TELEVISION
Sports TVs Of Tomorrow To Bend And Flex
Posted by Jonathan in TELEVISION on 06-01-10 No Comments
Looks like the world of watching sports is going to get well, flexible.
At last week’s Society Of Information Display “Display Week 2010,” up in Seattle, most of the major panel vendors were on hand showing screens that were not only brighter, thinner and more colorful, they showed screens that bend, flex or otherwise act unstiff.
And boy, does all this bending and stretching have an impact on the future of sports.
Sure, TVs in about two years will be thinner, brighter and offer bigger display sizes for 3D sets; but the fact that these displays will be able to bend is now clearly a major trend in sports technology. I was talking to one of the companies that sells TV screens and displays to sports TV shows on cable and broadcast, and he said that several major sports show producers will be ordering flexible displays for on-set images.
Fans can also expect to see flexible displays at stadiums as well. TV screens will not be limited to the massive, stiff units that now dominate Cowboys Stadiums. Instead, live sports imagery will be able to be wrapped around columns, posted on outfield walls or otherwise retrofitted into venues. And certainly for mega events, like The World Cup and The Olympics, the flexible display will affect how those games are perceived on-site and around the world.
To paraphrase the Dos Equis guy when it comes to sports, “Stay Flexible, My Friend.”
FiOS Rolls Out 3-D Yankees Game
Posted by Jonathan in TELEVISION on 05-11-10 No Comments
Imagine Derek, Ichiro and … well, you. The regional sports network, YES announced today that it will test 3D baseball broadcasting with a Yankees-Mariners game on July 10 and 11th. The service will be tested with FiOS, a local TV provider in NYC. And will not only be an interesting tech step, it will be fascinating test in acoustics: I will be listening for a loud SMACK coming from the Steinbrenners slapping poor Cablevision upside the head. Those bastards currently overpay for YES content today. Imagine the fun they are having seeing that FiOS will get this trial before they do.
The game it shows that the Yankees will be going 3D sooner rather than later. I put the over under for a pure 3D YES feed for the 2011 season.
Discuss.
NBA Digital Tests TV Apps
Posted by Jonathan in TELEVISION on 05-03-10 No Comments
It looks like the leagues are catching on to this notion of porting their digital content directly to TVs, without the need for PCs, set-top boxes or browsers. NBA Entertainment announced today that it will be tossing in NBA Game Time into the list of apps that run on Web enabled TVs like those from Vizio and Roku.
The move is important on many levels. Here are the top 2
1) Others will follow the NBA’s lead. The move is important if only because a major sports league is testing the direct to TV digital content waters. Where the NBA goes, so shall MLB, NFL, the NHL and others. It’s a real step.
2) TV Apps Aren’t a Pain to Make. The move also shows how dead simple it is for sports leagues to make meaningful content for Web App enabled TVs. In other words, leagues can get to customers faster with apps and not spend time kowtowing to pain in the ass Apple when it comes to getting their software on the networks, like say dealing with the Apps Store.
And keep in mind, that no matter what TV Web Apps will be a big, BIG market. There are 500 million some odd TVs working in the United States; and slowly but surely probably about 20 percent will have internet capability over say a half decade. That is roughly 100 million TVs, about 5 times the number of iPads users there will ever be.
Sports Apps are gold.
Rumor Of The Day: Tunerfish May — Or May Not — Spin Out Of Comcast
Posted by Jonathan in TELEVISION on 04-27-10 No Comments
Listen up: Today’s rumor of the day is from TechCrunch. Micheal Arrington, who owns the place, is hyping his big trade event in NYC later next month. And apparently one of the companies that’s paying him is getting “coverage.” Such is the state of American media.
Anyway, Tunerfish is important for sports fans because it might be tied into Comcast’s Fancast product. Plaxo, which is also mentioned here, is the failed address and contact play that Comcast bought. So if the two are related, fans can expect to be looking at some sort of social viewing thing.
Which is important now because the social sports is really coming. The iPad is the killer app in TV interfaces. And it hosts all sorts of interactivity. And some sort of social TV thing as you watch the game is clearly coming down.
And who knows, with its reach and bucks and NBC, Comcast might just be the player here.
Boxeeing Out The Competition: Boxee/Roku Deals Turn Leagues Into Broadcasters
Posted by Jonathan in TELEVISION on 04-21-10 1 Comment
When it comes to new media, it’s looking like the leagues are making their own media hay.
Over the past couple of days, two interesting sports tech deals got done: Gadget maker Roku announced it will stream NBA content via its boxes. And interactive TV software maker Boxee said it struck similar deals with the NHL. Both announcements got a fair amount of media coverage, with the moves viewed mostly as sports leagues pioneering new revenue channels for their games.
