Interesting article on Google TV.

[bobhaze]

Note the last line. Perhaps its Sage to the rescue.

Bob

"By JOHN LETZING

The Augusta Chronicle/Zuma Press


Consumers dislike Google TV so much that they are now giving the product back.
Gadgets that use the company's Google TV software to connect televisions to the Internet are selling so poorly that one of Google's key partners disclosed Thursday that customer returns are outpacing sales.
Logitech International SA, which makes the Revue set-top box and special keyboard built on the search giant's technology, said Revue revenue was "slightly negative" in the latest quarter as more units were returned than purchased.
"There was a significant gap between our price and the value perceived by the consumer," explained Logitech Chairman Guerrino De Luca, in a conference call Thursday.
In a bid to spur sales, Logitech said it would lower the Revue's price to $99 from $249. The Swiss company had earlier this year cut the price from $299.
While Mr. De Luca admitted his company misjudged the market, he said the Revue's poor sales are "partly due to the fact that Google TV has not yet fully delivered to its own promises."
"We launched Revue with the expectation that it would generate significant sales growth in spite of a relatively high price point and the newness of both the smart TV category and the underlying platform," Mr. De Luca said. "In hindsight, there are number of things we should have done differently."
The lackluster performance of the Revue marks a setback for Google Inc.'s television ambitions. The company unveiled its Google TV software to much fanfare at its developers conference last year. The product was part of the company's broader push to become a force in the distribution of TV shows, movies and other media content.
However, Google faced resistance from major networks, which worried their businesses would be undermined if their programming was made available via Google TV. The device was also dogged by complaints that it was complicated to use.
A Google spokeswoman said Logitech's move wouldn't deter the Internet giant from pursuing its TV projects. Sony Corp. also makes Internet-connected TVs powered by Google's software.
"It's still early days for smart TVs and we're investing to continue to bring innovation and progress for our partners and users," she said. The company will provide users with an updated version of Google TV later this year, she said.


Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904800304576474581913302222.html#ixzz1TWBVlKET"

[Fonceur]

Originally Posted by bobhaze

Note the last line. Perhaps its Sage to the rescue.

Sounds more like GoogleTV moving to Android 3.x and gaining The Market access, rather than the SageTV acquisition coming into play...

[mistergq]

We can only hope that Jeff was brought in for his connections to Silicon Dust and Hauppauge to begin building relationships and developing software that will allow DVR support.

I think a revised "webtv" interferace will not be what is needed to take GTV to the next level. They need real world solution that brings online video and regular TV to the interface.

[davephan]

Originally Posted by bobhaze

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904800304576474581913302222.html#ixzz1TWBVlKET"

I couldn't read more, it seems to require a Wall Street web subscription, very annoying.

It's not surprising that GoogeTV is failing. The people are designing Google are not thinking logically. People that watch TV don't want to type into a keyboard. They want to watch TV. If they wanted to type into a keyboard, they would use their computer not their TV. This should be obvious after thinking about it for 5 seconds or less.

People do not want to watch TV on portable devices with 2 - 5 inch screens. The bigger the screen, the better the TV experience. People might watch a video for a few minutes and suffer with a tiny screen, but will never watch full length movies or even 30 minute TV shows on a tiny screen.

The general public may want some of the SageTV features, but it would need to be very simple to operate, using the 'keep it simple stupid' philosophy. If everything is streamed from the Internet, GoogeTV will die very quickly, since the bandwidth caps will kill it. The only way around the problem is for Google to own the Internet distribution system or pay off the Internet providers to exempt Google from the bandwidth caps. Otherwise streamed GoogeTV is guaranteed to fail.

Google is a search engine and advertising company. They are trying to become a communication company. The lack of communication about the future of GoogeTV and SageTV speaks volumes about why GoogleTV is failing. Google could be boasting about all the features GoogeTV will have when it is released, but they don't. They are trying to follow Apple's strategy of keeping everything quiet until the release. This works for Apple, since they have a cult following, but will not work for Google.


Dave

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by bobhaze

The company will provide users with an updated version of Google TV later this year, she said.

They're just talking about GoogleTV 2, which has been in the works for a while.

Originally Posted by davephan

People do not want to watch TV on portable devices with 2 - 5 inch screens. The bigger the screen, the better the TV experience. People might watch a video for a few minutes and suffer with a tiny screen, but will never watch full length movies or even 30 minute TV shows on a tiny screen.

