I think Carl has come up with a pretty interesting future (among others, of course). The TV broadcast tuner comments, I think, just show where the commenters come from. I haven't used a TV tuner for perhaps 20 years except in a (very) few cheap motel rooms.
Also, people are trying to compare the music business to the tv/movie business. There is little similarity between them. Briefly, the music business model has been static for 60 years, substituting CDs for tape for vinyl somewhere along the way (and reluctantly each time). They do not want change, and because of the level of control over EVERY phase of the process they have, they have been able to limit change until alternative distribution came along. It was not 'free' - this should have been a clue early on to the business folks - people were paying a LOT to download music - just not to them because they didn't want to play.
The movie/tv business has been in constant turmoil over the same 60 years with constant changes in business model and new business models emerging as people applied their creativity. The only somewhat controlled parts of the business models were in distirbution, but distribution has been under constant change over the past 40 years in both tv and movies. Movie people are ready/compelled to give things a go in a way that music people are not.
So I don't know if Carl has picked the model that will emerge, but he shows there are good models and I think we will see a lot of action here in future.
The model you are talking about? It is called the PVR. Cable, satellite, and over-the-air are much more efficient at delivering broadcast content than broadband will ever be. The "on-demand" aspect is missing, but between syndication, DVDs and "repurposing," that isn't much of an issue.
No, this is not the PVR. The PVR doesn't let me search for "The Rabbit of Seville", or a particular episode of Frasier that I want from the second season.
-jcr
Thanks for your thoughts, guys. John's point is important, I think. Today, we tend to watch "what is on" more than we might if we had the ability to watch anything in a universal library. I'm a TiVO owner, so I know the value of PVRs. But I also know what they don't do; the interesting bit that Apple has come up with is that they are doing stuff that's very hard to achieve in the general case on a PVR.
Again, keep those comments coming,
Carl
Actually, Tivo has aligned with Amazon so that you CAN search for that particular episode of Frasier or The Rabbit of Seville, either on Amazon and have it sent via Broadband directly to your network-connected Tivo box, or directly from the Tivo, using something called Universal Swivel Search. It uses the existing Amazon Unbox framework, and works quite well. I've been getting 99 cent movies each weekend as they offer special deals, and so far so good!
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