HDTV Almanac - How Much Can You Stand?

In Order: Hulu must be one of those streaming rental places and what's "The Closer"? Never heard of "The Closer" before and have only heard mention of Hulu on a couple of recent occasions.

That out of the way, there is an answer to commercials for "free" streaming content. Put all the commercials at the front. I really dislike anything that breaks the continuity of a show. That was why I loved the "wild feeds" we used to get on C-Band.

However, as I've mentioned before, although I have high speed/broadband/cable (10 meg), it will occasionally pause on SD, and is a royal pain (at times) in the backside on HD. How well streaming content plays is not only a function of your equipment, but it's mainly dependent on how heavily your service is loaded, the route between you and the provider is loaded, and how heavily loaded the server(s) is/are at the provider.

When I watch something I want full screen, not a small simulated screen in the middle of the wide screen monitor.

As for tolerating a full load of commercials I don't watch them on regular TV, why would they think I'd watch them on streaming video...IOW, I'd not use the service. I even dislike the station logos that cover up action and text at the most inopportune times. I will put up with (sit through) the adds when they all come at the beginning of a transmission, but not as interruptions. Even worse are the adds that many stations stick on top of the program you are watching. The FCC should put those adds and station IDs right up there with the old prohibition against subliminal advertising. The sci-fi channel has taken this insult to new heights at times by squeezing the program into a small simulated screen while running something else along side and under it.

So how much would you be willing to pay for TV shows to get them in full HD with absolutely no commercials?

That's what I thought.

Actually there are a couple of shows on the sci-fi channel (it'll always be sci-fi to me), but the total shows I watch that have commercials are few. I don't know of any shows that I've watched on network TV in the past few years other than the local weather and news.

But as to your question...To me, there are few worth watching with commercials so there isn't much I'd pay for, but I'd go a couple bucks a week for the ones I do watch.
OTOH I figure a first run, hit movie download is only worth about $3 and that would be one I could burn to disk.

BTW, you can get virtually any definition you want on DVD. If I record HD, I get HD, but most you purchase are not HD as it'd take 2 or 3 disks to get a full HD movie recorded, let alone extras.

So how much would you be willing to pay for TV shows to get them in full HD with absolutely no commercials?

That's what I thought.
??? I take it by your condescending and presumptuous response that your foregone conclusion is that the answer is $0, and that everyone wants to "get it all", for free. You couldn't be more wrong.

In fact, I (and many others) are doing EXACTLY that right now. For TV shows we care about, we buy them in box sets on Blu-ray disc (or rent them, in some cases). As for the question of "how much?", the answer varies, depending on whether the TV show is a "30-minute" sitcom (really 22m), versus an "hour-long" drama (really 40-43m), etc. But I'm willing to pay from $0.50-2.00 per episode for a personal copy of the content. Some will pay a bit more. However, that's NOT for degraded quality streaming content, and it's NOT for a one-time rental. Once I have them on Blu-ray, I can watch them as many times as I like, for free. That's the way that I've chosen to go, but it only works for those TV shows that do make it to Blu-ray, which is the current downside.

The answer for streaming rental content, and sub-par "HD-quality" content is, less than above. Unfortunately, even with movie content, the current streaming models expect customers to pay MORE for a lower-quality streaming HD rental than what I can pay for the same content in Blu-ray quality, from either Blockbuster or Netflix (via mail). Purely for the convenience factor, as far as I can tell. NO THANKS! Otherwise, how could I justify paying $6 for a recent movie rental from my cable company, versus getting the same film in Blu-ray quality (with superior sound!) for $2 each? Even with ocasionally slow turn-arounds, you can still do 8 movies per month for $14 (BB). Rentals of TV shows work out to 50c each (or less) per episode.

I suspect that your response will be that not many people are willing to do as I am, and pay for quality HD content, commercial-free. My followup would be that there must be a significant number, otherwise they wouldn't bother pressing the Blu-ray copies in the first place.

- Tim

Good points, Tim. I think it's safe to say that the bulk of us are willing to pay for HD content. I say that with some confidence because at least three out of four U.S. households that watch television subscribe to cable or telco or satellite television service. And they're paying for TV programming that has commercials for the most part. I understand that those with HD subscriptions typically pay $100 a month on average for their service. So there is no shortage of people willing to pay for their television content, even without the ability to record it and watch it whenever they want.

