ESPN 4K

[Scott Crawley]

Possibly 4K. The PowerVR GPU that Apple uses in their products - the latest of which was launched several weeks ago - does support 4K at this time and is used in the new UHDTVs, so we can expect a new slew of Apple products using their latest ARM CPU/PowerVR GPU design.

When Apple implements a 4k delivery system they may find themselves in a position to put cable tv right out of business. It represents the a la carte option that cable providers have been denying their customers for years. With the intensifying drum beat of rising cable subscription prices a superior picture offering without a subscription requirement would put Apple in a very strong position.

Here is a wild but possible theory. Apple asked ESPN to temporarily disable the ESPN4k account for fear of jumping the Apple TV v.4k shark. Their new product announcements have been inadvertently usurped once or twice before by exuberant business partners.

Edit: The ESPN4k situation could otherwise be related to negotiations with Apple...

 

[Christian Simpson]

Google Fiber please come and save us all. TV will be distributed this way soon.

 

[Christian Simpson]

I work for ESPN and everything is still 720p! Its a joke. The problem I see however is the cost of bandwidth via satellites from the on location trucks. MPEG2 seriously needs to go away, its just awful.

 

[M Most]

When Apple implements a 4k delivery system they may find themselves in a position to put cable tv right out of business.

Really? Who do you think provides about 80% of the bandwidth and connections to people's homes for broadband delivery?
Apple makes consumer electronics devices. They don't own bandwidth, they don't own any kind of delivery system, and they don't own anything they can turn into one. The vast majority of American homes have Internet service delivered by cable companies. And the cable business is now concentrated in about 3 providers, who together control over 75% of all the systems in this country. Apple may have the means to interest consumers in new boxes with new codecs, but they have no ability to deliver what those consumers see, at least not unless they buy up one or more of those monopolistic cable companies. Which is not out of the realm of possibility, but hasn't happened yet. And until there is wide deployment of something beyond LTE for wireless delivery at higher speeds, that's what they would need to do.

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Mike has identified a huge issue that I expect will be the battle royale of the next few years. OTT, IPTV, whatever you call it, requires bandwidth, which for a lot of folks comes from the same entity that would rather you didn't stop paying for linear programming. Can you say conflict of interest?

Considering the level of corporate influence on government policy these days, anyone care to guess how quickly the FCC or FTC will resolve this for consumers...

Cheers - #19

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

MPEG2 seriously needs to go away, its just awful.

I expressed that in a more colorful way

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

Mike has identified a huge issue that I expect will be the battle royale of the next few years. OTT, IPTV, whatever you call it, requires bandwidth, which for a lot of folks comes from the same entity that would rather you didn't stop paying for linear programming. Can you say conflict of interest?

Considering the level of corporate influence on government policy these days, anyone care to guess how quickly the FCC or FTC will resolve this for consumers...

Cheers - #19

I'm certainly not saying they should or would ... and in fact I doubt they will ... but ... APPLE has the cash to become an ISP.

 

[L. Langer]

Every single ISP has implemented broadband caps - lemme tell you it's not fun to go from unlimited to 300 GB a month without warning - because of streaming/download video services like Netflix and iTunes, so I can't see those services really getting a leg up on cable unless they use massive compression with HEVC.

 

[L. Langer]

I'm certainly not saying they should or would ... and in fact I doubt they will ... but ... APPLE has the cash to become an ISP.

It's kinda funny. Years ago, the talk was that Cable and Internet would merge and homes would have "Gateways" installed to access this huge national network of computers where you could be in a VR world of sorts and engage in interactive media and other things, including movie screenings and TV shows on demand. Even virtual shopping malls. They had it all designed and demo'ed but it never ever happened. With the tech Apple has, they could easily pull it off. In fact, I think I remember QuicktimeVR being developed for that original vision.

 

[Scott Crawley]

Really? Who do you think provides about 80% of the bandwidth and connections to people's homes for broadband delivery?

As others are expressing... Is there any reason to believe that couldn't change? I thought the telcos owned more than 20%, but I have no insight into these things. My guess is that people buy bandwidth from cable companies over telcos because of the TV bundles. If you remove the TV from that equation I would expect the telcos to fair much better. Don't you? Again, I admit I am ignorant as to how these things work.

I will take your insight into account and clarify my original musing: Such a move could take the TV out of the cable TV company's business and relegate them to data delivery.

 

[M Most]

As others are expressing... Is there any reason to believe that couldn't change? I thought the telcos owned more than 20%, but I have no insight into these things. My guess is that people buy bandwidth from cable companies over telcos because of the TV bundles. If you remove the TV from that equation I would expect the telcos to fair much better. Don't you?

No. The data service from cable companies, for the most part, is at much higher speeds for the same or lower rate. It is often more reliable as well, although that clearly isn't a universal truth...

I will take your insight into account and clarify my original musing: Such a move could take the TV out of the cable TV company's business and relegate them to data delivery.

As long as there are broadcast networks and major cable networks that are producing a lot of programming that people want to see, it will likely be delivered the way it is now for quite some time to come. Everything changes eventually, but we're not talking about 15 or 20 years from now, we're talking about the next 2-5 years. I really don't see the vast majority of the television viewing public going to Internet delivered services exclusively any time soon, regardless of whether Apple is involved or not.

 

[Scott Crawley]

No. The data service from cable companies, for the most part, is at much higher speeds for the same or lower rate. It is often more reliable as well, although that clearly isn't a universal truth...

Because they alone had an interest in investing in that infrastructure. At the time the telcos did not, but they have since. I understand that the phone company does not likely own the entire signal path to my door, but the fibre leading into my house says Verizon. The cable company couldn't match them for speed. (At least before my move out of the woods that was true.)

As long as there are broadcast networks and major cable networks that are producing a lot of programming that people want to see, it will likely be delivered the way it is now for quite some time to come. Everything changes eventually, but we're not talking about 15 or 20 years from now, we're talking about the next 2-5 years. I really don't see the vast majority of the television viewing public going to Internet delivered services exclusively any time soon, regardless of whether Apple is involved or not.

OK. Fair enough. But in the interest of fairness, my original thought was not delineated by a time frame. I stated that they could find themselves in the position... which BTW, I believe is by design.

edit:
OTOH, I guess you are saying that cable TV distributors will also be offering 4k within 2-5 years, limiting or negating any advantage Apple may gain by being first. But there is an awful lot more to it than that. Isn't there? Sometimes being first has a larger impact than any could anticipate. With cable bills and the economy being what they are a dramatic shift could be on the horizon... or the economy could drastically improve and we might all be spending like drunken sailors in a whore house this time next year. IDK

Is 2-5 years enough time for Apple and Ma Bell to eat the cable companies' lunch? How long is a cable contract?

I don't mean to suggest that people will be banging on Apple's door simply due to 4k. It is more about choice and cost, so unless Apple makes some big deals relatively soon it may be a moot point. Is that your argument?

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

At the moment the typical cable company deal has the customer paying for "TV" programming, web access and probably phone service. Even with bundle deals, this adds up to a nice monthly fee. Why would the cable companies want to enable you to avoid paying for that "TV" programming by giving you enough low cost bandwidth to access the same content over IP? My guess is that strict data tiers will be instituted so that using streaming/downloading strategies will cost roughly the same amount as just keeping linear channel based "TV" programming services. In theory, the local/state governments that administrate the delivery of "utilities" could stop the cable companies from unilaterally capping or adding surcharges for data usage over a certain threshold, but my assumption is that the industry lobbyists will get in the way of that right quick.

Cheers - #19