately they’re going to demand more for their money. Nielsen’s flagship service tries to estimate the viewing habits of our entire nation from a polling process based upon imperfect diaries of 18,500 homes. Given the sample size, three-fourths of the 400 cable and broadcast networks are simply not watched enough to be accurately measured. Except for the top 20 markets, Nielsen mostly relies upon paper-logs that panel members (i.e. participating consumers) maintain on the honor system. Even in larger markets where Nielsen provides electronic log-entry, the company acknowledges that users sometimes press the wrong key resulting in a measurement error of up to eight-percentage-points. Owing to the shortcomings of Nielsen data, a number of vendors sell supplemental information. TiVo is one example. With several million DVRs deployed across the nation they provide more granular and real-time data. For example, TiVo can tell how long a viewer watches a commercial. Similarly, the CATV industry hopes to provide far more detailed and accurate data via its Project Canoe initiative. Unfortunately, Project Canoe faces a significant technical challenge. Data formats are inconsistent among different CATV systems. Some set-top boxes are incapable of capturing data and passing it back to the head-end. Each Multiple System Operator (e.g. Comcast, Time-Warner, etc) has proprietary elements in its networks. Proprietary inconsistencies are amplified to the nth degree considering that each MSO is by definition an amalgamation of independent systems typically acquired over decades. In sum, the problem of getting universally accurate measurements out of the legacy CATV and Satellite platforms is going to be as convoluted as the Gordian Knot. Ultimately, the solution could well be to simply cut the knot by putting all video on the Internet. Standards on the Net are decades old, uniform, and well understood by an abundance of developers all over the planet. Measurements can be in real-time and sliced & diced nearly infinitely. Most significantly, Internet sponsors are increasingly demanding Cost-Per-Action (CPA) advertising. Google AdWords conditioned them to expect that it is only necessary to pay when a visitor clicks on ads. Once video resides on the Net, sponsors may insist that they only pay for video ads that get watched.  The new paradigm will nearly eliminate the utility of audience measurement statistics as we have known them. We’ll want different data, but it will be more readily attained on the Net where the granularity and accuracy of measurement is infinitely better. To advertising executives who don’t want to be accountable for the performance of their ads, such a paradigm shift is so horrible as to be unthinkable. So they may choose to simply avoid thinking about it. To them, it’s a creation of Satan anyway, more destructive to their business as the ability of the iPhone to display its Internet Videos on a television screen. Yet, when sponsors pay for video ads only when they actually get watched, the ghost of John Wannamaker will break into a happy grin.

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.