IDTV

Google tries to ward off YouTube copyright threat

From our "we told you so" department (see here)...

"Google is engaged in a frantic round of negotiations aimed at persuading traditional media companies to supply their content to YouTube, the video website it bought last month for $1.65bn, and ward off a potentially crippling round of lawsuits."

Link: FT.com / Companies / Media & internet - Google in bid to halt YouTube legal threat.

Warner to pursue Google over You Tube

It didn't take long, did it?

As I commented here a couple of days ago, You Tube's business model is open to legal challenge - and Warner has just entered the fray, saying it will pursue Google for copyright contraventions on the video-sharing site. Universal's said to be unhappy, too.

YouTube and Google: it ain't about video

Given all the noise about Google's acquisition of You Tube, highlighting a few basic propositions may be in order.

1) This isn't about video: Google Video has few premium video assets, and You Tube doesn't have many more
2) You Tube doesn't make money from user-generated videos - it makes ad revenues from traffic (and so far, not enough to break even)
3) Online consumers have so far been largely unwilling to pay for user-generated content of any kind, video or otherwise
4) It's not clear that You Tube's business model (which relies partly on the posting of clips of copyrighted content) is immune from legal challenge - and look at what's just happened to online gambling
5) This is about one company with a large amount of advertising inventory (Google) buying another company with a rather smaller amount of advertising inventory (You Tube)
6) Yes, it's significant - but probably more for the size of the gamble Google is prepared to take than anything else...

'Freeview is a failure' - revisited

My thoughts on why Freeview might not be the runaway success everyone is saying it is have prompted a number of comments, some of them abusive. I am well aware that I am in a minority here - but happily, not a minority of one.

Sony U.K. Managing Director Steve Dowdle told a conference in London recently that the government's digital switchoff plans - which depend heavily on the 'success' of the Freeview platform - were akin to a sinking ship. According to Dowdle's calculations, 72 million analogue TV products need to be replaced - i.e. 12 million a year for 6 years through the process of analogue switchover. He's sceptical that can happen, for much the same reasons as me, and predicts that many a government official is going to go down with the ship.

Whether you're worried about e-government and the 'digital divide' or not, it's worth pointing out that the lack of a return-path in the Freeview spec runs directly counter to stated government and BBC policy, which is that digital TV is a key enabler for connecting up the digitally-deprived (also EC policy, as it happens, but that's another issue).

There is progress here, in the shape of a proposed new return-path-enabled version of the UK interactive TV standard, MHEG, for IPTV set-top boxes, which looks as if they're increasingly going to come with a Freeview tuner by default. There was an interesting demo of this at IBC 2006 in Amsterdam, which showed the BBC's interactive multi-screen application behaving pretty much the same in a terrestrial environment as it does on BSkyB.

Freeview is a failure

Freeview is a failure. There, I’ve said it.

Not a particularly popular point of view, perhaps, but one occasioned by a recent examination of what’s been going on in Italy’s digital-terrestrial television (DTT) environment.

For a variety of reasons, since 2003 the Italian government has chosen to subsidise DTT receivers containing a Java-based interactive TV technology called MHP (for Multimedia Home Platform). This is an open-standard system officially encouraged by the European Commission, and until Murdoch’s Sky Italia platform complained about it, Brussels was happy to allow the subsidy - because the declared aim was to offer e-government services over the DTT platform.

The plan appears to be paying off. In the Lombardy region, if you want to know if you’re entitled to free dental care, you can insert your ‘citizen card’ – an ID card carrying a computer chip – into  your digital-terrestrial television (DTT) set-top box, link into the local health services database, and get the answer in a few seconds.

At the moment, only triallists in possession of a special code can access the service, but it should go live later this year. Meanwhile, numerous Italian government information services can already be dialled up on MHP-capable DTT boxes, just by pressing the red button on the remote control.

Why does that make Freeview a failure? One reason is that nothing like the Italian system looks as if it will ever be available on the UK platform.

