So James Murdock has a go at the BBC and Ofcom at 2009 Edinburgh TV Festival (the James MacTaggart Lecture). One thing you have to admit about Sky and the Murdocks is their consistency. At any conference where I have seen any exec from Sky speak that have not deviated from blaming regulation and the BBC for the problems of the industry.
The pace is heating up as newspapers (a Murdock interest) are starting to diminish in circulations and revenue. Ask yourself how many people you see under 30 buying a news paper compared to those that don’t. Now think back just 10 years and the trend is obvious. Suddenly the BBC is the reason that the newspapers can’t charge for new online. I say suddenly but that really means that the Murdocks now see online revenues as the way forward but realise that if they charge the customers will just go to a free service provider.
The BBC and Ofcom are part of the market and BSkyB needs to get used to it.
One of the things he says is wrong is central planning and limited choice. This from a media empire that is “controlled” by the head of News Corp!
On the other hand (as with most propaganda) there is an element of truth. The BBC does dominate online news and not just in the UK. It’s a respected non-sensational source of news. With breaking news it will not present speculation as fact and is consequentially slower the CNN and Sky News. But the real problem is news is a commodity with a very short shelf life. Murdock may say that TV regulation is based on spectrum scarcity and that there is no choice, but news scarcity and limited access is how the newspaper got so big and powerful.
Like magicians the aim is to misdirect you so you are not looking at what they are really doing.
Murdock says that we have a analogue thinking in a digital age but he then wants to limit and control and to commercialise the digital age when the digital age is about freedom and choice. Trying to put the gene back in the bottle is difficult if not impossible. While his analogy of TV executives as frogs in water gradually being heated is one of the most accurate I‘ve heard for some time.
Tuesday, 1 September 2009
Thursday, 20 August 2009
Internet Television Broadcasting - One CDN Winner
Internet Television Broadcasting
Radio stations have been “broadcasting” on the internet for some time and Hulu and a few others have been “broadcasting” TV over the internet for a while too. But to avoid any doubt the internet is not a broadcasting environment. The TV you get via you Ariel (antenna) or satellite dish (TVRO) is broadcast – that is, it is being sent once to a wide geographical area (footprint) and you simply need to turn on to receive it. Often referred to as “point to multipoint”. There is no return path and the broadcaster has only statistical surveys to confirm and calculate who, if anyone, is watching.
Move to the internet and (ignoring CDN’s for the time being) each computer watching the video has a separate and direct connection back to the source server. They may be watching the same content at the same time but each is watching a unique stream. This is “point-to-point”, even if there are lots of destinations.
So a broadcast digital channel (via an antenna or dish) transmitted at 1.5mbit/s it is using no more than 1.5mbit/s to reach 1 or 10million viewers (assuming a single footprint). 10million viewers over the internet and the bandwidth required 1.5mbit/s x 10million = 7,500 gbit/s. (7.5Tbit/s). The bandwidth used would be no different if each of the 10million viewers were each watching a different programme (content).
Your internet service provider (ISP) built their business model on the assumption of much lower bandwidth utilisation (hence those fair usage policies to limit your maximum use) from their view of the world around 2005 (give or take a few years).
Your ISP connects to the internet via a big “pipe”. They spread the cost of that connection amongst all their customers. They also have a deal with their service provider where they pay for bandwidth used. As more customers start to watch video, such as the BBC iPlayer the bandwidth used goes up, pushing up their costs. The BBC doesn’t pay your ISP and I’m sure, like me, you don’t want to pay any more too.
My view is I’ve paid for up to 8mbit/s 24/365 a year and unless I exceed that why should I pay more?
There is another problem too in that the internet backbone gets clogged up as all these video streams compete with each other to get across the internet. The result is the internet slows down, video IP packets get lost, the video stutters or freezes, or drops out completely.
What is the solution? CDN, or content distribution networks, have been around from 2000 or so. The solution then and now has changed very little. The content source (say Disney) would want the end user to get a reasonable experience and for Disney not to be blamed for bad, interrupted, jerky or lost steam. The CDN would take the video stream over a separate network, bypassing the internet, and store the video at the edge of the Internet. This involved putting lots of edge servers in. The result was that instead of getting the video from the Disney site (invisible to the consumer) the request was redirected to the CDN edge server avoiding internet congestion and giving Disney (or whoever) a quality of service that customers expected.