I agree with you on that. I don't understand the people on these forums that think SageTV's Placeshifter technology is key to GoogleTV's success. It might be a vaguely nice feature, since people do occasionally watch Netflix on iPhones/iPods, but I don't think its a make-or-break feature.

Originally Posted by davephan

If everything is streamed from the Internet, GoogeTV will die very quickly, since the bandwidth caps will kill it. The only way around the problem is for Google to own the Internet distribution system or pay off the Internet providers to exempt Google from the bandwidth caps. Otherwise streamed GoogeTV is guaranteed to fail.

After all, look how poorly Netflix and Roku are doing...

I recently read a statistic that showed there are more people streaming video than there are people using DVRs. GoogleTV could be a streaming-only device and still be succssful. In that case its not likely to completely replace cable company STBs, but I don't think it needs to. GoogleTV can supplement cable/satellite TV, rather than replace it. That's exactly what the Roku does, and the AppleTV.

I think the device costs involved in making a DVR-capable GoogleTV that would be prohibitive. There aren't going to be a lot of people dropping $250+ dollars on a GoogleTV to replace their Comcast STB. I think there are two ways to succeed. 1) Google strikes deals with content providers and releases a $100-$150 device that seriously challenges the Roku on content. Or 2) Google strikes deals with STB manufacturers and cable companies to lease GoogleTVs to subscribers, and forgets the retail market almost entirely.

[Fuzzy]

I think, if anything, the next bit of news on the Jeff + Google front would be another more concerted push for AllVid, seeing as SageTV and Google were both founding members of the AllVid alliance. Allvid would eliminate the 'do I replace my comcast stb with a googletv box' question, and it would instead be 'which AllVid client do i want to use with my Comcast gateway? Oh.. Google makes one with lots of internet goodies? okay.. I'll do that. AllVid is also thekey stepping stone towards moving this SageTV from niche to mainstream.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Allvid would eliminate the 'do I replace my comcast stb with a googletv box' question, and it would instead be 'which AllVid client do i want to use with my Comcast gateway? Oh.. Google makes one with lots of internet goodies? okay.. I'll do that. AllVid is also thekey stepping stone towards moving this SageTV from niche to mainstream.

I don't see how AllVid would magically change things from what we have today with CableCard. AllVid wouldn't eliminate the question you raised. You'd still have a choice between leasing a cable company supplied and maintained box, versus purchasing a moderately expensive box at retail (possibly with some sort of monthly fee). If people were willing to do that, Moxi and TiVo would have been much more successful.

Conceptually, CableCard isn't that much different than AllVid, if you view CableCard as a sort of gateway by itself. If Google wanted, they could have made CableCard-capable GoogleTVs (with the support of Logitech).

I suspect Sage wanted AllVid because they naively hopped it would be DRM-free. Other than possible support for satellite TV, there really weren't any other particularly compelling advantages to AllVid versus CableCard. Because Sage had a centralized server with thin clients, CableCard would have worked pretty well with Sage. A separate gateway device from Comcast wouldn't have been that helpful- really your Sage server with a CableCard tuner is your gateway.

I'm not quite sure why Google cares that much. Probably a combination of allowing cheaper clients, since they wouldn't need CableCard slots or QAM tuners, and perhaps an interest in being able to create PC-based clients.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by reggie14

I don't see how AllVid would magically change things from what we have today with CableCard. AllVid wouldn't eliminate the question you raised. You'd still have a choice between leasing a cable company supplied and maintained box, versus purchasing a moderately expensive box at retail (possibly with some sort of monthly fee). If people were willing to do that, Moxi and TiVo would have been much more successful.

Conceptually, CableCard isn't that much different than AllVid, if you view CableCard as a sort of gateway by itself. If Google wanted, they could have made CableCard-capable GoogleTVs (with the support of Logitech).

I suspect Sage wanted AllVid because they naively hopped it would be DRM-free. Other than possible support for satellite TV, there really weren't any other particularly compelling advantages to AllVid versus CableCard. Because Sage had a centralized server with thin clients, CableCard would have worked pretty well with Sage. A separate gateway device from Comcast wouldn't have been that helpful- really your Sage server with a CableCard tuner is your gateway.

I'm not quite sure why Google cares that much. Probably a combination of allowing cheaper clients, since they wouldn't need CableCard slots or QAM tuners, and perhaps an interest in being able to create PC-based clients.