Personally, I'm not sure what I think a fair price is to "own" a movie so that you can watch it whenever you want. It certainly costs a lot more to produce a movie than a good book, so I think I'd be willing to pay at least as much for the movie. My guess is that somewhere between $12 and $20 seems fair. However, I don't buy many books (except by the bag at country fairs) and have almost never bought a movie. I would be perfectly content to pay a monthly subscription fee to have anytime access to any movie in the Netflix catalog (not the limited list they have available for streaming at this point). I wouldn't need to save it or burn it to a DVD, so long as I could use my subscription anywhere I wanted provided I had a high-speed broadband connection.

I suspect that having made my living for the past 30 years writing stuff that people have paid to read has probably colored my view on the subject, but I do know that if you do not provide fair compensation to the content creators (movies, TV, magazines, music, whatever), they will stop and do something else that will pay them a living.

Alfred

akirby is right about one thing... there are a lot more people who are willing to pay for their "TV" content by paying a 50% viewing tax (sitting through 20 minutes of advertising, to pay for viewing 40 minutes of content), than those willing to pay with $$$. That's what the whole advertiser-based model is dependent on.

Maybe a better question would be (in keeping with the issues that Alfred originally raised), is there some intermediate model for TV-content that would be attractive to viewers, and profitable for content-producers? Thinking about this in the context of episodic network programming (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, CW), I think it would be interesting to see them offer their shows via the net, in a downloadable streaming format with the following characteristics:

- completely commercial-free, with no on-screen bugs or commercial announcements
- that would also mean no aggravating local-station generated HOT NEWS or weather overlays
(because it bypasses the broadcaster)
- in an MPEG4 format (e.g., AVC/H.264) at 10 MBit/sec or better quality, with DD5.1 sound
- recordable (and retainable) on either my TiVoHD (my S3 handles MPEG4 content) or my PC
- released the same day as the normal broadcast (so, watchable no later than 24-hours afterwards)

Due to the combination of timeliness and convenience factors (not having to wait months to a year for Blu-rays), I'd pay just as much as I would for a perfect Blu-ray copy, in spite of the lesser content quality in an absolute sense. With the way that Blu-ray disc players are going, network-enabled media players could have a USB port that allowed a local hard-disc drive to be plugged in to capture and store content. That would make things mainstream, and go way beyond media PCs, and TiVos. Something like this could probably even be added to current products, like my LG BD390 blu-ray media player (via a firmware update), which already handles Netflix, CinemaNow, YouTube, Vudu, etc, etc. but doesn't have any local storage for programming retention.

- Tim

- completely commercial-free, with no on-screen bugs or commercial announcements
- that would also mean no aggravating local-station generated HOT NEWS or weather overlays
- Tim

I think that what you suggest would be appealing to a lot of people, and perhaps to the studios and networks. But the two points you raise above have already reared their ugly heads, and in Hulu of all places.

I was watching the pilot of "V" on Hulu, and the usual Hulu bug was in the lower right quadrant; no big deal. But in the left quadrant, there was a bug for "6 ABC". Now, an ABC bug would be fine; it's they're show, and if they want to clutter it up with in-house advertising, that's their choice. (A bad choice, but theirs to make.) But it wasn't that, it was for WPVI, the Philadelphia ABC station. Huh? This means that Hulu knows where I live (which I no doubt told it) and it was able to put the correct local station's bug overlaid on the content. That's pretty impressive. I don't like it cluttering up the show, but it does show that the "targeted marketing" promises of streaming Internet video perhaps are finally being delivered. While I share some concerns with others about the privacy issues, I sincerely hope that this means that soon I will have watched the last commercial that doesn't interest me. I'm never going to drive a BMW, but there are lots of products out there that I'd like to know more about, and if Hulu can deliver those to me in the commercial breaks, I can tell you that I'll be a lot more likely to watch them than the ones I see (over and over and over) so far.

Alfred

(Hmmm... don't be surprised if I decide to recycle this comment into a full-blown Almanac entry.)

I think it's safe to say that the bulk of us are willing to pay for HD content. I say that with some confidence because at least three out of four U.S. households that watch television subscribe to cable or telco or satellite television service. And they're paying for TV programming that has commercials for the most part. I understand that those with HD subscriptions typically pay $100 a month on average for their service. So there is no shortage of people willing to pay for their television content, even without the ability to record it and watch it whenever they want.
Well said. I pay ~$1,000/year for cable service, even though it's only one source of content for me, and is subject to the constraints you mentioned. Although I have the ability to record anything I want.

