Way Over The Top: Data To Your Home

With Sony’s
announcement of an IPTV module for its new sets and the Media Center
features built into Windows
Vista™, a lot of people might soon be watching streaming video
on their TV, not watching those channels that our cable companies charge
us way too much for.

So what’s a cable company to do? Continue claiming that its internet
service is faster than the phone company’s or throttle back the bitrate
and charge you extra for those streaming IPTV shows? Stay tuned. (Or
should I say – logged-on?)

(Remember – in our digital world its all zeros and ones: your phone
call, your TV show, your e-mail. It’s time to stop thinking of it as a
wire and start thinking of it as a pipe.)

Son of WebTV

Some analysts just don’t get Media Divergance, (like Todd Chanko of
Jupiter Media) even though there are lots of people paying to watch last
night’s TV on their iPods. When asked by TelevisionWeek
to comment on how Microsoft Vista will promote integration between the
computer and the TV, he said: "They are searching for a problem that
doesn’t really need solving."

Young geeks are all over Slingbox
and Xbox.
Buy one Media Center PC and a bunch of Xboxes. Feed your recorded TV
shows all over your house, the whole dorm, the whole world. With Sony’s
announcement of an IPTV module for its new sets, gee – it might be a
good time to start an Ippy TV network!