Jeremy Toeman’s LIVEdigitally

As I write this, Comcast is worth 67 billion dollars.  Their stock has split 4 times in 20 years, and has grown massively over that time.  They have over 24 million subscribers.  They are one of several US cable companies, who take on the 2 satellite service providers as the main players in the TV space for the US.  And startup Sezmi was labeled today as a cable killer, with TV 2.0, whose advanced set-top box apparently blows away the TV.  Wow.  That’s quite a strong billing, don’t you think. The last device I recall with this type of hype was supposed to transform the way we build cities.

This isn’t just David vs Goliath by the way, this is David the little tiny ant versus Goliath the elephant.  Not only does Sezmi have to compete against huge players, they are doing it in a massively entrenched industry that spends ridiculous amounts of money advertising their own services.  And let’s think about that advertising for a second - where exactly is Sezmi going to run their ads?  Are they going to pay the very networks they need to compete with?

Now I do need to make a very clear disclaimer here: I have not used their product, nor even seen a demo.  I will go on the leap of faith that they have built the very best darn box ever built (even better than the ones I’ve built!).  I’m going to assume it’s utterly amazing, and the content quality is stellar, it’s really usable, etc.  I’ve only seen one such demo in recent months, but that’s another story for another time.  Let’s assume that in the world of “terrible Internet set-top boxes” they’ve built the iPhone of the batch.   I still think they have a huge challenge ahead.

First, they need to market the heck out of this thing.  I’ve watched MovieBeam try and fail, ReplayTV is gone, Akimbo is a service now, and even everybody’s favorite TiVo isn’t exactly a commonly owned product (somewhere around 5ish million homes is the latest I’ve heard).  Each of these companies have spent millions of dollars trying.  And I can name a dozen others who’ve tried.  Even Apple can’t really move the AppleTV in massive quantities.  And massive quantities is the only way to be successful as a startup in this space.

Beyond just “extremely good” marketing,  it’s a big uphill battle for Sezmi.  Both PaidContent and Engadget refer to the company as confusing.  In the articles I’ve read the company’s advantages seem to lie in (1) price, and (2) Internet services.  I don’t believe these to be true competitive differentiators in the “taking on the cable industry” space.  The players that be have effectively infinite dollars to throw at the problem, and we know they are all working on introducing Internet-enabled devices themselves.

Having spent most of the past 10 years of my career attempting to introduce products just like these, with variations here and there, I do wish the founders the best of luck with the effort.  I would love to try the box out, see if it’s exceeding expectations and get a sense of how they plan to accomplish their arduous task.  I think the visions of wanting to “change television” are noble, but unrealistics.  Just because we have deregulation and things like OpenCable doesn’t mean the window of opportunity is open.

I do believe we’ll see additional interesting new media concepts for digital devices and platforms, but I don’t believe going after the big guys is the way to be successful.   It isn’t about a “better than your cablebox” or a “more channels than you have now” or even a “get the Internets on the teevees” kind of play.  It’s about counterprogramming against the TV itself.  It’s about innovating on other, existing platforms.  It’s about moving around the concept of the cablebox and cable company completely.  Is Sezmi here with that new Innovator’s solution?  We’ll find out soon enough.

Turns out the speculation was true, you don’t have to be an a-lister to get attention from Comcast online.  I must say, I’m impressed.  I’ve never seen another company react this way before, and they deserve full praise for such actions.  This is one of those stories that I will definitely be sure to echo in the future.  Well done, no snarky or cynical remarks for you today!

I love that just by posting on 04/01 I have to give a disclaimer that this post is NOT an April Fool’s joke (thank you Anil). What a terrible day to be online.

I ride the bus to work every day. Everywhere I look I see the white headphones of cool iPod people. I get off the bus, walk to the office. People walk by with the whites on. On the plane. In line at Starbucks. On bicycles. In the tub. In the car. Up against the mini-bar…

It’s annoying.

Some might read this, think “it’s just like Walkmans were”, but thats definitely not the case. Walkmans were never so pervasive in our culture, they were just too darn bulky. iPods are so well designed they are close to invisible, and convenient to carry. And the clever commercials did such a good job branding the signature headphones that it’s a bit of a fashion statement to wear them (I still vote for Shures incidentally).

I’m tired of getting bumped into by people who don’t even realize it because they’re so focused on whatever it is they listen to. Here’s the thing people: YOU DON’T HAVE TO LISTEN TO YOUR IPOD ALL THE TIME. It’s true, studies have proven it. It’s okay to NOT be entertained 100% of your bus ride, walk, or other moment in life where you can just, you know, think about something or read a book.