Well for one thing the current Cablecard technology is one-way. That's why current Cablecards can't support PPV or VOD or a true interactive Program Guide. Supposedly the next generation would have handled this. But with the AllVid spec out there it would provide PPV, VOD, interactive Program guide and more. And also Cablecard has pretty much been deemed a failure.

The proposed gateway or adapter is named “AllVid” and FCC has pronounced it to bridge the gap between broadband connected devices and Telco networks, satellite-TV operator, multi-channel video programming distributors (MVPD) providing a common way to access those services.

In other words it doesn't matter where the source of your tv or media is. And because of that a search-engine type of appliance may make more sense. (GoogleTV)

The FCC has suggested IP and 100 Mbps Ethernet as the communications protocol and physical-layer interface for AllVid. But, it also wants to hear opinions if MoCA or other networking technologies can serve as a link between AllVid adapters and the navigation devices. For encryption and authentication, FCC has proposed that AllVid devices use the Digital Transmission Copy Protection over IP (DTCP-IP). DTCP-IP is used by Digital Living Networking Alliance (DLNA) standard and approved by cableLabs. FCC’s goal is to have a national interoperability standard just like the Ethernet and IEEE 802.11 have for broadband networks.

No escaping copy protection.

“The AllVid concept would follow the broadband approach.” “It will place the network specific functions such as conditional access, provisioning, reception and decoding of the signal in one small inexpensive, operator-provided adapter.” This means AllVid will handle the tuning and security functions and leave the gateway device to do-navigation, search and interactive program guides. According to one analyst, “The general trend will be that value-adding functions will move from the MPEG decoder to the broadband gateway or to servers on the cloud”.

So the sentence I bolded may just fit into a Google TV-SageTV type device.

Gerry

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by gplasky

Well for one thing the current Cablecard technology is one-way. That's why current Cablecards can't support PPV or VOD or a true interactive Program Guide. Supposedly the next generation would have handled this. But with the AllVid spec out there it would provide PPV, VOD, interactive Program guide and more. And also Cablecard has pretty much been deemed a failure.

Sure, I didn't mean to imply CableCard is exactly the same as AllVid. I just don't think the end result is that different, assuming retail CableCard devices were actually manufactured and purchased. Do you think lack of two-way support was really holding CableCard back.

And I agree CableCard has been a failure. That's sort of my point. I'm saying AllVid wouldn't be any different. Hoping that it might turn out better, because it certainly is marginally better than CableCard, doesn't seem like a good reason to make cable companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars changing their systems.

As a side note, I'm not quite sure what you mean by an interactive program guide. You might be referring to one of two things. Are you talking about guide data in AllVid? I kind of suspect the FCC would let cable companies provide a very, very small amount of data in the AllVid stream. But, I don't think the FCC has a stated position on that. Or are you talking about the user interface in Tru2way? With Tru2way the cable companies really wanted to control the interface people would see, so Comcast could push down an awful user interface to your Tru2way device rather than letting you use one from TiVo.

Originally Posted by gplasky

No escaping copy protection.

Right, but the letters that Sage sent in said they wanted a DRM free system.

[mephista]

I sincerely doubt anything put forth by the Sage TV / Google will be anything even close the the niche we are. From my perspective, I do not believe we are even close to their target audience. I am disappointed in the way the whole situation was handled. I understand Narflex wanting to move on to bigger and better things. However, to me it is clear we were just an afterthought of the whole process. And I'm sure once the year as up, Sage TV will be long gone.

Even if Google did release a replacement program, I'm pretty sure it would be something we wouldn't want. I'm not a big fan of google products and don't have any reason to believe they are capable of anything worth while.

I'm disappointed in the whole situation. I'm surprised we didn't even get as much as an email letting us know what was going on. I went to check out the website to see how the new version was coming along. And boom. Google bought Sage. I gave up on it right then.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by reggie14

Sure, I didn't mean to imply CableCard is exactly the same as AllVid. I just don't think the end result is that different, assuming retail CableCard devices were actually manufactured and purchased. Do you think lack of two-way support was really holding CableCard back.

And I agree CableCard has been a failure. That's sort of my point. I'm saying AllVid wouldn't be any different. Hoping that it might turn out better, because it certainly is marginally better than CableCard, doesn't seem like a good reason to make cable companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars changing their systems.

