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Like others have said, sports is the only thing that keeps me buying cable, but this whole "cable is dying" argument neglects one main point: the TV viewing exp

Like others have said, sports is the only thing that keeps me buying cable, but this whole "cable is dying" argument neglects one main point: the TV viewing experience is still way better than online video. Try flipping through 100 streaming videos as quickly as you can flip through 100 TV channels. Until IPTV or whatever you want to call it can perform as well as cable, and it can't yet, I don't see cable dying. Mark Cuban had a good piece on this subject a year ago, still rings true: http://www.dmwmedia.com/news/2009/03/25/mrk-cuban:-cable-tv-winning-battle-against-internet-delivered-tv http://www.dmwmedia.com/news/2009/03/25/mrk-cuban:-cable-tv-...

hugh3 16y ago
Why would I want to flip through a hundred streaming videos? The only reason I'd flip through 100 cable stations is because there's nothing I want to watch on any of 'em... or more frequently there's a couple of things I sort-of want to watch on a couple of them, interrupted with ad breaks so frequent, long, and unpredictable in length that I can't possibly sit through them. In contrast, Netflix gives me a full HD video of exactly what I want to watch, when I want to watch it, with no ads. It's better even than a DVD, because the DVD forces me to sit through a bunch of copyright warnings, logos for the distributor, and half the time a main menu which wants to show me fifteen seconds of clips from the movie before I can press play.
carbocation 16y ago
http://www.ivi.tv http://www.ivi.tv does a pretty good job of this, at consistently high quality. Caveats: (1) It's only for broadcast channels at this point; (2) it's unclear that what they do is legal, but they believe that it is and appear to be litigating this point.
potatolicious 16y ago
It's a demographics issue - all the 20-somethings I know follow shows, almost nobody does the whole "I just want to see what's on" thing anymore. There's a major shift in how people use TVs, and the new user mode supports intentional watching (as opposed to passive surfing). This is supported by the rise of DVRs, allowing people to choose when they want to view their content without delving into the online realm of Hulu, Netflix, etc. The problem right now is that none of the major online streamers have really good integration into any TV set. There also does not exist a good discovery system ("you like House? You might also like...") for anyone except Netflix, and they're more of a movie house than a television one.
bbatsell 16y ago
> Until IPTV or whatever you want to call it can perform as well as cable, and it can't yet, I don't see cable dying. As someone who recently moved from Time Warner Cable to U-Verse, U-Verse (which is an entirely multicasted IPTV system) is substantially faster than TWC in terms of channel acquisition speed — it's literally instantaneous. I suspect a lot of that has to do with Time Warner's increasing use of switched digital video rather than encrypted QAM, but that certainly isn't going to change anytime soon.

hugh3 16y ago

Why would I want to flip through a hundred streaming videos? The only reason I'd flip through 100 cable stations is because there's nothing I want to watch on any of 'em... or more frequently there's a couple of things I sort-of want to watch on a couple of them, interrupted with ad breaks so frequent, long, and unpredictable in length that I can't possibly sit through them. In contrast, Netflix gives me a full HD video of exactly what I want to watch, when I want to watch it, with no ads. It's better even than a DVD, because the DVD forces me to sit through a bunch of copyright warnings, logos for the distributor, and half the time a main menu which wants to show me fifteen seconds of clips from the movie before I can press play.

carbocation 16y ago

http://www.ivi.tv http://www.ivi.tv does a pretty good job of this, at consistently high quality. Caveats: (1) It's only for broadcast channels at this point; (2) it's unclear that what they do is legal, but they believe that it is and appear to be litigating this point.

potatolicious 16y ago

It's a demographics issue - all the 20-somethings I know follow shows, almost nobody does the whole "I just want to see what's on" thing anymore. There's a major shift in how people use TVs, and the new user mode supports intentional watching (as opposed to passive surfing). This is supported by the rise of DVRs, allowing people to choose when they want to view their content without delving into the online realm of Hulu, Netflix, etc. The problem right now is that none of the major online streamers have really good integration into any TV set. There also does not exist a good discovery system ("you like House? You might also like...") for anyone except Netflix, and they're more of a movie house than a television one.

bbatsell 16y ago

> Until IPTV or whatever you want to call it can perform as well as cable, and it can't yet, I don't see cable dying. As someone who recently moved from Time Warner Cable to U-Verse, U-Verse (which is an entirely multicasted IPTV system) is substantially faster than TWC in terms of channel acquisition speed — it's literally instantaneous. I suspect a lot of that has to do with Time Warner's increasing use of switched digital video rather than encrypted QAM, but that certainly isn't going to change anytime soon.