Interviews with Digital Media Thought Leaders

Internet Video Direct to TV

Podcast Video | Posted by Phil Leigh on July 1, 2008

If you would like to learn about a standards movement that will get Internet video into future televisions without going through a computer, this interview is for you.

Our guest today is John Gildred who is the President of Synctv.com which is an Internet video service based upon the Marlin DRM industry standard that enables consumer electronics appliances to get television programming directly from the Internet without going through a computer. Synctv.com is currently an invitation-only Beta website, but next year John expects televisions to be introduced into the market that will have the Synctv service built-in.

Prior to Synctv, John was Vice President of Engineering at Pioneer Electronics where he led product development and advanced research for the U.S. Division. One important focus was to develop common standards for televisions, home networks, and other consumer electronics appliances.

The consumer electronics companies would like to get jacked into the Internet without having to go through a computer or a cable set-top box. The problem is that the Microsoft and Apple have different DRMs and the cable companies have their own technical requirements.

Essentially the CE manufactures would like to see industry standards to connect to the network so that they can provide innovative products at the endpoints. The situation now is much like it was when AT&T controlled the telephone industry and nobody could hook a device onto their network. After a standard interconnect was adopted, there was tremendous innovation at the telephone network endpoints.

Phil’s Take: Ultimately standards win out. The problem is that sometimes those standards are not de jure, but de facto. For example, the Microsoft operating system was a de facto standard for years and remains so in the office environment. Similarly, the iPod has become a near de facto standard for portable music players. As a result, many people purchase music from iTunes even though it has less utility than DRM-free tracks for Amazon.com and elsewhere.