IPTV and Me - A social journey through TV on the internet

01/10/2008

Oli Newton, Account Director

It’s in the papers every day that the traditional broadcast TV platform is dying, however what they neglect to mention is that TV viewing is up 2% for the first half of the year according to Thinkbox.tv. What is changing is the meshing landscape. Traditional TV has not fully embraced the internet and IPTV is awash with various sites claiming to be the internet’s comprehensive online TV channel.

The choices for full content programming on the internet seem restrictive. I could be regaled with hours of user generated footage on YouTube or I could watch whatever I wanted from BBC on the iPlayer, 4OD, iTunes, but is that all there is out there?

The iPlayer services almost a million streams a day. It’s of great quality and shows like the Apprentice receive almost the same amount of viewers online as it does offline. I can’t get Match of the Day though, due to Premier League rights issues.

There is more to online TV than just the BBC, Channel 4 and its stable of channels. I could also go over to the dark-sides of ITV’s and Channel Five’s online offerings, but I soon realised how little I watched them. Sky too, have their Sky Active download service, which is only available to subscribers.

What about further afield? I did discover some sites like Veoh.com that legally stream programmes from the US. Other sites such as TVlinks, TVOkay, Onthebox, Youku, have made for interesting, but ultimately frustrating viewing, as most of the content is either illegal, from overseas or is of poor quality. However the speed with which sites like these upload content is second to none. It won’t be too long before some young entrepreneur figures out how to legally upload content whilst pleasing the masses and TV executives.

I know what you are thinking. The internet is huge. There are hours of good quality programmes out there, comedy sketches, short films etc. Yes that is true, but, the reason traditional TV works so well is that it is confined. We can see a finite channel list and the staple diet of television that is given to us, limits our choices to make it that much easier to choose the programmes we like.

Flicking through the Sky or Freeview guide offers that ease of use that we have been craving from our televisions and entertainment providers for decades. When it comes to using the internet, finding something I like and is of good quality, is pot luck.

Obviously though it will get easier. Already sites like Blinkx and iTunes are trying to aggregate content for users, detailing lists of programs they have on offer, which are both free and for purchase.

But in the online/offline race to get our greedy eyes onto content more quickly and easily, I am sure what is available to us now, is not far away from companies providing us with TV/PC conversion units, that are cheap, fast and easy to use. Until then, the real pioneers can seek out a new range of TVs which will come with a built in Yahoo! feed for basic internet access (news, weather and stock quotes) and a ready to go hard-drive for recording. Next step, in the interim for me, is to buy a new TV and attach my laptop to it to get the best of both worlds.