But this spin missed a larger, darker trend: Sports is the leader now in new technology efforts across all media. And in many ways, the leagues are replacing the media companies that used to be their partners.
What’s makes the Boxee and Roku deals important is that they got done at all. Both Boxee and Roku have struggled do business with traditional media cable and satellite companies. These usual-suspect firms do not like to deal with outsiders, are slow to innovate and simply don’t have much money. That Boxee and Roku found suiters at all is news. But that they got not one, but two, sports leagues to take them seriously shows just how far off the innovation ball most traditional media firms have become. It’s no accident that Disney is not experimenting with alternative delivery of ESPN on Boxee.
Unless the major media firms step up and decide they want to be real media companies, and not just marketing fronts looking to discount their way to cheap product, I cannot see any reason why an NFL, NBA, NHL or MLB will want to, or have to, deal with them.
Particularly for new media, the leagues are cutting their own path to innovation. And the leagues will be the big winners.
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Episode 48 — “Spain’s Putting HGH In The Water”
Dan makes it back from the beach alive, so we break down the cutting edge in NFL Preseason analysis: Old school print mags. Blum is agog at the Triple Crown winner in auto racing. Dan talks up the X-Games. And we wonder what drug is in the water in Span. They’re winning everything, everywhere. (24.1 MB. [...]
Episode 47 — “Lance is Gettin’ Screwed”
Dan takes a much needed vacation poolside so Blum flies solo this week. Seth The Technihilist calls in with the latest scoop on tech tools to keep his Pirates awful. Blum plays the Old Course, on Tiger Woods PGA TOUR Online, that is. And we throw a techno-bone to Lance: There’s no way he doped [...]
Episode 46 – “Show Em Your Big Fly Stick”
Dan and Blum give it up to King George Steinbrenner. then Blum breaks down some big bats for big home runs. And Dan gives us the skinny on EA’s NCAA Football 11. And finally what a royal jerk Lebron really is. (7/15/2010. 29.1 minutes)
Episode 45 – “They’re All Takin’ Drugs”
Dan, Blum, and Seth wonder out loud what the world needs with Sirius’ new all fantasy sports channel. Dan gets sucked into the Back to the Future vibe and brings us sports technology in 2015. Blum sees an All-Star conspiracy in Kevin Youkilis not getting on the All-Star team. And with Floyd Landis spilling his [...]
Episode 44 – “The age of free stuff is over”
Can Sports Illustrated save themselves with a fancy iPad app? Plus: Why high school can’t afford to protect their football players with modern helmets, a look at what FIFA could do with goal-line technology, and Jonathan found some “interesting” items at the Outdoor Retailer Show. [7/1/2010, 30:29m]
Episode 43 – “This is the geek’s delight”
Seth, the tech nihlist, thinks 3D television is just going to be a rich guy’s thing and has a long way to go. Plus: Jonathan philosophizes on technology and the ever-changing sports medium, Dan got to play with the Xbox Kinect and wants to have its baby, and a little airplane tech from the Red [...]
Episode 42 – “We make the invisible visible”
TSC brings in Ron Imbriale from Flexxcoach to discuss their innovative software/video solution for regular athletes. Plus: The inflatable motorcycle crash suit, a discussion of Abby Sunderland’s failed around the world sailing trip, and we look at what ESPN on the Xbox really means for sports fans. [6/16/2010, 31:32m]
Episode 41 – “I was detained, I was almost ejected”
Jonathan recounts his story of trying to take pictures at Yankee stadium. Plus: Seth, the Tech Nihlist, joins us to discuss the NCAA’s rules on texting and other technology, Jonathan’s ideas on how to do instant replay in baseball, and Dan tells us where and how to watch the World Cup on any device. [6/9/10, [...]
Episode 40 – “This sounds geeky and it is geeky but it’s important”
Jonathan was in his watchtower surveying the TVs of tomorrow and reports back on what we can expect in our homes and stadiums in a few years. Plus: Our feelings about The Danikapolis 500, the controversy surrounding the Adidas World Cup ball, and we take a quick look at Lacrosse equipment technology. [6/2/2010, 27:05m]
Episode 39 – “If you don’t like the game, drop your nachos on it”
The new Madison Square Garden is coming, complete with… skybridges? Plus: What Google TV could mean for sports fans, what kind of gear does it take to climb Mt. Everest (hint: it’s a lot), and why the PGA has their heads up their you-know-what when it comes to allowing new technology in golf. [5/26/2010, 29:42m]
