On The Media

I've been using the web browser built into the PlayStation 3 to watch hulu.com videos on my television for a while now. I haven't had cable in a decade or so, but now I can see the Daily Show, the Colbert Report, and other shows for free on my TV. Sure, the quality isn't as good as it would be on regular television, but I'm willing to sacrifice quality for price with programs that don't truly require surround sound and 1080p images. Heck, as long as HDTVs come with a VGA port, there's nothing to stop someone from just plugging a computer into the back and using it as a giant monitor anyway...

One reason that I can see that Boxee will NOT be competing with network television is the picture quality. I have been watching HDTV for a couple of years now, and I can tell you that watching anything not in HD on my TV is a substantially inferior experience. So much so that even though I pay for 800 or so channels on cable, I only find myself watching the 10 or so channels in HD that have my shows. So, NBC shouldn't be so worried about Hulu on Boxee taking away business, I'll stick with my DVR.

Is anyone concerned that if all television and radio is streamed through the internet that the emergency broadcast system will become ineffective. Should we invest in an ISP-based emergency broadcast system?

Did you say nobody makes a Boxee Box yet? Why, there's even a "BoxeeBox Cookbook"...

http://www.deviceguru.com/the-boxeebox-cookbook/

I'd like to point out several omissions and lapses in logic (also present in the source story “Throwing Voodoo at Hulu”) that make your story “Boxed In” nearly useless to your listeners for understanding where Boxee fits into the evolution of new media. The situation has many parellels to the News business (as content providers), so I hope you'll look for opportunities to get this story right. In short, I think you left many of your listeners with the false thought that Boxee is going to provide the world with free premium TV (no subscription, no Ads, no fuss).

Here are some basic facts not mentioned in the article:

1.Hulu is an Ad supported operation adopted by a group of content providers

2.Hulu is a streaming video service of moderate quality (less than Standard Definition TV).

3.Comcast provides high quality streamed and offline (via DVR) content both with Ads, and without (via subscriptions and on-demand pricing).

Here are a few questions you could have asked Mr. Smalera to uncovers broken logic.

1.What do content providers get from using Hulu?

2.What is Boxee's business model?

3.How is Boxee better than a regular ATSC HD TV (w/ or w/o a DVR) or an Apple TV?

4.What is the difference in cost of watching entertainment on Cable TV compared to watching TV via Boxee. Compensate for picture quality, content quality, equipment cost, cost of internet service and number of simultaneous viewers (i.e. you're providing video for a family of four).

Just as the “News” content providers experiment with new ways to market their content, Hulu is a way for “Entertainment” content providers to promote new TV shows. With all the ways of distributing media, the questions for content providers are the standard marketing questions. Will my low cost product create a new market or steal sales from my more expensive product? How do I let fans know I have a new product they may like?

Currently, the "Boxee Box" is the AppleTV which you can load Boxee on with minimal amount of work.

I was pleasantly surprised to see you guys covering this. I thought this was an issue only us computer geeks knew about. Keep up the great research work!