Posted on 09/12/2006 8:17:06 AM PDT by STARWISE
NEW YORK (AP) - AT&T Inc. (T) is launching an Internet TV service where subscribers can watch live cable channels such as Fox News on any computer with a broadband connection for $20 per month.
The AT&T Broadband TV service announced Tuesday features about 20 channels of live and made-for-broadband content. The channel lineup includes the History Channel, the Weather Channel, the Food Network, Bloomberg and Oxygen. Additional channels will be added soon, the company said without elaborating.
The content is being provided by MobiTV Inc., a company that has specialized in delivering live cable channels to cell phones through wireless carriers such as Sprint Nextel Corp. (S) and Cingular Wireless, which is majority owned by AT&T.
As compared with many Internet-based video services, where the viewing window is considerably smaller than most computer monitors, the new AT&T offering will allow users to expand the picture to full screen. The service requires Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)'s Windows Media Player for playback.
Viewers will see whatever commercials are being shown on the live broadcast, but no advertisements are planned for the browser window and control panel that frame the TV picture.
AT&T Broadband TV will be available to customers of rival Internet services such as cable broadband in addition to the company's DSL subscriber base of 7.8 millioon accounts. It will also be accessible over Wi-Fi wireless services offered at retail locations.
While live TV feeds over the Internet are relatively uncommon so far, online downloading of video clips and TV programs have hit the mainstream over the past year.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.myway.com ...
Ping!
Grumble. Blew the link, even though it showed up right in the preview... http://pathto911.abc.com
btt
Dunno about the rest of you, but this is of limited use to me. i'm usually using my computer and watching a tv. No way I could type and watch on the same computer.
Seems limited at the moment, but a great idea. Especially for breaking news items. If most of the channels are music or garbage like Oh! then it is a total waste. Will have to see where this eventually goes. If done right, it has incredible potential.
They will probably find a way to increase my monthly bill they send since they were debundled, the bill for nothing that has gone up 50% in a year for nothing.
Hell yeah! I'm there. I have ATT for my Internet and phone service. I would gladly pay an extra $20 a month for cable channels instead of $70 a month through Time Warner.
You can buy a WinTV adapter and watch your home cable TV on a window (or full screen) on your computer without the montly charge.
Check this out. They add football and I say we dump TWC. :)
I have AT&T/Yahoo/Dishnetwork satalite tv and am very happy with it. I will keep this in mind when it becomes more wide spread.
Some of the networks have finally started offering individual downloads of some of their evening programs, for around $2.00. Some movie studios are planning to offer movies online when the DVD release is made for around $10-20.
Fox Channel offers full free downloads of some of its new programs the day following their network broadcast.
TV and movie broadcasters are finally catching up with the real world of the Internet.
Some P2P (person to person) software has been connecting users to tv broadcasts (probably not legal) for a couple of years. P2P bypasses the web and connects computers direct.
Why should I care? I already have Dish where I live and I see everything I already care to see.
I wonder if that means they made an intrusive wrapper that always calls home like Amazon did.
What format is that Path to 911 download in?
I hate to have to download the ABC player. And I don't want to download the files is they are proprietary to that ABC player only.
but $20/mo may be less than you're currently spending
Remember five years or more ago when internet feeds, both audio and video, were free and then shut down due to royalty issues regarding commercials I believe (someone who knows specifics can review the issues). In any event, live streams became non-existant until software was developed to delete commercials and that is the situation we are at today.
So the question becomes, how do the stations that charge a fee for streaming content and commercials get around the issues that caused streaming to be discontinued.
MobiTV has press releases that give a glimpse into the contracts they negotiated.
Network admins are going to be pissed when employees start streaming video all day on corporate networks.
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