In case I’m not clear here - I have no problems with iPods (though my Rio Karma was still the best MP3 player out there… once), nor using them when appropriate. As a wise man once said, “Life goes by pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Thus endeth the ranting.

One more thing:  If you DO have to have your iPod in use in a public place, please check the volume - the rest of us don’t want to hear the tinny aftertunes.

While doing some testing for TuneUp, we hit the “play” button inside of iTunes on an office PC.  The volume was low enough that we didn’t really notice the music in the background for a while.  Somewhere in the middle of Billie Holiday’s performance of “All of Me” I realized that it was actually playing.  My entire 87GB music collection was queued up, in alphabetical by track name order (sorry, not in autobiographical!).  Decided to let it ride.

We’re almost 2 hours into the mix - it’s pretty interesting.  I highly recommend you give it a shot, just for the fun of it.  I’m going to try to to let it go all 30+ days to completion, unless I go crazy first…

I wrote an article many moons ago about getting a new flatscreen.  Upon reviewing that post, looks like I stayed within my original criteria.  I have to say, this was one of the least pleasant purchasing decisions I’ve made in quite some time - harder that buying a new computer (easy choice: anything but a Vaio!) or a car.   It made me really look into some major flaws in the process of learning about consumer electronics products, which I will discuss in a moment.

First, I was about ready to drop the budget down to about $1500 to pick up a 46-47″ LCD from either Sharp or Samsung.  My friend Ryan Block is a big fan of the Sharps, and the reviews were pretty solid across the board.  Also, after sharing my CES flight with Bob O’Donnell (the displays analyst from IDC), I had given up on requiring 1080p in my set of needs, mostly because my room isn’t big enough for me to visibly tell the difference.

I researched across Amazon and CNET for reviews.  I even made a little spreadsheet with candidate models to compare prices, reviews, etc.  A Toshiba Regza floated into the mix, and after a chat with EngadgetHD’s Ben Drawbaugh, the Pioneer Kuro popped in as well.  This was a new one, as I had basically ruled out plasmas due to potential sun-brightness.  He has one himself, and after some more research, it seemed to be a winner virtually everywhere I looked (including this very interesting contrast article at Gizmodo).

I put the Kuro (5080HD) in my Amazon cart, updated my Facebook profile, then went to sleep ready to finalize the order.  Guess what I found out?  It got discontinued.  Yesterday!  Augh!  While on the phone with one online vendor (who confirmed the Kuro’s discontinuance), I was recommended the Panasonic unit (although he tried to upsell me some random stuff, so I went back to Amazon).  I chatted with Dave Zatz about it too, as he has a similar unit, and he also felt it was a no-lose option.  Order placed, thank you everybody who helped out!

In doing this research I realized (again) how terribly difficult this must be for random consumers.  I search across dot-coms like Amazon and shopping 2.0 sites like Wize and Retrevo, and all had similar flaws.  No site let me make a perfectly custom search (46-52″ screens, $1500-$2100 budget, etc), which was very disappointing.  No site has perfect data on release dates (Amazon lists the Panny as coming out in 2005, which seems more than a little odd).  No site has good crossindexing for customer support or services information, although Amazon does display an advertisement with a local installer (since I’m going to wall-mount it).

At least when you buy a car you can go to Edmunds, get the right price, have all the info, and know when the new models are coming.  Why is this so hard to duplicate in the consumer electronics world? Seems like quite an opportunity…

As Toshiba officially declares defeat on the HD-DVD format (leaving some 1.3 million people in a lurch), I’m not convinced this spells victory for Blu-ray. Does a single format benefit the industry, consumers and producers alike? Sure. Does it mean consumers will flock to buy Blu-ray players and disks? I think that’s a little less clear at this time.

I’m looking at the state of the industry:

1. We have a new format that is higher quality than the existing, dominant format, but is most imperceptible to typical consumers.
2. The current format has been around for several years, has achieved utter dominance, and was a clear improvement on the previous format.
3. A format war has occurred, leaving most consumers sitting on the sidelines for a long time, minds filling with doubt.
4. At the same time as the new format is gaining some traction, alternate media consumption methods have emerged.
5. The cost difference to adopt the new format is fairly foreboding.
6. There is a lack of content available in the new format.
7. Specialized hardware is needed for the new format, and it’s not inexpensive.
8. There is a lot of jargon and confusing terminology associated with the format.

