Phil Keys, Nikkei Electronics
A while ago, I did an article about how the new world of TV content coming over the Internet necessitates a whole new class of EPGs to help consumers find programs they want to see amongst the upcoming (hopefully) nearly infinite choice of programming open to them. I remember interviewing an exec at then TV Guide-Gemstar (later sold to then Macrovision now Rovi). In the interview, he made an interesting statement something like "What consumers really need is a way to find their favorite shows."
I've now had a chance to find out just how true his words are. As a bit of background, I'm a Science Fiction fan which is something of an occupational disease here in Silicon Valley. I've always tried to catch SF films and TV shows when they look interesting, but when Babylon 5 (anyone remember Babylon 5?) came out, I was out of the US and had only been able to catch a couple of episodes. So, when I got the beta version of Joost (anyone remember Joost?), I was ecstatic to find that episodes of Babylon 5 were available there! However, it turned out Joost only had a few kind of randomly inserted episodes. Still, the show was great and I was hooked.
Then, of course, came Hulu. And Hulu had the episodes in chronological order. I was in SF heaven until I finished the last episode on Hulu and realized they only had the rights to the first two seasons. Luckily, I came across a discussion room post on Hulu mentioning that all of the shows were available on AOL TV. Yeah! So, it was on to AOL and I thought I was all set to enjoy the series at my leisure. Alas, it was not to be. After not having the chance to see the show for a bit, I came back to AOL TV and discovered...gasp...AOL TV no longer had the full episodes available.
Now what to do? In the past I've interviewed the folks responsible for the video search service Blinkx so I figured I would turn to them. And, Blinkx came through! Blinkx has a great service where they list a huge number of TV shows and then show links to where the full episodes are available (you can find it athttp://tv.blinkx.com). After watching the show via low quality streams with lots of advertising a couple of times on some Chinese streaming sites, I finally found that TheWB (I think Warner Bros owns the rights to the show) was now hosting the show on their web site. Since TheWB has for whatever reason decided to create artificial scarcity by cycling through one whole season every month, I'm lucky I was at a point in my viewing where I could follow the show and not have to wait for a few more months...
So, by now I'm sure you're wondering just what the point of all this blathering is. Basically, my whole unhappy experience proved the point my source at now Rovi was trying to make. When you think about it, this was way too much work on my part just so I could enjoy a TV show, and an old one at that. As more and more TV shows make their way to the Internet and given the fluid nature of rights negotiations, I can see the same sort of experience happening over and over again. Given that the devices which can access TV shows being broadcast on the Internet are to increase as well, there really needs to be a better way to find what you want to watch. And whoever can develop that will hold the key to the next generation entertainment experience.
from TechOn
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