Om Malik’ Dream: the Hybrid STB
Om Malik writes at GigaOm about new hybrid settop boxes that blend direct broadcast satellite (DBS), IPTV delivered via DSL and have a personal video recorder a la TiVo.
[tease]
These hybrid boxes are intriguing beasts, and can be quite helpful for telecom operators who are still struggling to roll out their IPTV networks, and losing ground to cable. …
It buys them [telco operators] time, if nothing else. From a satellite operator’s perspective, if you add VoIP to the mix, then suddenly triple play becomes possible. Now if Murdoch could buy an ISP or two in US (suggestions: Covad, Speakeasy, Earthlink), suddenly DirecTV is not that much of a dud.
I’m not sure this concept will fly. A significant challenge is how to integrate two program guides (DBS e.g. Direct TV or Dish and the IPTV offerings).
A clever idea (not mentioned by Om, which is not to say he is not clever…) would be to use satellite to deliver TV (which is a broadcast) and only use DSL for video on demand, which by its nature is unicast — one unique stream per viewer TV.
The world is converging on standard internet protocol delivery of video on demand via the Internet. This content currently goes to PCs, but with the right settop box, YouTube et. al. could be presented on your TV.
Whether the hybrid STB business case works is another big question. This hybrid STB could easily cost $250 per residence, when any price north of $100 is probably a non-starter.
[see also Engadget] Pace’s satellite/IPTV hybrid PVR