Since then consumer bandwidths, choice of video, choice of supplier, and customer expectations have all increased. It isn’t the odd event but an everyday demand for video that is swamping ISP’s. Customers expect a relatively TV type experience, and increasingly HD. ISP’s could ignore the odd event as over a month or so it would even out. The constant demand of consumers for video is growing.
Some even believe that customers will get all their video over the internet and antennas and dishes, will be a thing of the past. I have my doubts, but the opportunity to insert different adverts to each stream specifically based on your profile. It could use your browser history where you have been looking at new TV’s to insert adverts about new TV’s or local retailers. All clever stuff, but would I want it hummm! As long as it didn’t start using information from the “adult sites” I visited!
Whatever the future holds the problem is that the content provider is getting paid for their content (advertising, subscription, pay-per-view or licence fee/tax) they are (currently) paying the CDN to get it to the edge of the network and the “poor” ISP is then having to pay for it to get onto their network and to their consumers. As it has grown it is now too much for them to ignore so most have employed “traffic shaping”. Traffic shaping means that content coming from a particular source is restricted, effectively artificially re-introducing the problems that the CDN was bypassing.
This is interesting as there is no longer a technical problem with delivery video but almost purely about money and business. Here are some things to consider;
Your ISP is Sky and you have a fantastic video service of Sky content. Your friend it with TalkTalk and their video service is crap. Sky maybe £2/month more but if it’s worth it your friend changes ISP. What option does TalkTalk have if customers migrate away?
Sky content on the Sky ISP platform is great (as they own the content and want to push their content and their adverts that sit around it). Knowing sky there will be some value added up sale to try and extract a little more money out of you and increase the ARPU (average revenue per user). However, BBC and ITV content is not so good. BT ISP has good BBC, ITV and BT Vision content, but not Sky. Suddenly the ISP market is more differentiated (not just price) but also more confusing for the consumer.
One option the ISP’s can do is to look at how they can deliver the service the customer wants at a reduced cost. One option doing the rounds is by extending the CDN concept into the ISP’s networks e.g the CDN server sits in the local exchange. This reduces the cost of bandwidth connection into the Internet.
Who pays? The CDN’s can stump up some as they have reduced their costs. The broadcaster/content owners as they don’t need to the original CDN service.
How would this work? The each ISP pays for a CDN service and then charges each broadcaster for using it. Where is the competition in all this? Won’t the CDN providers and the ISP all have to charge the same? There is a lot more detail but that’s potentially solved the problem.
What if a broadcast/content owner doesn’t want to pay the ISP? They stop paying their CDN provider as the “traffic shaping” negates most of the benefits.
What happens if CBS decides to sell/deliver programmes direct to the UK consumer rather than a broadcaster? Who contracts with whom, and for what, revenue share?
The broadcaster is really a content aggregator, it could be argued that Google and other search engines, YouTube, Facebook or some new entrant, could take over that aggregation role. To be effective the CDN will need to collect the content from all the sources (certainly the big boys) too. The technical issues are minor compared to the commercial and rights issues and complicated web of relationships that could emerge. Then bung in fads and transient events, start-ups and the short attention span of internet users and this will be a dynamic market.
My point? There is a lot of jockeying going on behind the scenes and little new revenue is generated. Like the DTH satellite platforms in Europe there is probably only room for one CDN provider (for Video at least) in each territory, so expect a fierce battle to kick off soon.
Radio stations have been “broadcasting” on the internet for some time and Hulu and a few others have been “broadcasting” TV over the internet for a while too. But to avoid any doubt the internet is not a broadcasting environment. The TV you get via you Ariel (antenna) or satellite dish (TVRO) is broadcast – that is, it is being sent once to a wide geographical area (footprint) and you simply need to turn on to receive it. Often referred to as “point to multipoint”. There is no return path and the broadcaster has only statistical surveys to confirm and calculate who, if anyone, is watching.