Personally, I'm not sure what I think a fair price is to "own" a movie so that you can watch it whenever you want. It certainly costs a lot more to produce a movie than a good book, so I think I'd be willing to pay at least as much for the movie. My guess is that somewhere between $12 and $20 seems fair. However, I don't buy many books (except by the bag at country fairs) and have almost never bought a movie.

The last time I checked, I had over 1,000 movies on DVD, and ~400 DVD with "TV content" (box sets). My SD content is not growing. Along with 300+ films on HDDVD or Blu-ray, and a handful of HD TV Box-sets (Terminator Chronicles, Pushing Daisies, Smallvilles, Chuck, original Star Treks, etc.) With the exception of a very few recent Blu-ray films that I paid up to $20 for, most (even the Blu-rays) cost only $10-12 to own.

I would be perfectly content to pay a monthly subscription fee to have anytime access to any movie in the Netflix catalog (not the limited list they have available for streaming at this point). I wouldn't need to save it or burn it to a DVD, so long as I could use my subscription anywhere I wanted provided I had a high-speed broadband connection.

Absolutely! The reason that I (and others) have to engage in local-recording in the first place (along with collecting films) is precisely because what you described is not (currently) available. Assuming the quality level could be brought up, and the costs kept down (a couple pretty big assumptions, at this point), anytime access to any movie or TV show (in HD!) via streaming would actually be vastly superior to maintaining local personal collections. It would certainly save me a lot of space on my 120TB media server (would actually make it obsolete). Unfortunately, we're not there yet. I can have (most of) what you described in SD. But that's of no interest to me at this point. And the HD content is too low-quality (with the possible exception of Vudu HDX streaming), and still costs $5-6 PER viewing. That's way too much, with way too limited offerings.

I suspect that having made my living for the past 30 years writing stuff that people have paid to read has probably colored my view on the subject, but I do know that if you do not provide fair compensation to the content creators (movies, TV, magazines, music, whatever), they will stop and do something else that will pay them a living.

No argument there. But what I see happening is quite different. Distributors looking for ways to squeeze even more $$$ out of the market, to fuel the "must have double-digit annual profit increases machine". This has nothing at all to do with fairly compensating content producers. They're not going to see any of that $$$ anyway.

- Tim

I hadn't thought of it in those terms, but I my satellite bill runs on the order of $130 (give or take) a month while cable is an additional $40 plus. I have the cable for high speed internet. So I already pay on the order of $170 a month with over half the stuff containing commercials, or the obnoxious stuff on the screen during the program. In addition I have two large UHF antennas at 90-95' with antenna mounted preamps for the OTA stuff I rarely watch. That is an expensive antenna installation.

OTOH, "To me" no movie is worth more than about $3.00, or complete program series on HD worth more than about $10. IF the industry would get rid of all the DRM stuff and associated research they are using to unsuccessfully stay ahead of the pirates, they could sell at $3.00 and probably make a larger profit than they do now. At $3.00 who would go to the trouble of pirating the stuff except for the challenge. That and they (the industry) could stop sticking it to the consumer and give us "fair rights" back.

Afred wrote:
> the usual Hulu bug was in the lower right quadrant; no big deal. But in the left quadrant, there was a bug for "6 ABC". <

That would kill it for me. Screen clutter is something I'm trying to get rid of. Not add to, by putting Hulu's up along with the local broadcaster's. (BTW, I had no problem with the size or position of the hulu logo, which for me was very tiny, and in the lower-left corner.)

In addition to viewing on my PC, I could easily watch Hulu in my living room as well, just by taking a few minutes to set up Tversity on my PC, and then network streaming to the LG BD390 Blu-ray media player in the living room. Unfortunately, the last time I checked, Hulu still maxed out at 480p, which doesn't cut it in the PQ dept. on any of my viewscreens (any of the 6 24" HD monitors around the house, the 37" in the bedroom, 61" in the LR, or 8-foot wide screen (CRT projector) in the media room (all 1080p capable).

Upscaled DVDs look vastly superior to anything I've ever seen on Hulu. Unless something has changed recently, you couldn't pay me enough to watch Hulu, even without adverts.

- Tim

Getting back to Alfred's original commentary...
> Content providers worry that they’re leaving money on the table, and Turner Broadcasting intends to find out. <

Wow. I'm shocked that Turner would be involved in this... NOT! When I think of Turner (TBS, TNT) the term "scum-sucking pigs" comes to mind, for some reason. But I certainly wouldn't call them that on a national forum.

When we first got TNT-HD and TBS-HD here via cable, I was very happy to see the new HD channels arrive. That was, until I had a chance to actually watch them. There are NO channels, anywhere in the known universe, that have LESS respect for their viewers than the Turner channels.

- they will heavily promote a movie airing, then hack 20-30 minutes out of a film, to squeeze in EXTRA advertising (beyond the normal 30-50% viewing tax). I'm talking about "edited for time", not for content, which also destroys the integrity of many films.

- they will chop off the sides of a scope film, losing 25% of the content.

- in addition to their own logo on the right, they'll also run other promotional advertising of the lower left, during the majority of a film. ("The LOPEZ Show is coming!, with dates & times, occupying more than half the lower-left quadrant, or about 15-20% of the whole screen.)

- to top it all off, they'll run obnoxious "pop-up" advertising (mostly for their own TV series) right over the film itself. Gotta love it when in the middle of a tension-filled suspense film, a yellow crime-scene tape pops up across the bottom of the movie, then The Closer pops up and shines a flashlight in your eyes, wanders across the screen, then disappears, stage-right. Fan-freaking-tastic!

The Turner channels are the absolute worst channels in the history of mankind. They have no respect for viewers whatsoever. Besides the fact that they lie and commit FRAUD on a daily basis. I always thought we had something here in the US called "truth in advertising" laws. Not so... or at least Turner has found some way to avoid complying with them. All of the content they air is labeled and promoted as "HD", when in reality, a large portion of it is NOT HD at all! I'm sorry, but when you take SD source content, upconvert it, and then STRETCH it out to fill a 16x9 screen, THAT'S NOT HD! And yes, I know I'm "yelling" here. HD is content that originated as 720p or 1080i. Period. End of story. No amount of upconversion will ever turn SD content into HD, and Turner should not be allowed to get away with calling it so. No other channel does this... not even premium movie channels. If content is in SD, they don't claim it's HD, even when it's being transmitted in "HD mode".

> The company has indicated that episodes of the popular TNT show, “The Closer”, will be provided to cable companies’ “TV Everywhere” experiements with the full load of about 18 commercials per episode that are included in the broadcast airings of the show. <

Good for them. I watched a single episode of The Closer (which was pretty decent), before the "flashlight in the eyes" promotion. At which point I vowed never to watch it again. And I haven't.

> According to an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, cable company Cox Communications has research that they say indicates viewers will tolerate the full complement of ads. I don’t know how this is going to play out. Clearly, some viewers would rather not watch commercials and will go to great lengths to avoid them. <

What this all comes down to is "how much can we get away with?". I.e., how badly can we screw over the viewing public (aka, guinea pigs) before they get disgusted enough to call it quits, and tune out? To find that out, they have to do 2 things: make viewer-unfriendly changes slowly, so as not to be too jarring on the lab rats. And push things beyond all reasonableness, to find out where the breaking point is. Then, back off from that, just a bit. That way, they can be certain that they're delivering the worst possible viewing experience, and not be leaving even one penny of potential money "on the table".

On my TiVo, TNT-HD and TBS-HD are the only 2 HD channels on my cable service I have flagged as "Do not receive". So I don't even know they're there any more, and any searches I do never find any content there. For me, they don't even exist, except as a nightmarish reminder of how bad things can get if people are willing to let them.

- Tim

I'd take issue with the value of viewing or even purchasing a movie compared to a book. Although the movie has a much, much higher production cost it also have a huge Return on Investment (ROI) compared to the book, so when looked at it per view and a reasonable profit margin, they movie should be absolutely cheap...er inexpensive compared to the book. Each film or tape at the theater has thousands of viewers while a book may have one or two readers except for those in libraries so I'll stick with the "no movie is worth more than $3 per copy/DVD.

Considering what I currently pay for satellite and cable along with the investment (and installation work) for a TV antenna system I could purchase a LOT of complete series and movies for over $2,000 a year that I spend now.