Supreme court to decide if company can stream OTA tv over the internet

So this is what I don't get.

The company (Aereo - aereo.com) dedicates a small antenna (and, I guess, tuner) to you that you can access over the internet for a small monthly charge. This lets you watch what-ever TV channel the antenna can pick up.

Now what I don't know is:

- is there really a market for watching TV on a cell phone or tablet?

- are you matched (geographically) to an antenna in your locale, so that you are only allowed to stream a TV transmission that would be equivalent to what you could receive OTA where you physically are at that moment?

But my biggest question is:

If people really do want to watch TV on their mobile devices, then why on earth hasn't the makers of these devices (phones, tablets) responded years ago by putting ATSC tuners in them SO YOU CAN WATCH LOCAL TV DIRECTLY OTA WITHOUT USING ANY INTERNET / DATA BANDWITDH ?

Does anyone have an explanation as to why the cell phone and tablet market isin't sufficiently competitive such that some maker would have raised the bar by including an ATSC tuner in at least some versions of their products?

How on earth can it make sense to stream live OTA tv to a portable device when the device could have it's own friggen TV tuner built in?

Reply to
Home Guy
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So this is what I don't get.

The company (Aereo - aereo.com) dedicates a small antenna (and, I guess, tuner) to you that you can access over the internet for a small monthly charge. This lets you watch what-ever TV channel the antenna can pick up.

Now what I don't know is:

- is there really a market for watching TV on a cell phone or tablet?

- are you matched (geographically) to an antenna in your locale, so that you are only allowed to stream a TV transmission that would be equivalent to what you could receive OTA where you physically are at that moment?

But my biggest question is:

If people really do want to watch TV on their mobile devices, then why on earth hasn't the makers of these devices (phones, tablets) responded years ago by putting ATSC tuners in them SO YOU CAN WATCH LOCAL TV DIRECTLY OTA WITHOUT USING ANY INTERNET / DATA BANDWITDH ?

Does anyone have an explanation as to why the cell phone and tablet market isin't sufficiently competitive such that some maker would have raised the bar by including an ATSC tuner in at least some versions of their products?

How on earth can it make sense to stream live OTA tv to a portable device when the device could have it's own friggen TV tuner built in?

Reply to
Home Guy

So this is what I and Oren don't get.

The company (Aereo - aereo.com) dedicates a small antenna (and, I guess, tuner) to you that you can access over the internet for a small monthly charge. This lets you watch what-ever TV channel the antenna can pick up.

Now what I don't know is:

- is there really a market for watching TV on a cell phone or tablet?

- are you matched (geographically) to an antenna in your locale, so that you are only allowed to stream a TV transmission that would be equivalent to what you could receive OTA where you physically are at that moment?

But my biggest question is:

If people really do want to watch TV on their mobile devices, then why on earth hasn't the makers of these devices (phones, tablets) responded years ago by putting ATSC tuners in them SO YOU CAN WATCH LOCAL TV DIRECTLY OTA WITHOUT USING ANY INTERNET / DATA BANDWITDH ?

Does anyone have an explanation as to why the cell phone and tablet market isin't sufficiently competitive such that some maker would have raised the bar by including an ATSC tuner in at least some versions of their products?

How on earth can it make sense to stream live OTA tv to a portable device when the device could have it's own friggen TV tuner built in?

Reply to
Home Guy

It's not just a cell phone or tablet. You can stream it to any PC and also to devices that are connected directly to your TV. I guess the question is how much and when the typical person would watch it. If people are traveling, they might want to watch the local news. Or if some big story breaks, I can see watching on a phone or tablet. But it wouldn't be my main way of viewing, that's for sure. You'd also have to be on wifi, or you'd run up mins real fast on the cell network.

AFAIK, you can only watch stations in your local, home area, but you can watch them from anywhere.

Seems like it would be a good idea.... for consumers. But for the cell phone carriers, not so much. Instead of paying for data service minutes to watch TV, you'd be watching it for free. That's probably why you don't see it.

See the above.

See the above.

Now let's get to what I don't understand. The networks have their shorts in a knot and brought this suit against Aero. What I don't get is what's the big threat? The networks are putting this out over the air for free and all you need is an antenna to receive it. They get paid for advertising based on the number of viewers. The more viewers, the more $$$. I guess what's threatened is that they are getting paid by cable companies who carry their broadcasts. Which seems kind of funny too, no? With an antenna you can get it for free, but to watch it on cable, you're paying the fees that the network collects from the cable companies.

Reply to
trader_4

Would it have anything to do with lack of Nielsen ratings over the web? Or is there some way to measure viewers?