Move to the internet and (ignoring CDN’s for the time being) each computer watching the video has a separate and direct connection back to the source server. They may be watching the same content at the same time but each is watching a unique stream. This is “point-to-point”, even if there are lots of destinations.
So a broadcast digital channel (via an antenna or dish) transmitted at 1.5mbit/s it is using no more than 1.5mbit/s to reach 1 or 10million viewers (assuming a single footprint). 10million viewers over the internet and the bandwidth required 1.5mbit/s x 10million = 7,500 gbit/s. (7.5Tbit/s). The bandwidth used would be no different if each of the 10million viewers were each watching a different programme (content).
Your internet service provider (ISP) built their business model on the assumption of much lower bandwidth utilisation (hence those fair usage policies to limit your maximum use) from their view of the world around 2005 (give or take a few years).
Your ISP connects to the internet via a big “pipe”. They spread the cost of that connection amongst all their customers. They also have a deal with their service provider where they pay for bandwidth used. As more customers start to watch video, such as the BBC iPlayer the bandwidth used goes up, pushing up their costs. The BBC doesn’t pay your ISP and I’m sure, like me, you don’t want to pay any more too.
My view is I’ve paid for up to 8mbit/s 24/365 a year and unless I exceed that why should I pay more?
There is another problem too in that the internet backbone gets clogged up as all these video streams compete with each other to get across the internet. The result is the internet slows down, video IP packets get lost, the video stutters or freezes, or drops out completely.
What is the solution? CDN, or content distribution networks, have been around from 2000 or so. The solution then and now has changed very little. The content source (say Disney) would want the end user to get a reasonable experience and for Disney not to be blamed for bad, interrupted, jerky or lost steam. The CDN would take the video stream over a separate network, bypassing the internet, and store the video at the edge of the Internet. This involved putting lots of edge servers in. The result was that instead of getting the video from the Disney site (invisible to the consumer) the request was redirected to the CDN edge server avoiding internet congestion and giving Disney (or whoever) a quality of service that customers expected.
Since then consumer bandwidths, choice of video, choice of supplier, and customer expectations have all increased. It isn’t the odd event but an everyday demand for video that is swamping ISP’s. Customers expect a relatively TV type experience, and increasingly HD. ISP’s could ignore the odd event as over a month or so it would even out. The constant demand of consumers for video is growing.
Some even believe that customers will get all their video over the internet and antennas and dishes, will be a thing of the past. I have my doubts, but the opportunity to insert different adverts to each stream specifically based on your profile. It could use your browser history where you have been looking at new TV’s to insert adverts about new TV’s or local retailers. All clever stuff, but would I want it hummm! As long as it didn’t start using information from the “adult sites” I visited!
Whatever the future holds the problem is that the content provider is getting paid for their content (advertising, subscription, pay-per-view or licence fee/tax) they are (currently) paying the CDN to get it to the edge of the network and the “poor” ISP is then having to pay for it to get onto their network and to their consumers. As it has grown it is now too much for them to ignore so most have employed “traffic shaping”. Traffic shaping means that content coming from a particular source is restricted, effectively artificially re-introducing the problems that the CDN was bypassing.
This is interesting as there is no longer a technical problem with delivery video but almost purely about money and business. Here are some things to consider;
Your ISP is Sky and you have a fantastic video service of Sky content. Your friend it with TalkTalk and their video service is crap. Sky maybe £2/month more but if it’s worth it your friend changes ISP. What option does TalkTalk have if customers migrate away?
Sky content on the Sky ISP platform is great (as they own the content and want to push their content and their adverts that sit around it). Knowing sky there will be some value added up sale to try and extract a little more money out of you and increase the ARPU (average revenue per user). However, BBC and ITV content is not so good. BT ISP has good BBC, ITV and BT Vision content, but not Sky. Suddenly the ISP market is more differentiated (not just price) but also more confusing for the consumer.
One option the ISP’s can do is to look at how they can deliver the service the customer wants at a reduced cost. One option doing the rounds is by extending the CDN concept into the ISP’s networks e.g the CDN server sits in the local exchange. This reduces the cost of bandwidth connection into the Internet.
Who pays? The CDN’s can stump up some as they have reduced their costs. The broadcaster/content owners as they don’t need to the original CDN service.
