"Blu-ray Disc" vs. "HD DVD": Neither Is Winning

[Jerry Jones]

AT&T's U-verse IPTV high definition service:

http://www.att.com/gen/sites/iptv?pid=8695

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Hulk]

Jerry,

But I can't get the Verizon service in my area? I called and checked.

Looks like I'm gonna be dancing to the Hustle for a while longer!

[Dr Mordrid]

U-verse if failing miserably because of low image quality and reliability. Just check their support forum and the economic rags.

[Jerry Jones]

U-verse if failing miserably because of low image quality and reliability. Just check their support forum and the economic rags.

AT&T U-verse?

"Failing miserably?"

I think not.

Growing pains, yes.

But failing?

That's way too harsh for a pure IP (Internet Protocol) TV service such as AT&T U-verse.

Traditional cable companies are in big trouble from Verizon's FiOS and AT&T's U-verse:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071025-comcasts-growth-slows-as-pressure-from-fios-u-verse-ratchets-up.html

And here's an article about the forthcoming feature advances from U-verse:

http://www.screenplaysmag.com/tabid/160/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/735/Default.aspx

• Not only caller ID displayed on the television, but rollover of the call to voice mail, display of a ‘You Have Voice Mail’ message on the TV, then forwarding of the voice mail to a cell phone based on a location-based application.
• Display on the TV of a text message from a father’s cell phone to his kids: “TV off. Do your homework.” This application points to a multitude of offerings that might be created through IP’s “ability to integrate video with unified messaging and SMS,” Hill said. “You can imagine what kids might do on a chat basis—‘This program is great,’ or ‘This program sucks’,” as they watch the same TV show in different locations.
• Emailing of a photo from a cell phone to a set-top DVR, then discovering and viewing the photo using the TV onscreen guide.
• Liberating AT&T’s VideoShare service from its current cell phone-only implementation to make live videos available to U-verse and on the Web. The ability to access any Web-connected video source “is a matter of time and technology,” he said.
• A “Family Finder” application—located by global positioning satellite technology in family member mobile phones and viewed via graphical and satellite mapping technologies—and the ability to call the person located. “We didn’t create the maps or the GPS. That ease of integration…is what’s different about IPTV,” Hill said.
• Transmission of live video from a high-resolution, consumer video camera in a distant location to the IPTV set-top, a personal video channel that amounts to one of many potential switched digital video services, he said.
• A “Flight Tracker” application displayed on the TV and, like the “Family Finder” application, navigable by flight number or other information via the TV remote control.
• Access to a personal video recorded by a subscriber on a high-resolution, consumer camera, uploaded through an AT&T U-cast service to the Web and made available for discovery and viewing via the TV at home or by relatives far away.
• Access to live, localized weather via applications that incorporate not only data and animated, zoomable maps, but access to the most recent weather report from a local broadcaster.
• Access to music and information services via Web radio and podcasts, searchable by parameters including show name and data, such as the BBC Radio podcast accessed by England-born Hill.
• Access to movie trailers and information, as well as DVD and videotape shopping via AT&T’s Cinema Center portal and Amazon.com.
• Access to Yahoo! Flickr photo albums via the TV.
• Remote management of favorite channel and DVR recordings on a per-family-member and per-TV basis via an iPhone Safari browser. This demonstration featured Hill using an iPhone to “take over” two of four TVs in a home while his onstage assistant used another iPhone to take over a third TV. Hill then used the iPhone as a remote control to channel surf via a Slingbox-like infrared blaster technology.

Yes, I'd say there's a new world of opportunity ahead of us now.



Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Jerry Jones]

Keep your eyes on the APPLE TV Web page:

http://www.apple.com/appletv/

I suspect this is going to be upgraded by APPLE soon.



Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Jerry Jones]

SanDisk's TakeTV device is explained on a very entertaining new Web site:

http://www.take.tv/

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Hulk]

Jerry can you explain this to me?