As a side note, I'm not quite sure what you mean by an interactive program guide. You might be referring to one of two things. Are you talking about guide data in AllVid? I kind of suspect the FCC would let cable companies provide a very, very small amount of data in the AllVid stream. But, I don't think the FCC has a stated position on that. Or are you talking about the user interface in Tru2way? With Tru2way the cable companies really wanted to control the interface people would see, so Comcast could push down an awful user interface to your Tru2way device rather than letting you use one from TiVo.




Right, but the letters that Sage sent in said they wanted a DRM free system.

CableCard is a failure because the MSO don't support it. the REASON they don't support it is it eliminates a large income stream (VoD, PPV, etc.) AllVid, on the other hand, easily supports those income streams, AND MORE, through direct advertising, and fully accurate watched histories. Obsolescence of sporatic nielson box guesswork for across the board knowledge of watched statistics.

Sage, for their part, were hoping to have the DRM removed in the home (past the gateway) for ease of integration of 'their' value added systems (the SageTV server). GoogleTV, on the other hand, would be just as happy with the DRM, as long as they can get all the googleTV devices to receive it fine. AllVid also uses standard, already in use, one way copy protection systems, such that the devices are not 'paired' like cablecard devices. The pairing/subscription services are done between the MSO and the gateway, and just the decryption/playback is done in the home, with the encryption keyed to just the gateway. this means recordings are stored in teh encrypted stream, and can be decoded and played back from any device connected to the gateway.

Either way, it is cablecards restriction to the individual cable card, and not the whole home, that had sage not interested in implementing it.

In the end, YES, the lack of two way held cablecard back, not because the end user desperately watned two way, but because those holding the keys to the content desperately watned two way. So, now the FCC has a choice, you can patch two-way communication into a system that is nearly 15 years old in design, made when most homes had only 1 primary television, and no real presense of PVR's, or put that two way support into a new system, that is more in line with the modern home, with existing home networks, multiple primary viewing locations, and multiple people wanting timeshifting and archiving capabilities.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

CableCard is a failure because the MSO don't support it. the REASON they don't support it is it eliminates a large income stream (VoD, PPV, etc.) AllVid, on the other hand, easily supports those income streams, AND MORE, through direct advertising, and fully accurate watched histories.

Cable companies do support CableCard though. While I've read the complaints online, everyone I know in real life with a TiVo says it works great with CableCard. Admittedly, CableCard seemed to have some rough times at the beginning, but the FCC almost forced decent CableCard support with their separable security requirement. Most new STBs use a CableCard, even if its not accessible by the customer.

You'd have roughly the same situation with AllVid. You could tell cable companies they'd have to use gateways and clients everywhere (though, that seems a little doubtful), but that still doesn't guarantee decent support.

Now, maybe you're right that better support for VOD would make AllVid a bit more palatable to cable companies, but given that CableCard support works pretty well on TiVo makes me think that support isn't the problem.

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Sage, for their part, were hoping to have the DRM removed in the home (past the gateway) for ease of integration of 'their' value added systems (the SageTV server).

Presumably their biggest complaint with DRM was that it would have been expensive to implement in software and hardware.

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

AllVid also uses standard, already in use, one way copy protection systems, such that the devices are not 'paired' like cablecard devices.

AllVid doesn't "use" anything, because it doesn't exist yet. The FCC has expressed interest in using a standard like DTCP, which of course was wildly successful with firewire...

Of course, DTCP doesn't solve the hard part of DRM. DTCP just protects the content in transmission. The tricky part is protecting the content once it gets on a device. You can't use DTCP for that- you'd need something else. There's really no standards for that, since that sort of DRM is device specific. But, if you want to use computers, PlayReady is one of the widest supported DRM schemes.

As a side note, PlayReady isn't part of the CableCard specification. The specification says you have to use a CableLabs approved DRM scheme. Microsoft went to the trouble of getting PlayReady approved. I think there's one other approved DRM scheme, but I don't remember what it is.

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

The pairing/subscription services are done between the MSO and the gateway, and just the decryption/playback is done in the home, with the encryption keyed to just the gateway. this means recordings are stored in teh encrypted stream, and can be decoded and played back from any device connected to the gateway.

That's access control, not DRM. The FCC has already expressed support for DRM, which requires encryption to the playback device.