How would this work? The each ISP pays for a CDN service and then charges each broadcaster for using it. Where is the competition in all this? Won’t the CDN providers and the ISP all have to charge the same? There is a lot more detail but that’s potentially solved the problem.
What if a broadcast/content owner doesn’t want to pay the ISP? They stop paying their CDN provider as the “traffic shaping” negates most of the benefits.
What happens if CBS decides to sell/deliver programmes direct to the UK consumer rather than a broadcaster? Who contracts with whom, and for what, revenue share?
The broadcaster is really a content aggregator, it could be argued that Google and other search engines, YouTube, Facebook or some new entrant, could take over that aggregation role. To be effective the CDN will need to collect the content from all the sources (certainly the big boys) too. The technical issues are minor compared to the commercial and rights issues and complicated web of relationships that could emerge. Then bung in fads and transient events, start-ups and the short attention span of internet users and this will be a dynamic market.
My point? There is a lot of jockeying going on behind the scenes and little new revenue is generated. Like the DTH satellite platforms in Europe there is probably only room for one CDN provider (for Video at least) in each territory, so expect a fierce battle to kick off soon.
Monday, 6 July 2009
Samsung Fridge Freezer Faults
I need to put this out just in case there is any other poor sod out there suffering like I have been for the past two days. Here are two problems with this model and how to fix them.
Bit of a heat wave in dear old blighty at the moment so not the pest time to have a problem with your fridge freezer.
This is an “American (or US) style” fridge freezer. I have to say apart from these two problems I this has been one of the most practical fridge freezers I have ever had.
1st problem was a rapid ticking noise that gradually got louder over two days and stopped. When it stopped so did all the cooling in the fridge (freezer was unaffected). This turned out to be a fan that had gradually become encased in ice generated by the anti frost system. An engineer came and I watch what he did (nonchalantly). This was 11 months after I got it so was done under warranty. A search of the internet showed this to be a common problem (a design fault!). When a further 14 months past it occurred again I repaired it myself.
Switch the thing off and disconnect the plug – for safety. Take out the coolzone tray and shelves plus the salad trays. A few obvious screws will allow removal of the coolzone controls (unplugging a multiway cable) and it should come out easy – If anything is difficult to remove DON’T FORCE IT you’ve probably missed a screw or connector. At the back is a drain hole in the cover which may be filled with ice. The lower half of the fridge at the back is a separate cover with a few screws to remove it and reveal the iced up fan. Defrost the fan – hair dryer or hot water. You could reassemble it again but before I did I slightly increased the size of the drain hole at the bottom and I used a quality car wax. This way I hoped that water would form into droplets and run away more efficiently. Another 13 months and no repeat except….
2nd problem… While fitting a new light switch I touched the earth and negative together. Although switched off at the fuse box this tripped the residual current circuit breaker (RCCB) RCCB is a device in some fuse boxes to prevent electrocution – same as used on many mains powered electrical garden tools. This switched off the power supply to the whole house. When I reset the RCCB the fridge lights came on and the air circulation fan was funning but the compressors for the fridge and freezer were not. The digital display was blank apart from one flashing segment. – this was Saturday 18:10 nowhere was open. Search of the internet for problems through up nothing. Monday morning straight on to Samsung help desk (If you want to register on line you have to use IE – it doesn’t work with Firefox). They initially said I need their local agent to come out. However 5 hours later and the line was constantly engaged. I tried several local repair services, all too busy to give me a date/time. I went back and this time (using IE) I registered the problem online. – The reply was I might need a reset and to call customer service. Customer service said that all I needed to do to reset system was to hole the top left (Power Freeze) and top right (Power Cool) in for 8 seconds. Low and behold it worked…
The manual doesn’t mention it and by the way the manual has a number DA99-00494V, this number is the part number for the manual not the model number… On mine the model number is on the left hand side. And another “by the way” on the back is the circuit diagram.
Given my problems with Zanussi (see earlier blog) this was barely a problem at all.
Bit of a heat wave in dear old blighty at the moment so not the pest time to have a problem with your fridge freezer.