Here’s what’s interesting (to me, at least) is the description I have above is applicable to not only Blu-ray, but also DVD-Audio. SACD. Laserdisc. Minidisc. HD Radio. I’m sure there are more if I dig deeper. Fundamentally, I believe the timing is simply not right for Blu-ray to win independent of other activities. Here are some specific concerns I have:

• Consumers, for the most part, can barely tell the difference between an upscaled DVD image and a Blu-ray picture (especially not for $300).
• They probably don’t have the confidence (yet) that the format is here to stay.
• The content library is weak (it may be growing, but it’s presently weak - Amazon has 176 titles in the Action/Adventure category at the time of writing).
• The 720p vs 1080i vs 1080p debate is full of inconsistencies and confusion as to true benefits to the consumer (made worse by companies using marketing terms like TrueHD and Full-HD).
• Products like the iPod, Slingbox, and AppleTV and services like Hulu and even YouTube are giving consumers more options in how they choose to watch and consume content.
• Also, the above technologies are all presenting wider content options in lower quality, thereby not reinforcing the need for a “better” HD format (just as the iPod/MP3 decimated the opportunity for DVD-Audio/SACD).

If some/many/all of these issues change rapidly, we might see Blu-ray emerge victorious. What could take it’s place? I don’t know, the question might go unanswered for quite some time.

The war may be lost for HD-DVD, but it is far from over for Blu-ray.

There’s only room for 4 devices in the average living room. They are: a display (LCD/plasma/whatever), a cable/satellite receiver (aka set top box or STB), a DVD player, and a game console. For travelers, you can add a Slingbox to that list, but that’s about where I draw the line (sounds like Erick at TechCrunch has a similar philosophy). Remember, I said “average” living room. I’ll expand on my four device theory at a later date.

Netflix was rumored to be building its own box, a project I was sure to see fail. Instead (or in addition or in replacement of) they are going to integrate their Internet delivery service into some future LG products. This is, in my opinion, the only path for success. By doing so they eliminate all risk of becoming a hardware company, which surely would have sent them on the path to failure.

Don Frommer at SAI asks 5 good questions, but of them I feel only one is extremely relevant: how much will they cost? On the PC you get one movie per dollar you spend per month with Netflix. If that model translates to the TV box, then we have a winner. If, on the other hand, I have to spend per movie, then Houston, we have a problem. That would put them squarely into competing with cable/satellite on-demand services, and Comcast has a much bigger war chest in that arena.

Over at NewTeeVee the question of competitive services is raised, citing AppleTV, VUDU, Amazon Unbox/TiVo as comparison products. In my eyes, none are competitive. The “smart” marketing of the (rumored) $799 HD/Blu-Ray player will simply label it as having Netflix “built in” or something like that. It won’t get marketed as “The Netflix Box” (except, of course, FROM Netflix). Consumers have shown resilience to these boxes, and the Netflix brand simply isn’t strong enough in that sense. We all know what movies are, and we are used to a bunch of existing models. Having the top-of-the-line LG DVD player include movies “as if by magic” is a winning combo.

My friend Dave Zatz is a little less enamored with it: “As I said recently, given content licensing fees and Netflix’s low-cost subscriptions, I don’t see how unlimited streaming could be an economically viable business plan… Time will tell if they stick with it.” I think it’s a fair point, with a big however. The however is I’m sure some math genius at Netflix has all sorts of cost/usage estimates that predict a certain quantity of movie watching. Again, just a guess of mine, but I would presume they have a long way to go before it becomes overly costly.

So to summarize - the path to success from here:

1. Integrate into a DVD player and NOT a “Internet STB”, and add NO extra fees for the service beyond existing Netflix monthlies.
2. ???
3. Profit.

I’ve seen lots of Top 10 lists on the subject, and I’ve decided to try a different format for my own prognostications. Instead of by rank, I’ll do a list by industry.  Also, I have way more than 10 predictions to make.

TV Technology

• Every major cable company will increase it’s rates by more than 3%. Nobody will complain, and our government will (again) fail to protect us from them.
• A resolution above 1080p starts appearing in demos and labs, I’d predict a bump up into the 4000 vertical lines space.
• Bluray and HD-DVD continue to duke it out while consumers continue to not care.
• One of Hulu, Joost, etc get integrated into the Xbox 360 and/or PS3.
• Google launches “Android for Set-Top Boxes” but gains little traction in the foreseeable future.
• Anyone who is not a telephone company that tries to launch an IP-streaming set top device has a very rough year.
• Despite near-constant predictions of their demise, TiVo makes it through another year, possibly getting acquired (by DirecTV, Comcast, Netflix, Blockbuster, or someone out of the blue like Amazon or eBay).

