NBC and Fox teamed up to create a new way to view TV content. They’re aiming toward a YouTube-esque embedded Flash method. That’s probably the easiest way to distribute content. All you need is a web browser with the Flash plugin and you’re good-to-go. What’s more, you can embed the videos in your own site. What’s even more, you can embed clips from the video to show a certain section. I don’t have a need to take a clip from a show, or to embed shows on my site, but I like the ease of distribution. There is only one problem with it: it requires a computer.
One of the great things about TV is that you can have a large screen and content is quickly and easily accessible on that screen. Having a program guide revolutionized the way we watch TV allowing us to browse content without flipping through channels. DVRs went one step further, allowing us to save content for viewing at another time. Some DVRs go even further, allowing us to skip commercials and go straight to the content. iTunes, (official) BitTorrent, Hulu, Netflix Watch Instantly, and other methods of digital distribution are a good step toward where content is heading. Unfortunately, these methods require the use of two separate interfaces. TVs are viewable from 10-feet away, have large fonts, and are controllable by 4-way navigation and a few buttons. Computers are viewable from 2-3-feet away, have small fonts, and are controlled by a pointing device (mouse) and a keyboard with many keys. Sure, there are hybrids like the Windows Media Center and the Mac Front Row, but they are TV front-end “patches” for a computer. I’ve never found it easy to set up a set-top HTPC. The UIs are never perfect and the multitude of content is never fully integrated (YouTube, iTunes, Netflix, Mira/Democracy, etc). Part of the problem is capitalism and free-market. Everyone wants their slice of the pie and doesn’t want to share it. The result is several different formats, which results in several different codecs, which never install right.
One product that I have been very pleased with, but don’t take as much advantage of as I should, is Orb.com. You install it on your PC and tell it where your media is and you can access it from any web connection. It streams it from your PC to whatever media player you have and can even be embedded in the page via YouTube-esque Flash player. There are still occasional codec problems, but one great feature is that the stream is sized according to how much bandwidth you have. I may have a movie in 720p HD, but I can watch it on my phone over 2G cellular data speed because of the compression. It works great and I highly recommend it for those who keep media on their PC and want it on the road.
I haven’t tried the Apple TV, but why spend $300 for a device that duplicates some of the same functionality you have on the PC when you could buy a Mac Mini for twice as much, use it the same way, and have extra functionality? What is really needed is an internet-connected, user-customizable set-top box that can aggregate all of this content and make it easily accessible on the TV. I think the new game systems (XBox 360, etc) show some promise here, but still only provide a “walled garden.” The device can’t be too expensive, either. Really, I’m looking for a small form-factor, cool-running, quiet computer that is pre-configured with an OS like Mac or Linux that boots into a TV interface, has remote customization via web interface, and can stream my media over the web like Orb.