My cable internet connection can sustain about 5-6Mbps. Just about good enough for MPEG-2 DVD streaming. And that assumes everything remains perfect for the duration of the movies. Their servers are cranking and the internet is not overloaded.

How am I supposed to receive more than double that bandwidth in H.264 HD to get a good picture? I suppose that if the compression is really good you can get a decent HD picture at 12Mbps but that is even pretty sketchy.

These places can advertise the world to you but then deliver a subpar viewing experience. So many of these links you post will be vaporware in a matter of months I believe.

Like I said I'm all for streaming but it's just not available for me. I've checked out your links and there's either only SD, or no selection of movies, or no service!

And I see I have a lot of neighbors around me and we're all dancing to "That's the Way."

[Jerry Jones]

Apple high definition movie rentals here:

http://www.apple.com/appletv/rentals.html

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Jerry Jones]

My cable internet connection can sustain about 5-6Mbps. Just about good enough for MPEG-2 DVD streaming. How am I supposed to receive more than double that bandwidth in H.264 HD to get a good picture? I suppose that if the compression is really good you can get a decent HD picture at 12Mbps but that is even pretty sketchy.

My Sony HDR-UX1 AVCHD camcorder delivers a 1080i (1920 x 1080 interlaced) picture at a data rate of 12 Mbps and the picture is amazingly good.

That's the magic of H.264 MPEG-4 over the antiquated HD MPEG-2!

With H.264 MPEG-4, a very decent HD picture can be delivered at a lower data rate.

A key point I've been trying to make is that traditional cable, satellite, and over-the-air delivery faces new competition from IPTV.

FiOS by Verizon may not be considered a "pure" IPTV system, but it's getting closer.

U-verse by AT&T is an IPTV delivery system.

As you can see, the FiOS system by Verizon is already available in three packages.

1. The first FiOS package offers 5 Mbps for $29.99.
2. The middle FiOS package offers 15 Mbps -- already higher than the native data recording rate of my Sony AVCHD camcorder -- for $49.99.
3. The third FiOS package -- admittedly for wealthy people -- offers a whopping 30 Mbps for $179.95.

SEE: http://www22.verizon.com/content/con...and+prices.htm

I predict these high bandwidth IPTV services will begin to grab marketshare away from more traditional forms of delivery.

And they will become increasingly affordable.

And the downloading of huge files and live streaming of HD content -- already possible now -- will just explode in the coming year.

http://www.thehdweb.com/about.html

"HD DVD" and "Blu-ray Disc?"

Dead as DISCo.



Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Jerry Jones]

For those who doubt that enough bandwidth is available for the HD Web, read Akamai's excellent PDF about "distributed computing" and how a high quality experience on the Web *is* possible, in spite of growing Web traffic:

http://www.akamai.com/dl/whitepapers/HD_Web_Whitepaper.pdf

This is a fascinating document.



Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Jerry Jones]

SanDisk's TakeTV product to be supported by FANFARE download service:

http://www.sandisk.com/fanfare/intro/

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Jerry Jones]

Content available on FANFARE:

http://fanfare.sandisk.com/#catalog/9/Smithsonian/22/StoriesFromTheVaults/108/StoriesFromTheVaults

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Jerry Jones]

Very interesting Los Angeles Times news article about efforts to bridge the gap between computer and TV in the household:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oew-healey29oct29,0,4104736.story?coll=la-opinion-center

The article makes reference to Quartics' PC2TV chip and one of the products using it, the Addlogix InternetVue 2100.

http://addlogix.com/peripheral_sharing/echoviewfm.htm

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Jerry Jones]

Back ordered for now, the TVIX HD M-4100SH price seems fairly reasonable when you consider it can handle 1920 x 1080 playback to the TV:

http://www.digitalconnection.com/products/video/tvixm4100sh.asp?gclid=CJSUj96Qt48CFRWZYAoddH67Zw

$379.00



Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Tjalfe]

is that not without a hard disk?
so once you add the hard disk, it will cost the same as a BD player, already now it cost more than a HD DVD player.. and you still have to pay for the downloads.. sounds like Disco to me :P