When the BBC and others specified the Freeview receiver spec, they left out just about every possible interface they could in order to keep the price down. In the vast majority of Freeview boxes, there’s not only no integrated modem, but nowhere to plug one in. That means no interactive advertising.

There’s also no smartcard slot. With TV watchdog Ofcom deciding just a few weeks ago that it is now permissible to offer pay-TV services on Freeview frequencies, that decision is looking decidedly foolish, since no smartcard slot means no pay-TV. 

To sum up, the Freeview platform can’t be upgraded – and there are already 10 million-plus Freeview receivers out there.

Left to its own devices, the specification might have evolved, but the BBC’s insistence on promoting only cheap Freeview adapters in its digital TV promotions has maintained a downward price pressure on the sector and encouraged the public to see Freeview as a £40 impulse-buy.

This means manufacturers have no incentive to add new interfaces to Freeview boxes (because that increases the price), or invest in Freeview-capable PVRs (because consumers don’t associate Freeview with a £100-200 price-point).

Finally, the ‘cheap adapter’ strategy has discouraged sales of digital TV sets (iDTVs), because it means the BBC does not tell viewers that they can get Freeview by simply specifying an iDTV when they come to upgrade their TV set.

All of this represents a big problem for Digital UK, which launched its analogue switchoff campaign last week. For a start, although 70% of UK homes have digital TV, 62% of the TV sets have yet to be converted, since the UK has high multiple TV ownership.

As a result, according to recent research, only 35% of UK homes will have converted all their TV sets to digital by 2012

Meanwhile, almost every one of the UK’s TV homes has at least one VCR, which will also have to be converted to digital by 2012 unless it’s to stop recording. Current government thinking is that buying a cheap adapter for a VCR just won’t work, because the set-up process is too complicated. That means swapping out a VCR for a PVR.

But penetration of Freeview PVRs is currently negligible, as pointed out above, largely as a result of the BBC’s digital TV promotion policy. So to 40 million or so TV sets requiring conversion, add another 25 million or so VCRs. 

Meanwhile, the UK is saddled with a non-future-proof DTT platform which can’t generate new revenue streams, and won’t allow poorer families without a PC to access e-government services.

Which is to say that it all looks like pretty much of a failure to me.

How not to bridge the 'digital divide'

Interesting, if uninformed, leader about the 'digital divide' in The Guardian yesterday (Thursday January 19, 2006).

Its author suggested that "The prospect of digital television for everyone after 2012 could lead to increased internet access".

Alas, if - as seems increasingly likely - most UK homes will be obtaining their digital TV service from Freeview by then, this is extremely improbable. In its most recent report on the sector, TV watchdog Ofcom estimated there were around 9 million Freeview receivers in UK homes. Hardly any of these include the facility for a phone connection, and there are no current plans to mandate such functionality in future ones. This is because three years ago a decision was taken in secret by a group of unelected and unaccountable broadcasting engineers to leave that feature out of the Freeview specification.

Incredibly, the government - despite being officially committed to using digital TV to bridge the digital divide - allowed that decision to stand.

You'll have to take my word for that, however. The specification in question, which is enshrined in a document known as the 'D-Book', is still officially confidential, despite relating to a so-called 'open' standard backed by the BBC. The UK's Digital Television Group, which owns the copyright, refuses to make it publicly available.

Converting to NTL broadband from BT - Part 4

In my last entry on this topic, I mentioned that I appeared to be on the wrong package, and I thought (if only for my own records) it would be useful to chart my - so far unfruitful - efforts to get it changed to the right one.

The principal problem has been that I was put onto their free Voicemail service - which doesn't allow any personalisation, and doesn't allow you to ring in to retrieve your messages. So I asked to be transferred to their Voicemail Plus package, which does all the things you would expect.

A call to customer service around ten days ago appeared to have sorted everything out. I called on the Wednesday, and they promised to have everything up and running by the following Monday. But Monday came and went, and no change.

