Tag : boxee

I made bad choices for the first two time-slots at SXSW, so I had high hopes for the third, PayTV vs Internet – The Battle For Your TV, featuring Mark Cuban of HDNet and Avner Rosen of Boxee.

It was good to see a debate between two people who genuinely disagree by 180º on how the future of TV will pan out, even if some of the argument was basically dick-swinging.

Cuban believes that the future of TV is basically the same as the present: subscription services over cable or satellite, with a light dash of so-called ‘Interactive TV’. Rosen believes, as I do, that the future of TV is on the web. To be clear: everyone sane accepts that we will continue to have a dedicated large screen in our houses on which we watch video. I just don’t believe that broadcast TV has a future that looks anything like the present, if it has one at all.

Last week, the BBC Trust gingerly announced provisional approval of the BBC’s Project Canvas. 

The aim of Project Canvas is to define a set of standards for set-top boxes that will allow integration of web and TV. Although, it isn’t clear exactly what the standards will consist of and what Project Canvas’ vision of IPTV really is.