While reading this I could stop thinking how wasteful it all seems. Here we are creating a complicated solution to a very simple problem. All the workarounds needed to navigate around copyrights violations is costly - for the earth! If Aereo could just record it once and distribute it out we'd be saving energy. Broadcast companies can just let them build it out and then buy the idea and make a nice press release about improved service.
Reading that makes me wonder how they actually make any money. $8 a month per subscriber seems pretty low for the hardware and bandwidth involved per stream.
Even if you count on only a certain percentage of people watching at any given time you need to account for the high volume events where 80% of your customer base would be watching the Super Bowl for example.
The more I think about it the more it seems like the company's purpose is more about forcing this court case than actually building a sustainable business.
They say "subject to capacity" all over their site so I have a feeling if everyone in town is trying to watch the Super Bowl some people aren't going to be able to.
I have a feeling they're hoping that long-term they'll be able to ditch the one-antenna-per-stream nonsense. With that one tiny (!) little tweak it suddenly becomes wildly profitable.
> I have a feeling they're hoping that long-term they'll be able to ditch the one-antenna-per-stream nonsense. With that one tiny (!) little tweak it suddenly becomes wildly profitable.
For a short time, maybe. But such a court ruling would basically declare open season on broadcast content, such that anybody would be able to quickly start an Aereo competitor and retransmit OTA television. With AWS, it would be a cinch. So the price of the service would quickly drop to nothing.
I strongly disagree that this would be "a cinch". If AWS were suitable for this, why would Aereo themselves be using rooms full of transcoders instead of the cloud? I think the only people willing to make the investment in Aereo-like infrastructure are existing cable and satellite TV companies, looking to escape retransmission fees. But they it seems unlikely they'd want to unbundle that from their non-OTA content.
Aereo has to maintain the pretense that they're just "renting out" a time-shifting DVR. That's why they need rooms full of transcoders. But the premise of the comment 'evan_ made is what if the law was changed so they didn't need to maintain that pretense? In that case, Aereo's costs would go down, but it would also become ridiculously easy to start a competitor.
I don't think anyone is under the impression that anything about the model of charging retransmission fees for one-to-many streaming is going anywhere. If it did, then sure, cable companies could do what they do today and simply not pay fees. But that possibility isn't even on the table right now.
I don't think DVR fundamentally has anything to do with the transcoding. You could just store and time-shift the native stream and get rid of the transcoders. I suspect that the transcoding is done primarily to conserve bandwidth.
To me, the DVR is pretty much a settled question under Cartoon Network vs. Cablevision [1]. The real question is whether Aereo is allowed to rent you an antenna.
You would no longer need "a room full of transcoders".
You would have a control plane that would determine what people were watching (a la Netflix), and then use RTMP, HLS, HDS, DASH, etc to serve "channels" across your CDN, and subscribe end-user devices to these channels.
Disclaimer: I work for a news startup majority-owned by a major market broadcaster.
It's already established that without one-antenna-per-stream, it is considered a public performance of copyright content, and therefore the content must be licensed. This is how it works with the cable TV providers.
I've wondered this as well. The market seems really limited - people who are savvy enough to know about/use Aereo but are content with occasionally watching just a handful of broadcast networks...who aren't really producing the shows savvy people are buzzing about these days. Aereo's legal bills must be insane and the infrastructure looks expensive since everything is custom. Even if they win in the courts, what additional doors does that open up? It's not like cable networks will suddenly want to get in bed with them.
Thats less than half of the equation. They still have to get the signal to a transcoder, transcode the stream, store it on a "personal DVR" for each customer, and then stream it to you.
You will be transcoding hundreds of SAME streams. If they are at least a little bit smart they implemented shared intermediate data pool = you transcode them individually, but you reuse all the calculations = only one set of calculations per one Multiplex, rest pooled from cached data.
Haven't you heard? Companies don't have to make money anymore, just have to keep climbing the evaluation ladder until they get acquired by a company with a big enough purse to bail out.
> The result: thousands of customers in 11 cities watching broadcast TV -- the most popular channels on television -- at a fraction of the subscription price of a cable or satellite package (monthly Aereo fees are as low as $8). But those customers are in jeopardy of losing their service.
This is the heart of the issue, isn't it? Aereo can provide this service for so cheap because it's using someone else's content for free. They don't themselves create or provide anything users actually want to buy--they just distribute the work of other people, and do so without compensating the people who created the products that are actually in demand.
I don't really buy Aereo's claim that somehow this implicates cloud computing. Lawyers and technologists can argue about how Aereo's array of individual antennas interacts with the public performance aspects of the Copyright Act, but I think ordinary users wouldn't view Aereo as a "cloud computing service" akin to Drop Box, but simply a website where they can stream TV shows for very cheap (ala Hulu).
