TV and hardware manufacturers are a poor match: see for instance: Samsungs attempt at OTT settops. Let alone technology companies. Intel made a dash, many frowned  and apparently rightfully so. Rights and then making money off of them are a difficult problem for any business to overcome. And then all of that for ensuring a slice of the hardware cake that powers this. Eric Huggers was the man hired to pull it off, after Microsoft and doing iPlayer & more at the BBC.

Still: what may emerge is OTT as an increasing force, with a true TV company at the helm. Now delivering TV services in a large part of the USA. Not sure how this works out with the cost of traffic, and attempts of competing TV/internet providers to “block” it somehow.

Intel May Turn Over Its Web TV Project to Verizon | All Things D

Intel about to quit TV | Advanced Television.

And a nice long backgrounders, for the ever growing archive:

Rethinking How We Watch TV | Wall Street Journal

The Big Bet at Intel Corp. That Could Change TV | Variety

What are we not getting here: a NowTV box for 10 pounds (plus 8 pounds/month subscription), Chromecast for 30 pounds (no strings attached) and Samsung’s latest internet player box for $150 – mostly Samsung store, netflix and hulu content. It indeed does not add up: the first two are heavily pushed by their platform proponents, and bring great deals to the consumer as all of them try to gain a piece of the new online TV market – but with great fixed fee per month offers. The last one does not seem to be good at anything: it is expensive and offers access to expensive PPV content unless you take a subscription anyway. CE companies could never flourish in the settop box market since they could not deal across content and hardware: seems that is still the case, even though Samsung is offering some content now – but not on a subscription model, which is seriously flawed.

Samsung Smart Media Player | Advanced Television.