Portable Devices That Are Not Cell Phones

• Zune 3.0 launches. It’s very very good. Further, iPod’s market share dips, although they still have an increase in overall unit sales (in other words: the pie gets bigger faster than their sales do). That said, a new iPod is even more betterer than all previous versions, making everyone who recently bought a prior generation a wee bit annoyed, but gosh that Steve Jobs is so charming they just don’t care. After all, that’s technology!
• At least two major camera vendors introduce integrated wifi cameras, but no more than one uses an open service, the rest have some proprietary, closed, annoying-to-use system. Ideally one of them buys Eye-fi.
• Digital picture frames continue to grow in market share, but still don’t “tip” into the mainstream.
• More companies introduce e-book readers despite general malaise in the category. Kindle II is launched with mild improvements.

Enterprise Services

• I have no clue, I don’t follow the space. Hello, this is a consumer tech blog!

Computers

• Apple’s new laptops will include an ultramobile, a tablet, and a “desktop replacement” OR a “gaming model” (they may combine the first two). Enhancements will include a card reader, 3G access as a built-in option, and new gestures. Market share continues to climb.
• Microsoft continues to spin about how amazing Vista is. Michael Gartenberg’s observations are probably the most poignant as to why it isn’t.
• Asus or Dell acquires or merges with one of HP, Acer, Toshiba, or other “meh” PC maker.
• Sony continues to make subpar Vaio laptops. And for the last time (I think) in 2007: don’t buy the Sony Vaio VGN-SZ4xx series laptops, they are just plain terrible. I’ve now had the chance to voice my discontent directly to the Vaio PR team (at Ruder Finn) who have yet to write me back on the topic.
• Nobody makes my awesome dual-screen laptop concept, thus leaving me the opportunity to make zillions one day.

Social Networking

• Facebook continues to get backlash from the media and tech community, meanwhile its user base continues to skyrocket. Further, they hire another 1000 people, yet only make modest improvements to the site itself. I’d add a 33% chance that they “pull a Netscape” and go after the desktop or the browser or some other place they really don’t belong.
• Randomly pick some names from the huge list of other social networking sites and some of them merge.
• Adults who didn’t grow up with social networking services experience burnout of being bitten by zombies after a few months, and many stop checking in four times per day. Those who went to school during the Facebook era continue to complain about all the old fogies (like me) polluting their sacred resting ground. They also continue to put radically inappropriate pictures of themselves online, blissfully unaware of the interviewing process.

Mobile Tech

• A few Android-powered phones ship, but not as many as the tech community would like to see. Again showing why the Razr can utterly dominate the market despite a closed architecture and terrible user interface.
• Apple launches the iPhone 3G, the iPhone nano, and the iPhonePro. Ok, I’m not 100% sure on the third, but I am betting on the first two. Also, one of these new phones comes unlocked OR on a carrier other than AT&T.
• Some major lawsuit occurs between a carrier and either a cable company or a broadcaster, all about mobile video rights. All parties involved appear as nothing but greedy to outsiders.
• Something new comes out in the phone space that’s more astounding than the iPhone. It’s possibly: uber-small, has a radically better battery life, does something funky like synchs with the Wii, or works with all US carriers.

Gaming

• With lots of stealth, a new console comes to market. It might only be a moderate shift from a prior model, or possibly be a whole new entrant.
• Rock Band 2 and 3, and Guitar Heros 4, 5, 6, and “Eddie Van Halen” editions come out, however nobody licenses the Harmonix engine to make “Jazz Trio”.
• Someone comes up with a really impressively new concept for the Wii. Good odds, however, that they wrap it inside a crappy game.
• More really amazing HD gaming occurs, continuing to drive HD adoption faster than the meager channels the cable companies try to placate us with, despite the fact that they raise prices again. Did I already say that?

