After experiencing the Apple iPod Nano commercial in HD and 5.1 surround sound I got to thinking about web video and the experience it brings. Many have said that the web will be the death of television and DVDs, but I highly doubt that. I think online video will kill television just as much as satellite radio killed terrestrial radio. No, I believe that online video is a completely different medium that will supplement traditional television and will start to actually merge into your home set-top-box.
Imagine your new TiVo Series 3 that can play back HD and 5.1 surround sound which you already have hooked to your television and sound system. You can record all of the content you want on television in beautiful HD quality. Now take that a step further and download beautiful HD content from the web, some in 5.1 surround, some not. The online content acts as a 'season pass' just like your television content does. The episodes of online shows are mixed right in with your television shows. There's a nifty icon that shows that the show was pulled from an RSS feed online, but that's about the only difference. It's easy to subscribe to content in a 'online video' menu where I can search by title, author, genre, etc.
While a Series 2 TiVo can do part of this today, to my understanding it's not quite as integrated as I mentioned. I don't have a Series 2 so I can only go by what I read on the web, hopefully someone with more information than I can chime in, but at the very least I know that the Series 3 can do none of what I ask. There are other solutions as well such as Media Center PCs and Apple's iTV, but I don't believe these are what will truly bring Internet TV to the masses. The Microsoft Media Center is still too computer-centric and while the software itself runs well, it's not nearly as easy to run as a TiVo. Just look at the keyboard included and you'll see what I mean. Techies can use it fine, but my mom can't. Then there's Apple's iTV which we don't have a lot of detail on, but I would be willing to bet it's a download only solution, no live TV. The ultimate solution is not an either/or product, it will allow us to run whatever we need to get the content we want.
The problem with my proposal is not the hardware or software but rather the online content available today. If you look at video sharing sites such as YouTube or Google Video I think you'll find the quality sub-par. It's simply not what we're used to and with the advent of HD it seems silly to have sub-SD quality displayed on that new $5,000 plasma. I believe that the online Video Blogs should take note and begin producing everything in progressive High Definition; however, we need some guidance. We need a vendor to step up to the plate and offer an integrated solution that will allow for live TV and downloaded TV in a set-top-box configuration to give us the details on what CODECs and formats they want it in. TiVo, I hereby challenge you to change the television industry again. You made a splash with time shifting, now how about content-shifting?