> because it's using someone else's content for free
Um, the TV channels are already broadcasting their content for free. You know that, right?
> They don't themselves create or provide anything users actually want to buy
They're no different from an antenna and DVR of your own. You buy those, or you buy Aereo -- same thing. Both cases distribute the signal. You're not complaining that people shouldn't be able to buy their own antennas because the antennas don't "create anything", are you?
> do so without compensating the people
You do realize that broadcast TV comes with commercials, no? The channels have been compensated for decades this way, and it's not like Aereo is stripping out the commercials.
My ISP doesn't create anything that I want to buy either, it just distributes the work of other people (e.g. Google, Netflix, etc) without compensating them. Are ISPs running on an unethical business model?
Aereo is just an ISP for the airwaves instead of the Internet - it carries content that people have the right to access for them, and gets paid for that.
On the other hand, the article implies that the broadcasters are not very good at... broadcasting. A big challenge for Aereo was finding a location that gets all the signals:
> "It's striking to me," Lipowski said, describing missing signals at many places around the city, no more than a few miles from the current broadcast center on the Empire State Building. "You would not get the channels that the FCC said you should be able to receive. ... It was just gone, you could no longer receive television signals, you had to do something different. That's not fair."
Some Aereo customers use it because they can't receive signals from the broadcasters. The broadcasters seem to feel that these customers shouldn't use Aereo. Instead, the customers should pay ComastTimeWarnerMegaCorp, who can then pay the broadcasters.
i.e. Not only do the broadcasters not want to spend money improving their infrastructure -- they want to get money for not broadcasting well.
The sense of lazy entitlement among broadcast and cable operators is pretty stunning.
The content creators aren't compensated when you put rabbit ears on your TV either. They have to make their money sidechannel via advertising. Aereo provides more eyes for that advertising, so you really can't accurately say that the network isn't compensated. They're compensated the exact same way as any other OTA broadcast.
There's one important thing you're not adequately accounting for that makes this situation difficult to analogize. The deal that gives broadcasters access to the airwaves also specifies that customers be able to freely tune into over-the-air programming. As they said in the article, there are a lot of people who don't even live in a place where they can access the digital broadcasts due to coverage issues. Many people in apartments are not allowed to install aerial antennas that might also allow them to access the OTA signals. Aereo helps provide such people with a cheaper way to access the content they are entitled to than cable.
I think there's absolutely nothing wrong with what Aereo's doing. The elephant in the room is that if it gets ruled legal, the floodgates will be opened for cable companies to do the same, and the retransmission scheme will be in peril. My opinion is that Aereo shouldn't be punished for what these other companies might do.
How is it different than paying your cable company to watch local channels over the wire? You can't watch "premium" cable channels. It's just the stuff you'd pick up with an OTA antenna, commercials included.
The real benefit of aereo is that it's all web based, so no one is tethered to their tv to watch.
Your cable company pays the local channels in most cases; look up "Retransmission Consent Agreement." Aereo are specifically avoiding negotiating these types of agreement.
Aereo didn't avoid the negotiation - they discovered a way to not have to pay the retransmission fees at all. No negotiation needed.
This is the heart of why Aereo is at the Supreme Court trying to defend a situation that the Court created themselves. If Aereo can skip out on the fees, the cable and dish companies will follow suit immediately. And this is what has the broadcasters scared.
> Aereo can provide this service for so cheap because it's using someone else's content for free. They don't themselves create or provide anything users actually want to buy--they just distribute the work of other people, and do so without compensating the people who created the products that are actually in demand.
Imagine I pay Geek Squad, or some other handyman service, to come to my house and set up an antenna on my roof and hook it up to a DVR. I can't imagine anyone saying that either I or my handyman has done anything wrong.
What is Aereo doing that's different? The only difference is that the wire between the DVR and my television is longer.
> its Rube Goldberg machinations are clearly just away to sidestep the law.
It would be a whole lot easier for everyone involved if they could just use ONE antenna. The whole Rube Goldberg machinations are to comply with the law.
The differences between your a Geek Squad-installed DVR and Aereo:
- The GS DVR actually, physically exists and can be owned by the user. The Aereo DVR is a software service product (i.e., a SaaS, which cannot be owned).
- The antenna you own can be controlled by you--you can change its position, fix its location, or uninstall it. You cannot control the Aereo antenna, nor do you own it.
- The GS DVR connects to its source(s) and display directly. The Aereo DVR connects to its source over a multitude of cables and intervening hardware, and connects to the user's display over the internet, passing through numerous routers, switches, and hubs along the way.
- The data received over your antenna is unique to the specific reception qualities of your antenna. The Aereo antenna in your proposed single-antenna solution yields a common data stream. (This is the key legal turning point of the lawsuit.)