Web Services/Misc

• A wide swath of “Web 2.0″ companies will go dark, primarily out of an inability to either figure out a business model for their product, or an inability to successfully market their service outside of the Bay Area.  They will quickly be forgotten and replaced by new ones with even goofier sounding names like Froobooloo.com.
• No major Wimax deployments occur.
• The digital transition date looms, starts creating a lot of media hype a la Year2000 mania.
• RFID continues to be a fun topic for the media, but all that happens is Walmart continues to make small vendors spend loads of money for the privelege of selling there.
• Bloggers fret about not being recognized as “press”, yet continue to spend too much time/energy gossiping about other bloggers, an activity the general public remains disinterested in and doesn’t give extra respect/credibility for.  This circular logic is baffling, I know.
• We lose even more rights to big media, because few Americans are willing to take even the tiniest steps to do anything about it.  PLEASE PROVE ME WRONG (start here)!
• I still don’t Twitter.

See you in 366 days to see how I scored!

To The Honorable Nancy Pelosi,

This morning I read about Chairman Conyers’ proposed PRO IP act, and as others in the technology industry have, I lowered my head sadly. While I only recently became an American citizen, it seems quite clear to me that this is yet another sad sign of how our government continues to lose its way. Instead of taking the clear, high road and working to protect the needs of its citizens, the government is instead taking the low road and protecting the needs of big business. I call this the low road as it is the only one paved with the campaign contribution dollars represented by big media.

While there are some good intentions described in the external “spin” of the bill, it seems clear that it is nothing more than a vehicle to enable the 5 major media companies to further harass and persecute Americans. This is an unfortunate trend that Congress seems to follow, and I write this letter to implore you to try to get deeply involved, learn about, and ultimately break.

Historically, Congress never used to side with major media companies. Throughout the 20th century, our leaders addressed new issues based on the wants and needs of the American people. Lawsuits have emerged over virtually every technology innovation as it pertained to media and content, from vinyl through compact disk. In virtually every case, Congress always put the pressure on the traditional companies to learn how to grow and change based on new technologies. That is, however, until the emergence of the broadband Internet and the MP3 music compression format.

For some reason, still not clear to me, these two technologies together caused the government to effectively switch teams. Instead of protecting the wants and needs of the many by forcing big media firms to evolve and adapt to the new technologies, the laws sprung up to protect these companies and allow them to live in the older world. PRO IP is yet another example of such laws.

It is bad enough that we have so few major media companies. It is bad enough that they can exert financial pressure to dominate the movie theaters and the airwaves. It is bad enough that they control the enormous quantities of media we as Americans consume. One could argue oligopolies, but that is a big enough topic on its own, and frankly, individual creativity combined with the distribution power of the Internet is finally allowing people to slowly retake control of the media they consume.

Historically it is this effort, individual creativity, that our government has helped protect and thrive. Not the demands of the rich and famous. It is in fact ironic that the major media companies of today were built on the shoulders of enabling laws, not crippling laws.

Now truth be told, I am no legal expert, nor am I an expert in copyright. But I am pretty good at common sense. Common sense tells me that the maximum penalty for transmitting an MP3 file should not be over 1000-fold the maximum penalty of shoplifting a CD from a store. Common sense tells me that if over 80 MILLION people are transmitting files to each other, there is something wrong with our system that makes such an activity illegal.

To be pointedly clear, I very much believe that record labels, TV studios, networks, producers, actors, writers, and everyone else involved in media production deserves their fair share, or even more than their fair share. I do not believe that these peoples’ livelihoods should be infringed simply because the American public is doing a lot of free downloading. What I do believe, on the other hand, is that when faced with new business challenges that technology innovation has spurred, these companies should be forced to meet these challenges head-on. They should not be sheltered and coddled by Congress, with their proverbial heads in proverbial ostrich holes.

I highly recommend that you take this issue up personally. I further recommend that you and your staff become familiar with the book Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig, a gentleman who understands these topics with much greater depth and clarity than I ever will. My government is elected to protect its citizens and our rights, not to protect big business. There will always be big business, and as the multi-hundred-billion-dollar Google has proven, there will always be new big business. Congress is not protecting newspapers as they are faced with massive business challenges due to technology. The same should be true in big media.

Sincerely,

Jeremy Toeman, concerned American

To my readers, you are welcome to copy any portion of the above content in an attempt to reach out to your elected officers. Click here to write to your representative.

