December 27, 2007

NTV Predictions: Video in the Living Room

NewTeeVee has asked a panel of experts whether online video will make it into the living room in 2008.

Their selected responses can be found here.

Most say not yet - because black boxes are not yet user friendly or because leaning back to watch TV and leaning forward to watch videos on a computer have yet to merge into something comfortable.

Answers all seem to be about bringing online video to the TV screen - but in my living room, where we gather as a family of 3 after dinner, we watch both television - it's on for my husband - and my son and I watch TV series on our computers. Yes, with earphones I admit. But is that really a stranger sight than each member of a family reading their own book?

Even if we could access online video easily on a flat super size TV screen, it wouldn't be satisfying for our family because we all have different interests and only rarely agree on watching the same show.

And as we watch TV online, my son is checking out Facebook, sending instant messages and text messaging. I'm checking my RSS feeds and will interrupt a video stream to blog.

Simply watching TV passively, no matter where it comes from (network or online) is no longer enough, we need to multitask. And we don't want to be confined to a Joost or Babelgum platform either. We simply adjust the size of our video screen to open our own applications.

Could that be the future?

emily | 5:01 PM | Web TV | Add this this entry to your del.icio.us bookmarks. Digg This Technorati search results for this Entry
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