This is an “American (or US) style” fridge freezer. I have to say apart from these two problems I this has been one of the most practical fridge freezers I have ever had.
1st problem was a rapid ticking noise that gradually got louder over two days and stopped. When it stopped so did all the cooling in the fridge (freezer was unaffected). This turned out to be a fan that had gradually become encased in ice generated by the anti frost system. An engineer came and I watch what he did (nonchalantly). This was 11 months after I got it so was done under warranty. A search of the internet showed this to be a common problem (a design fault!). When a further 14 months past it occurred again I repaired it myself.
Switch the thing off and disconnect the plug – for safety. Take out the coolzone tray and shelves plus the salad trays. A few obvious screws will allow removal of the coolzone controls (unplugging a multiway cable) and it should come out easy – If anything is difficult to remove DON’T FORCE IT you’ve probably missed a screw or connector. At the back is a drain hole in the cover which may be filled with ice. The lower half of the fridge at the back is a separate cover with a few screws to remove it and reveal the iced up fan. Defrost the fan – hair dryer or hot water. You could reassemble it again but before I did I slightly increased the size of the drain hole at the bottom and I used a quality car wax. This way I hoped that water would form into droplets and run away more efficiently. Another 13 months and no repeat except….
2nd problem… While fitting a new light switch I touched the earth and negative together. Although switched off at the fuse box this tripped the residual current circuit breaker (RCCB) RCCB is a device in some fuse boxes to prevent electrocution – same as used on many mains powered electrical garden tools. This switched off the power supply to the whole house. When I reset the RCCB the fridge lights came on and the air circulation fan was funning but the compressors for the fridge and freezer were not. The digital display was blank apart from one flashing segment. – this was Saturday 18:10 nowhere was open. Search of the internet for problems through up nothing. Monday morning straight on to Samsung help desk (If you want to register on line you have to use IE – it doesn’t work with Firefox). They initially said I need their local agent to come out. However 5 hours later and the line was constantly engaged. I tried several local repair services, all too busy to give me a date/time. I went back and this time (using IE) I registered the problem online. – The reply was I might need a reset and to call customer service. Customer service said that all I needed to do to reset system was to hole the top left (Power Freeze) and top right (Power Cool) in for 8 seconds. Low and behold it worked…
The manual doesn’t mention it and by the way the manual has a number DA99-00494V, this number is the part number for the manual not the model number… On mine the model number is on the left hand side. And another “by the way” on the back is the circuit diagram.
Given my problems with Zanussi (see earlier blog) this was barely a problem at all.
Friday, 3 July 2009
Merchants
A quick note as preparing for an exam and my daughter gets married in a week, but I just had to push this out there.
As the world’s attention wander’s to Afghanistan, unemployment, the cost of fuel, the falling house prices, empty shops on the high street, MP’s expenses (by the way they should be done for fraud, just like anyone else would have been) and climate warming, we seem to be forgetting what kicked this all off. It was the Bankers and their greed. The bean counters that demand growth because that is what the spreadsheets said.
I should probably explain for those that don’t know cockney rhyming slang that Merchant is short for Merchant Banker which rhymes with Wanker
Merchant: “We must increase our loan business.”
Reason: “But everyone out there has got as much debt as they can handle”
Merchant: “Send them more info to get the to borrow more”
Reason: “But they won’t be able to pay it back”
Merchant: “Interesting! Are there any others that we could lend to that won’t be able to pay back?”
Reason: “Why would you want to do that?”
Merchant: “Because we’ll be able to hit our growth targets, and collect a big fat bonus”
Reason: “That’s madness”
Merchant: “It’s good innovative business strategy”
Well they are at it again paying themselves massive salaries and bonuses, even those that are majority owned by governments, where you would expect some restraint. Why?
They have sold the “fear factor”. They have somehow convinced there masters that this is the going rate. They are good people and if we don’t pay them this much they’ll leave to work somewhere else.
The reaction should be to show them the door, not bow down and give in. Anyone that has managed a team for any length of time will know, if someone thinks they are so important to the team that you cannot afford to lose them and they leverage that to get their own way, if you give in you’ve handed leadership of that team over, because they will be back asking for more and more. Eventually they'll leave anyway. By that time the rest of the team will have lost all respect in you as a leader too!