So I rang up customer service again. I should note at this point that, every time you ring NTL up, you never get through to anyone immediately. Instead, you get a message saying they're experiencing "unusually high volumes" of calls at the moment, and give you an estimate of anything between 5 and 15 minutes' waiting-time for getting connected. Since I have never had any other message than this, it's not difficult to guess that the problem is nothing to do with unusually high call-volumes, but low staffing numbers. Generally, adding the waiting-time to the call-time in what follows, each of the calls referred to below took between 20 and 30 minutes.

Customer service said there appeared to be a problem with the line, and would send a message to technical faults to have it looked at. They generally guaranteed to fix things in 24 hours, the woman said.

Another 24 hours came and went. I called technical faults. Technical faults said my package hadn't been changed properly, and referred me back to customer service. Customer service insisted that the package had been changed, but that there was a technical fault.

After some to and froing, with neither technical faults nor customer service appearing to want to take ownership of the problem, and me racking up several hours on the phone, customer service suggested the issue was that I needed to have all the services taken off the line first, and then put back on again, with Voicemail Plus being put back on first.

Another kind lady sent a message to her manager to ask for this to be done, and assured me that someone would ring me back in 20 minutes when the task had been carried out.

Nothing happened. Some hours later, I rang customer service again. More extensive checking, and then the revelation that one of the other services I had signed up for - call diversion - was interfering with the Voicemail Plus service. I actually couldn't have them both, she admitted, and I should never have been told that I could.

Now I use call diversion all the time when out of the office, to send callers to my mobile. So to be told I couldn't have what would seem to be a pretty basic facility is something of a blow. In fact, had I known that to begin with, I might well not have swapped from BT to NTL, since it is important to my business.

However, I gave the go-ahead to have call diversion removed. The same kind lady said she would cancel that month's rental as compensation. Call diversion would be taken off, Voicemail Plus would be put on, and it should all be up and running fine within 24 hours.

As I speak, it is approximately 24 hours after I made that call. When I pick up my phone and dial the code to access the service, I get a message saying my line hasn't been set up for Voicemail. So not only has the existing standard Voicemail service I previously had been taken off, but Voicemail Plus has not been put on. In other words, I am now entirely without any voicemail service of any sort - and I am spending most of next week out of touch at conferences.

So I ring customer service again. It is a Saturday. I get a message saying to ring again on Monday.

The cycle begins again...

Perhaps I should return to BT?

Converting to NTL broadband from BT - Part 3

So, the NTL engineers came and went - and left numerous problems in their wake, as I had half-expected. A fortnight on, matters appear to be stable, although the package I thought I had asked for is not the one I've got...

To begin with the positive bits. The engineers arrived on time, and did an excellent job of positioning the phone outlets and cable modem exactly where I wanted them. All of this took them a couple of hours, including testing the lines to see that everything was working - and I had the general feeling they knew what they were doing.

The phone line worked almost immediately, which surprised me, even though they had to transfer my old number from BT. The voice quality was actually better than BT's, too, being somewhat louder. I can only imagine that carrying an ADSL signal over the BT line somehow attenuates the power.

It was when they left, of course, that the problems began. The engineers didn't actually install the software on my PC to enable the broadband connection - that was up to me. And when I actually did this, I discovered I didn't have a broadband connection, despite the line testing out OK. It turned out that the job hadn't been 'closed' - and that until the engineers did that, I wouldn't be allocated an ID. No ID meant no IP address - so the NTL broadband server didn't recognize me.

If they'd told me that when they left, I wouldn't have had to spend two hours fiddling around to see if my settings were wrong and calling Tech Support.

Testing the system was not helped by the fact that in the 48 hours after installation, NTL's home page (which is where you set up your account, of course) and email servers were down for most of the time. This became apparent on one of the few occasions when I managed to log on to the home page, and check the status of the network. The problem was classed as a national issue, so - in effect - it appears all NTL broadband subs must have been without email for most of that period. Not the best introduction for a brand-new customer - and no apology, of course.