Reply to
Dean Hoffman

Home Guy:

Samsung and Nokia are simply responding to market demand. You can buy video cards for desktop computers that include TV tuners so that you can watch TV on your computer monitor, but those video cards don't sell well. For some reason, the 16 to 24 age group would much prefer to play video games and tweet on their desktop computers than watch TV.

The answer really lies in the fact that people are social animals. We prefer to be with other people given the option, whether it be to work or to play, we prefer the social interaction of "company". And, a computer that allows you to tweet with others and respond to tweets or to friend other people on facebook and respond to their facebook page is infinately more to our liking than the non-participatory one way conversation that happens on TV. There simply isn't a demand for TV on our computers because we're not as drawn to TV as we are to venues that allow social interaction like Twitter and Facebook.

PS: This is definitely OT, but much of the reason why apes, dolphins and people have disproportionately larger brains than other members of the animal kingdom is that apes, dolphins and people have a social interaction with others of our own species. If you're an alligator lying in wait at a watering hole for a gazelle to come within striking range, you don't need a big brain. If that gazelle comes close enough for you to get your jaws around it, that's your meal and the thought of sharing it with other aligators doesn't even cross your mind. But, if you're not a big strong alligator, you may have to rely on the help of others to hunt down that gazelle. Some of you might chase the gazelle toward a narrow passage way where others of you may be lying in wait with a net or spears. In that case, the gazelle doesn't just go to the hunter that killed it, but to all who participated in capturing and killing it. And, it's that much more sophisticated social interaction associated with working together to hunt prey, and then sharing the fruits of the hunt with all of the other hunters that's required apes, dolphins and humans to develop a larger brain. So, social interaction is hard wired into our brains, and the one way conversation that TV can provide simply doesn't interest us as much as two or multiple way conversations with other people.

Reply to
nestork

The networks put a lot of effort to keep the OTA stuff viewable only on TV's, and the stuff that they stream on the internet (either directly or via Hulu) to be visible on everything else (computers, tablets, phones, etc).

If you look at set-top boxes like Google's "Google TV" - it first came out in 2010 and was largely a market failure.

It failed because of one simple thing: The "User-Agent" string that it used when it made contact with web sites made it identifiable to those servers - and they refused to send it content.

In other words, when you use a traditional computer browser to go to a site like cbs.com, the cbs server knows what computer you have, and what browser you have (at the very least). So it sees that you're using a regular computer and is happy to serve content to you.

But Google's TV box used a "User-Agent" string that, rightly or wrongly allows the cbs (or any server) to know that you're using a specific set-top box, and they don't want you watching their internet feed on your TV through the box, so they simply don't serve you the content.

Now why google didn't just fake the user-agent string to make it appear as, say, an android tablet, or even more tricky, a windows PC running some mozilla browser - I don't know. Or why google worked so hard to make it hard for users to hack the user-agent string on that box, I don't know.

But bottom line is that the networks really really don't want you watching OTA tv channels on portable devices, phones or computers (laptop, desktop, etc) and they really really don't want you to be able to watch their streaming web-content on a regular TV (through a set-top box, "smart tv", or when connected to a media PC).

It probably would throw their survey ratings into question, throw a wrench into their advertising rates for OTA and web, and maybe cause headaches in terms of distribution rights.

Reply to
Home Guy

This may be the big one. I have a friend who worked on getting Miami Vice ready for hime. Since this was a form of distribution not in the original agreements, they had a whole bunch of problems getting the rights for the songs used in the background. Because of all sorts of convoluted publishing agreements, it took them something like 3 years just to get the clearance for the rock music in the sound track.

Reply to
Kurt Ullman

I don't see why they can't measure ratings for any media. Nilesen picks out names just like would be done for any survey. They send you a survey that asks you to keep track of what you watch for a week. No reason that couldn't include what you watch via streaming. If it's done for TV, cable, radio, etc, there isn't any reason they can't figure it out for streaming video.

But you already have two ways of distribution being treated totally different. If you receive via an antenna, it's free. If you receive via cable, the cable company is paying a huge amount to the broadcaster for the right to distribute what otherwise would be free and you in turn are paying for it in your cable bill. I think that revenue stream is what the broadcasters are trying to protect.

Reply to
trader_4

Isin't it true (or maybe it was in the past?) that cable-co's could take any signal off the air and rebroadcast them across the local cable plant without having to pay the networks or the station broadcasting the signal - as long as they carried it exactly as it was broadcast - no substitution of commercials?

It would have to be a signal that the cable-co would have to receive with their own antenna and gear - no link or legwork done by the transmitting station?

Wasn't the same done by satellite tv providers - in fact they were mandated by law to broadcast local TV channels (not sure how that's done when a satellite signal can be received by half the continent).

