Two hot media topics

There is an interesting trend!

Its called WiFi, but not for browsing, but for watching IPTV and other media.

But there is a problem, its the rights and licensing people. They seem to have got it into their heads that we should have another licence, and of course pay more fees, to have the TV on your iPad, iPhone or mobile. We already pay to watch their stuff on our TVs, now they want more for iPads. Which they are not going to get - but they are putting up quite a fight against the consumer about this.

It is analogous to the telecom companies wanting more payments to use your mobile phone to create a WiFi hotspot that users can log into and use your 3G for browsing on their PCs. Notably O2 has just announced that they will not charge any more for this internet tethering so I guess others will follow suit.

So watching TV on different devices, added to the other reasons the rights people think you should pay more for - time shifting and home copying - the whole thing gets ridiculous.

WiFi universe

But back to WiFi. It seems to me that broadcasting has to take a new technology path. The TV is great, for linear viewing. But it can't do Video On Demand (VOD). The internet can do VOD, but is currently hamstrung by the rights people from doing TV. So we have to get this all together somehow. No matter what a new approach to the hardware is needed.

The basis for all home media distribution has to be the WiFi. The generation of content to be distributed has to come from your broadband connection, your computer or your iPad or a new kind of box which receives TV channels then streams them to your WiFi distribution system. Such a box could be easily remote controlled from your computer or iPad. It would handle both music and video the same way.

That also implies that your HiFi system, for music and your TV, for video, both have to be WiFi enabled. This is the tentative direction that some movements are heading for today. In the so-called 'open' world a standard called DNLA has been created to enable systems to stream to each other. In the Apple universe we have the very successful AirPlay system.

One great big advantage to this idea is that you can both watch TV and browse the web at the same time. The TV is a shared experience, but the web browsing is a private and singular experience. That's why Google TV and YouView won't work. It is no good at all having the internet on your TV, and it is no good at all not to have a link between what is on TV and associated web pages on your iPad. Imagine BBC Question Time, as you watch the guests blah, blah answers, you can have real live statistics and facts presented on your iPad... to make your own judgement.

Conclusion

To bring it all together we need

1 The rights people to see sense and allow their video to be streamed to any viewing platform without paying extra fees. As happens to day for music...

2 A firming up of the system specifications and the development of a TV tuner with WiFi output.

Get to it lads.

PS. Lets also forget the new BBC and other company's proposed YouView system. This is absolutely not the way to go for modern consumers.