TV Over the Internet: Will it Ever Work?
There’s a recent phenomenon of IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) services appearing across Europe, the USA and some other parts of the world. IPTV is intended to be the next-generation of television — delivering content to a user whenever they want it, rather than traditional schedule-based TV that we’re used to today. It sounds great — but there is one major dilemma: Internet.
As I have posted before, the world needs faster broadband. Delivering short, low-quality video clips that are compressed is no problem at the moment — but when it comes into larger, even high-definition video, most users’ internet connections will struggle.
In the UK, the current leaders appear to be ISPs: BT’s BT Vision, and Virgin’s Virgin Media — both of which are terrible services. They claim to give entirely “on demand” services; as it turns out, this isn’t the case. Both services come free or discounted when you purchase the ISP’s internet service, which is appealing to the consumer. However, both services do not work at all.
BT and Virgin have tried to combine traditional over-the-air digital TV with IPTV, and it doesn’t work. For a start, the actual set-top boxes are ugly: No thought has been put into the design, and good design is key to a good product. It’s the same story with the interfaces — BT are using Microsoft (not a good choice), and Virgin appear to be using a proprietary OS for set-top boxes. The interfaces are hard to use, and rarely do what you want them to do. Also, the quality of the streams aren’t worth watching on a TV bigger than 26 inches, in my opinion. HD streams is what the next generation of TV needs, not to go back a step in quality.
TV over the internet can work, but none of the big ISPs seem to get it. I think IPTV should be left to companies who are dedicated to changing the way we watch TV, rather than ISPs who are in the game purely for the money.