> The only difference is that the wire between the DVR and my television is longer.
Hardly. The major difference is who owns and controls the equipment, and what other equipment they own and control. By your reasoning the only difference between inviting my friends over to watch a DVD and a movie theater is that the latter involves a bigger screen and more "friends." It's the kind of reductionist argument that lawyers and engineers love but ring hollow in terms of common sense.
> The major difference is who owns and controls the equipment, and what other equipment they own and control.
OK, I rent my DVR from the cable company, surely you're as upset about that as you are about Aereo? Since the equipment is owned and controlled by a corporation that's not paying for the production of the television?
> By your reasoning the only difference between inviting my friends over to watch a DVD and a movie theater is that the latter involves a bigger screen and more "friends."
I don't see how this makes any sense or is relevant at all, sorry.
> OK, I rent my DVR from the cable company, surely you're as upset about that as you are about Aereo? Since the equipment is owned and controlled by a corporation that's not paying for the production of the television?
By that reasoning, a leased car is the same as a taxi.
> I don't see how this makes any sense or is relevant at all, sorry.
My point is that you're focusing on one dimension ("the length of the wire") and saying that two situations are analogous because they differ only in the quantity of that one dimension. But that's not the only way in which the two situations differ. Along other dimensions, there's a huge difference between a handyman installing an antenna in your house and Aereo streaming TV shows over the internet.
> Along other dimensions, there's a huge difference between a handyman installing an antenna in your house and Aereo streaming TV shows over the internet.
And yet you can't seem to articulate what the difference is, other than that DVDs are the same as taxis, or something.
A DVR, whether leased or purchased outright, as a piece of equipment totally under the control of an individual user, and present on the individual user's personal premises. Aereo does not provide "equipment rental." It provides a service using equipment that it owns and totally controls. In that sense, the difference between a rented DVR and Aereo's service is very similar to the difference between a leased car and a taxi cab.
Similarly, while you say that the "only difference" between Aereo's service and having your own antenna is the "length of the wire" that statement ignores all the other dimensions along which the two situations differ, and is reductionist in the same way as saying that the "only difference between a movie theater and watching a DVD with friends is the size of the screen and the number of friends. It's overly reductionist. The positioning in the market of the two experiences is totally different. The ownership structure and profit motive is totally different.
Your whole position depends on drawing these reductionist analogies and saying two situations are the same. Applying similar reasoning to other situations, however, shows that such reasoning leads to conclusions that defy common sense. Of course a leased car is not the same as a cab, and of course a movie night with friends is not the same as running a movie theater. But if you ignore ownership and control of the equipment and the market structure of the operation, as you are doing by analogizing Aereo to an "antenna with a long wire," then you can make such counterintuitive conclusions.
Does it help tonsay that Disney resisted the advent of home video because they would not be able to tell how many people were in the room watching the movie and thus would not be able to charge them?
So some people felt that a movie night with friends is exactly the same as running a cinema and wanted to charge everyone who was watching a screening.
> In that sense, the difference between a rented DVR and Aereo's service is very similar to the difference between a leased car and a taxi cab.
But the movie theater doesn't care if I take a taxi or drive my leased car. They don't even care if I steal a car and give rides to a bunch of my friends as long as we all buy a ticket.
The television companies don't want me to be able to take a taxi to their theater. I say it doesn't matter how I get there.
Have I muddled the analogies enough or should I keep going? Yes you are technically correct, there are other differences. What I'm saying is that none of the differences matter. Frankly the television companies should be embracing Aereo and anything else that makes it easier for them to pump their sugar commercials into our children's brains.
The law wasn't designed to allow this. That's absurd. The laws were written before any of this was possible by people who didn't conceive of this sort of company.
Of course it was. You're looking at it literally, as though it considered transcoders, etc. The 1 antenna per customer was very clearly conceived to prevent "disruptive" approaches to broadcast.
I think it was intended to erect a prohibitive barrier to any firm seeking entry. As it turns out, technical improvements have lowered that barrier such that it is no longer prohibitive--merely onerous.
It was literally beyond comprehension of the judges when the rules were formulated that anyone could possibly do what Aereo has done. And now that it has been done, the court has the option to either undermine precedent and the illusion of impartiality or to destroy an enormously remunerative revenue stream for a very generous and politically grateful industry.
Here's my question: why do the TV networks still broadcast over the air? If they weren't doing that none of what Aereo is doing would be possible.
Do they really make that much money from showing commercials to people with rabbit ears? Maybe I live in a bubble but everyone I know that watches TV gets cable or somehow watches over the internet.
In 1996, 58.4% of American households had cable [1], but 96.7% of American households have at least one TV. