Cliff Edwards recently wrote an article for Business Week which brings up some important questions about the future of Internet TV, and how money, as always, is at the root of the sometimes slow progress.

In it, he cites companies who “are unwilling to let go of their control in the way things work” so as not to jeopardize their power and revenues until the business of iTV is figured out. Which has missed an important point and over-simplified the landscape.

No IPTV Governing Body

Unlike the television standards set by the National Television System Committee (NTSC) in the U.S. in the 1940’s, there is no specific roadmap or governing body for Internet television integration, let alone IPTV over closed providers or even mobile devices.

If a CEO of an internet software or hardware company is making money with their product, it is naive to think they are in a position to open their code or share their technology in the hopes of creating an industry standard for that market segment; only the Government under the FCC could mandate such a process. 

Earlier this week, DivX announced they would soon be offering support for the Sony Playstation 3 games console.

The codec technology will be added to all existing PS3 consoles by way of a forthcoming software update, although no date has yet been given for when to expect it.

Up until now, the PS3 has been woeful at supporting multiple video formats, with Sony making the ridiculous decision to ship with just MP4 support, a niche format at best.

Press Statement

Kevin Hell, CEO of DivX, Inc. announced in a statement:

“We are excited to work with Sony Computer Entertainment to bring DivX to PS3. Our technology will expand the multimedia functionality of PS3 by enabling users to enjoy access to the broad library of content in the DivX digital media format.”

The PS3 Media Hub

“Expand the multimedia functionality of PS3″ is exactly right. This, more than anything to date is helping take the Playstation 3 out of the realm of being a mere games console, and more in to media hub sitting in people’s living rooms.

How to describe YouTube in a short, succinct paragraph while truly getting across to the readers how successful a site it has become?

It is a global web-based phenomenon of truly epic proportions, and has proven itself, over the course of its existence, both as an independent service and one held under the dominion of Mountain View, to be a very effective outlet for everyone from amateur paparazzi to diarists to people-strangely-obsessed-with-unboxing-electronic-goods.

These people all use the service to get their clips out to the masses, from whence millions on a daily basis look in to the web video hub for news, entertainment, and plenty other miscellaneous items anyone might wish to see at a given moment. Yes, in short, it’s a great, great thing.

Every day, there seems to be a new story about one company or another trying to get in to the old television game, but not on the talking box (as Forrest Gump called it) — rather on the web, where all the cool people play. 

In some cases, TV networks are trying to take the Web and turn it into television. Good luck to them I say. 

News Roundup

Here’s a quick roundup of some of the latest online television news:

— News Corp. unit Twentieth TV is working with Yahoo on a “Web on TV” show, which will no doubt feature the latest hilarious clips of skateboarders hurting themselves or kittens on an icy pond.

Bebo, currently the third largest social network, behind the big guns of MySpace and Facebook, has thrown it’s hat in to the online television ring by offering programme makers another outlet for showcasing their output.

They announced their new ‘Open Media’ platform yesterday at joint glossy presentations in both London and New York.

This new initiative in effect allows media companies to put their material on Bebo for free, and if they have the capability, to make 100% of the revenue from any in-programme advertising.

Bebo members will be able to view and listen to the content, as well as add it to a list of favourites, and share it with friends.

Hey everybody, Microsoft is making an attempt at entering the online media realm!

And they’re taking on the big boys like Flickr and YouTube with an all encompassing digital media hub.

Yes, it’s true. Haven’t you heard? Shocking it is that the world has so far failed to take notice of this revelation. 

Much notice, anyway. As reported in CNET’s Webware publication – and not many news outlets elsewhere – Redmond has let known its intentions (via a job posting, no less) to make itself a much more viable competitor in the realm of online media.

After reading the well written and thought provoking article about  Architecting a Video Transcoding System by Brian Peebles, I thought I’d talk a bit about the problems and consequent solutions in this field.  

I’ve been involved in building audio/video and graphic systems for over 20 years, and architecting these systems for performance, function, cost, etc. has been a daunting task, with the consequences large and long standing.  

I like to tell the story of when I was a junior engineer building mainframe graphic systems for CAD/CAM applications, we had a director that in every product meeting would remind us of our top 3 product goals; 1) performance, 2) performance, and 3) ah – performance.  

He would then go on with a wry smile and say there is actually a 4th goal, but I don’t think I have to mention what that was.