These people have destroyed other people’s lives and because they did it with a balance sheet and not napalm it seems to be OK. We should take note of the French Revolution and guillotine these latter-day aristocracy that act as if they are above the law.
They really have go off lightly and I can’t figure out why. I probably have the wrong spreadsheet!
I feel better now. Back to the exam revision.
As the world’s attention wander’s to Afghanistan, unemployment, the cost of fuel, the falling house prices, empty shops on the high street, MP’s expenses (by the way they should be done for fraud, just like anyone else would have been) and climate warming, we seem to be forgetting what kicked this all off. It was the Bankers and their greed. The bean counters that demand growth because that is what the spreadsheets said.
I should probably explain for those that don’t know cockney rhyming slang that Merchant is short for Merchant Banker which rhymes with Wanker
Merchant: “We must increase our loan business.”
Reason: “But everyone out there has got as much debt as they can handle”
Merchant: “Send them more info to get the to borrow more”
Reason: “But they won’t be able to pay it back”
Merchant: “Interesting! Are there any others that we could lend to that won’t be able to pay back?”
Reason: “Why would you want to do that?”
Merchant: “Because we’ll be able to hit our growth targets, and collect a big fat bonus”
Reason: “That’s madness”
Merchant: “It’s good innovative business strategy”
Well they are at it again paying themselves massive salaries and bonuses, even those that are majority owned by governments, where you would expect some restraint. Why?
They have sold the “fear factor”. They have somehow convinced there masters that this is the going rate. They are good people and if we don’t pay them this much they’ll leave to work somewhere else.
The reaction should be to show them the door, not bow down and give in. Anyone that has managed a team for any length of time will know, if someone thinks they are so important to the team that you cannot afford to lose them and they leverage that to get their own way, if you give in you’ve handed leadership of that team over, because they will be back asking for more and more. Eventually they'll leave anyway. By that time the rest of the team will have lost all respect in you as a leader too!
These people have destroyed other people’s lives and because they did it with a balance sheet and not napalm it seems to be OK. We should take note of the French Revolution and guillotine these latter-day aristocracy that act as if they are above the law.
They really have go off lightly and I can’t figure out why. I probably have the wrong spreadsheet!
I feel better now. Back to the exam revision.
Wednesday, 24 June 2009
Consumer electronics manufacturers oppose Canvas
Why would a consumer electronics manufacture, like Sony, oppose the joint BBC, ITV and BT venture?
Heard of Blu-ray? It’s the DVD standard for high definition videos. It was developed by Sony. There were a few other standards that contended but, eventually they fell by the wayside as consumer caution and confusion held sales of new DVD players back. The manufactures agreed to adopt a single standard. Simpler for everyone.
So you may think everyone is a winner! But as they might have said in “Animal Farm”, some are bigger winners than others
Sony own the technology so every time a Hollywood film studio or anyone else produces a Blu-ray DVD they pay Sony a licence fee. Small it may be but with increasing volumes it ends up being significant. Sony also get a licence fee everytime a manufacturer makes a new DVD player with the Blu-ray technology in it. Again another revenue stream. Sony clearly don’t pay themselves when they make a DVD player so they have a commercial advantage over their competition.
You might say it makes sense and they developed the technology so why should they not reap the rewards. I’d have to agree.
Now think of the Internet or World Wide Web. Who owns that? No one it is an amalgamation of networks (each owned by a seprate company) and computers (each made by a wide variety of manufactures) and a vast aray of information and service provider. It is seen (by some) as the next evolution of humanity, globalising the world and empowering the people.
Who invented it? Well it was a cooperation of non-profit making organisations, The US army and universities principally. It was also help by IBM that didn’t think coordinated the development of the Personal Computer but didn’t think it was a big market so didn’t protect their investment.
ITV is a profit making (or would like to be) company, as is BT, but the BBC is not. What they want to develop in Project Canvas is an open architecture way to deliver high quality video over the internet. Their motives? ITV needs to replace (or at least bolster) its broken ad funded broadcast business model. BT know that video over the internet is coming and a) wants to reduce the cost (or get some more money) of delivering it and the BBC (God bless their cotton socks) have as part of their reson detra , “access”.
The internet improves access from a number of view points. Not only does it extend beyond the traditional limitations of broadcasting, it caters for individual choice, on demand and catch-up services.
If the device in the home can be a PC, Mac or generic set top box then consumers will not have to go out and buy a new box (the end of the world is nigh). Undoubtedly Sony and other manufactures have their own proprietary solution and that is why they are calling foul.
With the exception of the big boys that have done the R&D and have the global presence to impose a standard I think that any other manufacturer should be looking at this as an opportunity. If suddenly I can download stuff (and lots of it) I have two problems; where do a store it (these are not small files) and how do I manage it (what is it, where is it, can I watch it now, how do I get it from my PC to my TV etc etc etc).
The other thing is, no one predicted SMS messaging as a major revenue source for mobile, it was cheap and easy, and look how the consumers took to it. The Internet is the same, no one predicted its commercial and global impact at the start (except me – I wish) and look how people were able to make it (despite its faults) into something so powerful that governments (of all shades) are afraid of it. I’m not suggesting that Project Canvas has the same potential, but who knows if it is cheap and accesable
If Sony come up with something better, even if it is more expensive people will still buy it, if it delivers “value”. I drive a car and it is more expensive than public transport, but it has other values beyond taking me form a-to-b, that makes it worth it to me.
Heard of Blu-ray? It’s the DVD standard for high definition videos. It was developed by Sony. There were a few other standards that contended but, eventually they fell by the wayside as consumer caution and confusion held sales of new DVD players back. The manufactures agreed to adopt a single standard. Simpler for everyone.
So you may think everyone is a winner! But as they might have said in “Animal Farm”, some are bigger winners than others
Sony own the technology so every time a Hollywood film studio or anyone else produces a Blu-ray DVD they pay Sony a licence fee. Small it may be but with increasing volumes it ends up being significant. Sony also get a licence fee everytime a manufacturer makes a new DVD player with the Blu-ray technology in it. Again another revenue stream. Sony clearly don’t pay themselves when they make a DVD player so they have a commercial advantage over their competition.
You might say it makes sense and they developed the technology so why should they not reap the rewards. I’d have to agree.
Now think of the Internet or World Wide Web. Who owns that? No one it is an amalgamation of networks (each owned by a seprate company) and computers (each made by a wide variety of manufactures) and a vast aray of information and service provider. It is seen (by some) as the next evolution of humanity, globalising the world and empowering the people.
Who invented it? Well it was a cooperation of non-profit making organisations, The US army and universities principally. It was also help by IBM that didn’t think coordinated the development of the Personal Computer but didn’t think it was a big market so didn’t protect their investment.
ITV is a profit making (or would like to be) company, as is BT, but the BBC is not. What they want to develop in Project Canvas is an open architecture way to deliver high quality video over the internet. Their motives? ITV needs to replace (or at least bolster) its broken ad funded broadcast business model. BT know that video over the internet is coming and a) wants to reduce the cost (or get some more money) of delivering it and the BBC (God bless their cotton socks) have as part of their reson detra , “access”.
The internet improves access from a number of view points. Not only does it extend beyond the traditional limitations of broadcasting, it caters for individual choice, on demand and catch-up services.
If the device in the home can be a PC, Mac or generic set top box then consumers will not have to go out and buy a new box (the end of the world is nigh). Undoubtedly Sony and other manufactures have their own proprietary solution and that is why they are calling foul.
With the exception of the big boys that have done the R&D and have the global presence to impose a standard I think that any other manufacturer should be looking at this as an opportunity. If suddenly I can download stuff (and lots of it) I have two problems; where do a store it (these are not small files) and how do I manage it (what is it, where is it, can I watch it now, how do I get it from my PC to my TV etc etc etc).
The other thing is, no one predicted SMS messaging as a major revenue source for mobile, it was cheap and easy, and look how the consumers took to it. The Internet is the same, no one predicted its commercial and global impact at the start (except me – I wish) and look how people were able to make it (despite its faults) into something so powerful that governments (of all shades) are afraid of it. I’m not suggesting that Project Canvas has the same potential, but who knows if it is cheap and accesable
If Sony come up with something better, even if it is more expensive people will still buy it, if it delivers “value”. I drive a car and it is more expensive than public transport, but it has other values beyond taking me form a-to-b, that makes it worth it to me.