Reply to
Home Guy

A highpoint of the TV series 'Tour of Duty' was the soundtrack, starting with 'Paint it Black' over the opening credits. I didn't even put it on my queue when I realized the DVD release had all the original music replaced with elevator music. One of the extra material tracks on one DVD said it was cheaper to record original compositions in the style of the era the movie is set in than trying to secure rights.

Reply to
rbowman

Apparently it was free in the past, but isn't free today:

"What is that Broadcast TV Surcharge on my statement? The Broadcast TV Surcharge is a pass through reflecting charges assessed to Charter by the owners of local broadcast, or local "network-affiliated," T V stations. While broadcast stations distribute their signals over the air using free spectrum granted to them by the federal government, they charge Charter significant amounts to carry their TV signals. These signals were h istorically made available to Charter at no cost, or low cost. However, the prices now demanded by broadcast stations have necessitated that we pass t hese costs on to customers. "

The above is what the broadcasters in the suit before the SC are trying to protect. But, how big of a deal it is, I'm not convinced. For example, even if it's available to me, I'm not going to use it and give up cable. There is a lot on cable I watch, the broadcast stuff is maybe 5% of it. And if they looked at the positive side, ie that now people could be watching their station *with the commercials* on a tablet, smartphone, etc, it sure seems to me it's like getting more people to tune to their already free OTA broadcasts. Isn't that what they want? More viewers so they can charge higher advertising rates? It seems to me they want to try to hijack and make anything on the internet pay, versus viewing it as an extension of their already free service.

That's how they apparently receive it here. Cablevision has a huge tower at their site, with a bunch of what look like regular TV antennas, aimed at NYC.

IDK what they were mandated to do, what was free, etc. But they only allow you access to the locals in your own area, AFAIK.

Reply to
trader_4

Maybe I missed something here, but what are Samsung and Nokia doing to respond to market demand? If anything, they aren't responding, because HG has a valid point, they could put an ATSC tuner into a smartphone so that you could watch broadcast TV directly.

You can buy

Which has nothing to do with the issue at hand.

Reply to
trader_4

Not just Nokia or Samsung.

Apple doesn't do it either in their iPhone.

And even Blackberry, on the brink of going out of business as a cell phone maker, didn't reach for what could have been a huge gimick to raise their sales by giving their phones the ability to receive TV signals.

I heard recently that a software upgrade could give some new and older Blackberry phones the ability to turn on an FM radio receiver that the phones apparently already have - but nobody knew?

There is something wierd going on in the portable device market space, especially cell phones, where the makers of these devices consistently fail to give these devices the capability to experience and take advantage of existing free radio signals and broadcasts of various sorts.

Yes, cell phones can receive and make use of wifi, but I get the impression that even that was grudgingly given.

Reply to
Home Guy

I previously stated what that reason very likely would be. The cell phone manufacturer's customers are the cell phone carriers. If you can watch TV on the cell phone directly instead of watching it or even something else on their data network, you don't use airtime minutes. Airtime minutes is what keeps them in business.

Not really. AFAIK, the carriers didn't get knots in their shorts over it. But they still won't let you use wifi on a phone on their network, unless you have a data plan. But, you raise a good point. If they are so fearful of watching TV directly and that is why the phone manufacturers aren't putting it in, why did they allow wifi to go in?

Reply to
trader_4

There apparently is, because this company has sold out all of its available antennas in some markets. The only time I'd be interested would be when I'm sitting in the basement with the power out during a storm, and I wanted to keep abreast of the tv broadcast weather reporting.

It's more than the tuner. You also need a decent antenna - and you're not going to be able to fit one inside a mobile device.

Reply to
Moe DeLoughan

Good point, perhaps you've hit on the reason. The Aero TV company uses a postage stamp size antenna, but presumably they are locating their facilities very close to the Xmitter.

Reply to
trader_4

Really OTA is obsolete, its used by about 8% of the population many of which have cable or sat. at the time of digital conversion OTA should of been killed.

TV bandwidth is more useful for cell phones

Cable and sat would be happy to pick up more subscribers, at say 10 bucks a pop for lifeline service.

Ending OTA would save a lot of electricity...

tv stations could resell their bandwidth for cell.

Reply to
bob haller

Used to be that cable systems were subjected to Must Carry Laws meaning just that because the locals were concerned about being shut out. Then CATV got to be big biz and TV stations decided they wanted a cut and got the Congress to change the law.

Reply to
Kurt Ullman

If only they'd done the same for WKRP instead of replacing all the rock music with public-domain crap.

Reply to
Scott Lurndal

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