The time has come to replace my Syntax Olevia 32″ LCD.  My decisions so far:

• I’ll either get a 42″ plasma or a 45-47″ LCD.  My rationale is that the room I’m currently in could fit below 50″ reasonably, anything else would be awkwardly big.  No reason to go smaller than 42.
• I’m open to either a plasma or LCD, as neither provide a conclusively better picture than the other for the content I watch (HD from my DVR, some SD hockey games, and Xbox).
• My budget is under $2000, as I have seen enough screens in person to state, without a doubt in my mind, that anything more than that is a waste of money.  The marginal returns on the more expensive set are exactly that: marginal.
• I will not buy a Sony, specifically due to the poor experience I had with the Vaio VGN-SZ460N, the worst laptop I’ve ever used.  Incidentally, I apologize for leaving this out of so many recent posts, I don’t know what came over me.
• I’d prefer to buy a model that’s been on the market for less than 6 months, since I anticipate a less-than-one-year cycle until it’s outdated.
• On the techie side, I want 2+ HDMI inputs and 1080p max resolution.  I don’t need any other inputs than those since my Pioneer receiver handles video crossover itself.  And while I know there’s virtually no content available at 1080p today, it seems silly to save a few hundred bucks and not be more future-ready (since future-proof isn’t possible, I’d at least like to be close).

I was at Best buy yesterday taking a look at a few sets in person.  The ones I liked were a 46″ Sharp Aquos LCD, a 47″ Samsung LCD, and a 42″ Panasonic Plasma.

It really amazes me the challenge it is to make such a decision.  I’ve researched and it appears there’s two types of advice: outdated (even worse) and/or too much irrelevant details.  I tried getting help from CNET, but they categorized into 44-57 inches, which didn’t help me much (although they otherwise have great advice on the topic).  I’m browsing through Amazon’s search results, but I literally need to weed through 120 sets that technically meet my needs since they don’t offer quite enough criteria.  The other site I like for this is Wize, which I’m still browsing.

So if anyone has any specific advice to help eliminate a few units or consider more, would love to hear them.  I’m also debating between buying online vs Costco, as online is convenient, but Costco has amazing return policies…

New gadgets are neat.  Social networking is neat.  Congress passing terrible laws into place that arbitrarily restrict consumer rights is not neat.  It’s a big deal, and the more passively we as society treat the topic, the worse the world we will live in.

It’s nineteen minutes long, and worth every second.  You don’t even have to “watch” just make sure you hear.  Actually, make sure you listen.  It’s important.  More important than Facebook’s ad platform.  More important than Leopard.  More important than Android. Much much much more important than social graphs, grafts, and starfishes (gah!).

Then go buy (and read) Free Culture.

It seems fairly apparent that AppleTV is nowhere near the runaway success the company’s enjoyed recently.  It’s been called a “hobby” by some, and that’s about as flattering as it gets.  It might actually be the best examples of why…

• Convergence products suck - they are too hard to explain to consumers, too hard to get working properly (yes, you need a computer running iTunes to get content into it, but no, it doesn’t have to be on all the time.  gah!), and they can’t satisfy even their own users all the time due to incompatible networks, formats, codecs, etc.  Sneakernet is a better solution for getting digital media off a computer, as the standalone products violate my “4-boxes in the living room, and no more” rule (which I have not yet written, but will do soon).
• Good UI isn’t enough - it doesn’t matter how nice it looks if there isn’t enough substance to support the product.  Yes, the AppleTV has a better UI than the NETGEAR Digital Entertainer HD and probably any other streaming media device in the past, but it’s still a convergence product (see above).
• Walled gardens are clearly annoying customers - let’s face it, there are just too many content options available today to try to trap consumers into a limited set.  The only reason the iPod was more successful at this game is that it’s main value proposition when it came out was about the ease of ripping and synchronizing, not the iTunes store.

So now let’s take a step back.  Apple makes a beautiful (yet pricey) 30″ LCD monitor - it’s more expensive than the 46″ Samsung LCD I’m considering.  One of the reasons it’s so expensive is the resolution is so high.  They could easily drop it down to 1080p, up the sizes to 36, 42, and 46 inches, and pow, it’s a TV.  Next, they could throw the guts of an AppleTV inside, and you’ve got a great-looking display with built-in media streaming capabilities, and they could probably hit a pretty affordable price point.  My hunch is it would sell better as a $1999 TV set than the $299 box does today.

While they are at it, I’d love to see them apply some Apple-goodness to the EPG, and throw a DVR into it. There’ve been rumors that they’d buy TiVo for years, I hope they don’t.  They can out-TiVo TiVo in my opinion.  Better yet, they should throw in the ability to synch it back to an iPod, or to your .Mac account online (for an additional fee).

That’s a winning convergence product in my eyes.