Now, you're right that you could handle the encryption in hops, and just have the cable company worry about the gateway, and then let the gateway hand it off to any DRM-supporting device. From a security perspective that's not ideal. End-to-end encryption to the playback device (or the DVR) is almost certainly preferable, and in theory wouldn't be any more difficult for client manufacturers to implement. But, it might be hard to implement that in a way that is backwards compatible with current STBs.

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Either way, it is cablecards restriction to the individual cable card, and not the whole home, that had sage not interested in implementing it.

CableCard isn't the problem- PlayReady is the problem (at least as implemented by Microsoft on PCs). In a Sage system you're going to just have one device that talks to a CableCard- you're server. Its fine if the CableCard is tied to just one device.

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

So, now the FCC has a choice, you can patch two-way communication into a system that is nearly 15 years old in design, made when most homes had only 1 primary television, and no real presense of PVR's, or put that two way support into a new system, that is more in line with the modern home, with existing home networks, multiple primary viewing locations, and multiple people wanting timeshifting and archiving capabilities.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say if you want timeshifting and archiving capabilities, and you have multiple TVs, then what you really need is a centralized server and dumb clients at each TV (i.e., something like Sage). If that's what you want, then something like CableCard is fine- probably just as good as AllVid. This idea of an AllVid gateway is only moderately useful when you have multiple devices connecting to it. If you have a centralized server, then only the server is going to talk to the "gateway." All you need is a friendlier version of DRM.

[stevech]

Why do people say CableCARD(s) is/are a failure - when they're in most all set top boxes owned by CableCos, in TiVos, etc. Am I wrong on: CableCos rely on them to preclude rogue set top boxes/DVRs. And CableLabs is the trusted 3rd party between the content owners and the cableCos and their consumers.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by stevech

Why do people say CableCARD(s) is/are a failure - when they're in most all set top boxes owned by CableCos, in TiVos, etc. Am I wrong on: CableCos rely on them to preclude rogue set top boxes/DVRs. And CableLabs is the trusted 3rd party between the content owners and the cableCos and their consumers.

The main reason people say they are a failure is they never really worked the way they were supposed to. In theory they were supposed to be a fully featured cable box without the box. That didn't happen. You can't do ppv or vod so most companies didn't care. Over 5 years ago you could buy a cable card enabled TV and not use a cable box. This was when tivo was one of the only dvr choices and most people used a vcr so it wasn't widely adopted. Then dvr's became more popular, but tivo was one of the only ones that needed a cable card to work. The others were purchased/rented directly from the cable co. CableCard was supposed to even the playing field for 3rd parties to make their own fully featured dvr that could do everything a dvr from the provider could do. That never happened. That's why it's a failure. It never reached it's intended use, and it probably never will. At this point it would be too late anyway.

AllVid has the potential for use with any provider be it cable, fiber, or satellite. DirecTV already has something similar in the works that allows you to use an iptv enabled tv to stream from their boxes. No additional box required. Allvid would be similar.

[dotheDVDeed]

By Emma Bazilian

It appears that YouTube is emerging as the latest company to position itself as a Netflix alternative. According to the New York Post, the video-streaming site is finalizing plans to expand its paid movie rental business in the next few months, with an official announcement about its video-on-demand plans expected to come before the end of the year. With Netflix subscribers threatening to abandon the service after a recent 60 percent price hike, YouTube joins other video sites lining up to grab those lost customers.

Former Netflix executive Robert Kyncl and ex-Paramount digital execs Alex Carloss and Malik Ducard are now on its team, which means YouTube has the right people needed to develop a real on-demand service, said the Post. Google CEO Larry Page is also said to be pushing for a YouTube expansion.

YouTube launched a paid movie service this past May, but it hasn’t been well advertised on the site’s home page. The site currently offers about 6,000 movies, which users have 30 days to begin but just 24 hours to watch once they’re started.

Not only could the new on-demand service get a bigger chunk of YouTube’s home page, but Google could begin offering it on Android phones and tablets to help increase sales of its hardware. “You're going to start seeing YouTube on more devices,” a source told the Post.

YouTube has already signed content deals with Universal, Sony, and Warner, and Lionsgate is rumored to be interested.

http://www.adweek.com/news/technolog...verhaul-133766

My theory: Google wants to enter the pay-to-view TV field (of course with directed advertising as well) and only want a SageTV Client App-let to sweeten the deal when buying their set top box.