Tuesday, 16 June 2009
General Hospitals
The organisations that we put in place to manage or deliver an objective go through a constant cycle of being swept away for “new” or “modern” way of doing something only for that “new” and modern way to be eventually be swept away too. Eventually (it seems) an old structure will be reinvented as “new” and sweep all that has gone before.
My observations are: -
No matter how good a organisations structure or the processes eventually they fail to some extent. This maybe they stop delivering the objective, they fail to adopt and adapt, they become inefficient. However this is not the main reason they get swept away. The main reason is that new person comes in and changes things. I’ve done this myself when I took over an organisation.
There are a variety of reasons for sweeping away the old.
Two thing got me thinking about this: -
It seem that what is relatively short term benefits are realised instead of sustainable progress.
My observations are: -
No matter how good a organisations structure or the processes eventually they fail to some extent. This maybe they stop delivering the objective, they fail to adopt and adapt, they become inefficient. However this is not the main reason they get swept away. The main reason is that new person comes in and changes things. I’ve done this myself when I took over an organisation.
There are a variety of reasons for sweeping away the old.
- To align to new objectives
- To change a culture
- To drive out inefficiencies, often adopt different (maybe new) technologies or processes.
- To put into place something the instigator understands, make a name, avoid delivering by blaming the change or any other number of completely irrelevant purposes.
Two thing got me thinking about this: -
- One was the suggestion that GP centres and local health centres took on more of the general medical duties of hospitals to allow the Hospitals to become specialist centres of expertise where high cost technology could concentrated. This reminded me of the old “General Hospital” and Cottage Hospital network which was shut down to move nurses and doctors into regional hospitals.
- The second was the suggestion that some of the stations shut down by Dr Beaching in the 1070’s should be reopened to cope with the increasing demand for rail travel
It seem that what is relatively short term benefits are realised instead of sustainable progress.
Prince gets rogered
Prince Charles has voiced his opinion over a building in Chelsea (on the Old Chelsea Barracks site) and now the Architect (Lord Rogers) is asking for a constitutional review.
What is wrong here? That fact that Prince Charles voiced an opinion! Surly he has the right to express an opinion. What is wrong is if the Qatari owners have canned the building just because the opinion came from Prince Charles. Apparently most of the local residence objected to the building as being out of character with the surroundings too.
Rogers said on the BBC Radio 4 that he had a letter from the Royal Hospital (Chelsea Pensioners Hospital) stating that they didn’t object. Clearly Lord Rogers values the Royal Hospitals opinion over local residence. As he seems free to give different weight depending on the source of the opionin why does he object if the Qatari owners do likewise.
If this out of touch architect thinks we need a constitutional review because of this, it really demonstrates how the elite of the UK are full of their own self importance. Why is he not calling for a constitutional review of how the police are able to use anti terrorist laws to curb the justified actions of UK citizens. Why is he not calling for the prosecution of fraudulent MPs.
Get you head out of your arse Rogers and smell the real shit that is wrong with the country.
What is wrong here? That fact that Prince Charles voiced an opinion! Surly he has the right to express an opinion. What is wrong is if the Qatari owners have canned the building just because the opinion came from Prince Charles. Apparently most of the local residence objected to the building as being out of character with the surroundings too.
Rogers said on the BBC Radio 4 that he had a letter from the Royal Hospital (Chelsea Pensioners Hospital) stating that they didn’t object. Clearly Lord Rogers values the Royal Hospitals opinion over local residence. As he seems free to give different weight depending on the source of the opionin why does he object if the Qatari owners do likewise.
If this out of touch architect thinks we need a constitutional review because of this, it really demonstrates how the elite of the UK are full of their own self importance. Why is he not calling for a constitutional review of how the police are able to use anti terrorist laws to curb the justified actions of UK citizens. Why is he not calling for the prosecution of fraudulent MPs.
Get you head out of your arse Rogers and smell the real shit that is wrong with the country.
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