Once these problems were solved, I had to cope with the untoward effects of the other bits of software on NTL's installation disc, which provide various types of security, including firewalling. Of the three packages included - NTL NetGuard, Zone Alarm and Broadband Medic - two turned out to be faulty.

Broadband Medic, a bit of software supposed to help you whenever you run into connection problems, wouldn't install properly, and after spending a half-hour with Tech Support (again!) which ultimately required editing of the registry, I was no nearer resolving the problem. I decided to do without it.

Zone Alarm, the firewall product, proved even worse. NTL mention they don't provide support for this product, even though the software's bundled on their installation disc, and now I know why. After installation, Zone Alarm prompted me to download the latest upgrade, and then the problems began. Up came an error message which simply barred me from obtaining any Internet access at all.

It proved no use de-installing the firewall software - the block remained. In fact, the program even hijacked my browser with another message telling me why it was blocking access.

Helpfully, it offered a solution which involved logging on to the Zone Alarm site - which, of course, I coudn't do, since it was blocking Internet access. In the end, I had to revert to a previous PC configuration (which, of course, wiped all my new NTL broadband settings) to get my connection back. And when I did, and perused some of the Zone Alarm user forums, I discovered that the bug involved was well-known.

My advice would be to steer well clear of Zone Alarm - and I am amazed that NTL would make software available to its subscribers which is not only obviouly buggy - but can actually completely block their Internet access when it goes wrong.

Once all these problems were surmounted, it proved a relatively easy matter to get my router up and running for my home WiFi network, once I'd figured out that it needed to be set to 802.11b only rather than mixed 'b' and 'g' mode, since I only have 'b' adapters on the system at the moment. The next step will be to upgrade all the Wifi adapters to 802.11g, which should make everything work much faster, as well as extending coverage to the bottom of the garden!

Meanwhile, a rough estimate of the time taken to deal with the conversion process: two whole days.

And I haven't even got round to sorting out the fact that I appear to be on the wrong package.

Verdict: unimpressed......

Converting to NTL broadband from BT - Part 2

So far, so good. I've now received my contracts in the post, together with user IDs and passwords for firing up my cable modem when the engineer comes.

My existing ADSL modem doubles as a wireless router, so I've ordered a new wireless router to attach to the new cable modem, when it's installed. I've opted for a Linksys model, because I have used Linksys products before (indeed, I currently have a Linksys switch integrated into my home network), and they seem to be highly reliable.

For those interested, the model in question is the WRT54GSUK, which uses the faster 802.11g WiFi standard, but is also backwards compatible with my household's 802.11b adapters. I found a useful little installation guide here for how to get it up and running with NTL and Telewest cable modems.

The unknown quantity remains whether my Cisco analogue phone adapter can continue to be used to provide me with a VOIP service with another provider, but I do have Skype as a backup if not.

Installation in seven days' time!

Converting to NTL broadband from BT - Part 1

Having been forced to convert my broadband to ADSL because I was living in rented accommodation for a while, I'm now - after my statutory 12-month contract to BT has ended - converting back to cable again, largely as a result of the fact that BT told me they couldn't upgrade me to 2Megs from 1Meg. Since NTL cable runs past my front door (indeed, my new house has got a dormant NTL connection), that seemed the simplest option, although it now means getting my telephony from NTL, too.

But I am interested to see how easy/difficult the conversion process will be, especially as I have a wifi network hanging off my ADSL router which I will now have to re-configure, as well as BT's VOIP product, Broadband Voice, which I will now have to replace with something else.

So far, the online registration process has proved relatively straightforward, and my tentative choice of an installation date two weeks away has been approved by email (I've even been able to ask for a p.m. call!). We shall see how smoothly it works... Frankly, I'm dreading it!