Technology meets people.

November 2009 Blog Posts (9)

NewTeeVee Live: Who Cares Who’s Paying the Bills?

Today is Thanksgiving in the States. And, in addition to my family and friends, I am thankful for over-the-top video in all its varieties and monikers—Internet video, streaming video on demand, online TV, hybrid OTT/Pay TV, whatever you want to call it. Simply put— it’s exciting. It is fresh. It’s creative destruction. For an old telecom/IPTV salt like me, it’s welcome news.

For many of us, today is a day when we gather around the dinner… Continue

Added by Brian Mahony on November 26, 2009 at 12:30am — No Comments

NewTeeVee Session Notes

Below are my stream of consciousness session notes from the NewTeeVee conference sessions, exhibits, and cocktail hour chats. I will leave it up to you to extract whatever pearls of wisdom you can find.

Xbox Live

• Marc Whitten, GM for Xbox Live, seems to really understand how important the interface is for OTT video. Most of us usually talk about the “lean forward” and “lean back” positions. Marc described those but also… Continue

Added by Brian Mahony on November 26, 2009 at 12:00am — No Comments

Bold or Bogus? Digi International's Move toward Smart Grid Technology

Research Analyst Bucks Naysayers

By Joyce Pellino Crane

Jay M. Meier may be out on a lonely limb, but the senior research analyst at Feltl and Company is unwavering in his enthusiasm for Digi International, Inc. (Nasdaq:DGII)

Meier is recommending Digi as… Continue

Added by Joyce Pellino Crane on November 23, 2009 at 1:30pm — No Comments

Telco TV Stars: Orca, PeerTV, Skitter.TV

As I noted in my earlier post, it was not all doom and gloom at TelcoTV last week. There were a few bright spots, all having to do with hybrid IPTV/OTT video solutions. Here are the highlights:

Orca Gets It

Kudos to Israeli IPTV middleware company Orca Interactive… Continue

Added by Brian Mahony on November 17, 2009 at 9:00am — No Comments

TelcoTV: Where’s the Innovation?

As you know I spent this past week shuttling from Boston to Orlando to San Francisco. Two days at TelcoTV, then on to the one-day NewTeeVee event (and then the red-eye flight back to Boston from which I write this blog). Below are my thoughts on the TelcoTV event (I will post a summary of NewTeeVee separately).

Overall the event was OK. More or less as I expected. The show was well organized, with a good conference schedule, and a fairly… Continue

Added by Brian Mahony on November 13, 2009 at 8:30am — 1 Comment

TelcoTV Conference Session Highlights

Here are my stream of consciousness notes from the conference sessions at TelcoTV, and from walking around the show floor.

Roku

• Jim Funk, VP BD for Roku, says online video sites like Netflix make heavy use of CDNs, and encode streams from 500K up to 3.5 MBs depending on the connection that is available. For this reason he suggested that “Internet” video is somewhat of a misnomer, since a lot of effort is expended… Continue

Added by Brian Mahony on November 12, 2009 at 9:30am — No Comments

iPod Touch 3.1 Content Filtering

Apple’s iPod Touch version 3.1 update adds a feature that parents have been clamoring for--content filtering. It is now possible to filter content based on a predetermined setting. Prior releases allowed disabling applications such as YouTube or Safari and the icons would disappear from the screen. This release has a more refined approach to parental controls. It is now possible to filter based on the rating of the content. For example, movies can be… Continue

Added by Michael Whalen on November 12, 2009 at 6:00am — No Comments

Clarity - Canvas-HbbTV-TV Everywhere

Not all things are exactly what they seem...Looking deeper into the requirements, market realities and politics of Hybrid TV solutions.

1. Canvas is supposed to solve a BBC "business issue" which is the exhorbitant cost associated with Re-Purposing and Re-authoring of Content to deliver over the Internet…Just look at the technology (we have to) and there lies the issue – which of the 14 Codecs, which of the multiple DRM do you select is it Video or Video and Interactivity - if the… Continue

Added by Anthony Smith-Chaigneau on November 12, 2009 at 1:30am — No Comments

CyberTerrorism and the Smart Grid

Is There a Crack in the (Fire)Wall?

Joyce Pellino Crane

Last December when 325,000 Massachusetts homes went dark for days on end, I finally understood the transformative powers of electricity.

For starters, my hair went limp when the blow dryer didn't turn on, my laundry piled high, my food froze in the garage, and my stove was stone cold. After five days of living like Pioneer Woman, I got tired of waiting for the utility company to restring… Continue

Added by Joyce Pellino Crane on November 11, 2009 at 4:30pm — No Comments