…The Internet Can’t Kill Cable TV (Yet)
1. When it comes down to it, cable television still rules the roost when it comes to content. The three pillars of cable are high-definition broadcasting, sports and a centralized platform. The first pillar, HD, is clearly the wave of the future, regardless of how many crappy YouTube videos are watched each day. Yes, you can stream some shows in HD, but it is not a ubiquitous offering. The second pillar, sports, is a mainstay of cable, as is evident in the depth and breadth of coverage. Again, sports can be streamed, but the quality for live action does not deliver a good enough viewer experience. Plus, the intersection of sports and HD is too rich to turn down - it’s a sports junkie’s dream come true. Finallly, the third pillar, centralization, is something that the Internet may not solve for a while - having everything in one box, with one remote, at your beck and call. No downloading, no seeding, no buffering.
2. Digital/personal video recorders through a cable system are easy to set up. They are more or less plug-and-play. For those out there that are not technically savvy or don’t have kids that can/will show you the ropes, most cable companies will gladly offer you the services of a technician to set things up (for a fee, of course). Unless you are downloading shows, the Internet in its current state will never truly be on-demand. DVRs, on the other hand, make time-shifting easy as pie.
3. Throttling. Until the pipes are so big that this becomes a non-issue, broadband Internet providers (often the cable providers themselves) will always have the upper-hand in content delivery speed and reliability. While throttling is currently targeted at P2P participants, who is to say that the practice won’t be expanded. Furthermore, broadcasters who use P2P networks as means of distribution, like CBC has done, get applauded for technological foresight, but penalized nonetheless. Will we get to a point where you have to buffer an entire show to ensure that you can watch it without breaking up?
4. Sitting in front of my laptop or desktop is no way to watch television. It’s not comfortable. I can’t recline. And it’s hard to match the large screen sitting in my living room. Understood, there are ways to hook up laptops/desktops to televisions, but it’s not that easy to do so unless you have a built in hardware and the right cables on hand. Until this type of system is available for Luddites (i.e. the masses), forget relying on the Internet to deliver. Additionally, when you do finally hook the two systems up, the broadcast quality blows!
5. This probably only applies to the male species, but channel surfing is an inherent birthright. It’s natural. It feels good. It feels right. Until Internet technology can create a seamless channel surfing experience, I’ll stick to my cable box, thank you very much!
More: CrunchGear doesn’t seem to agree.
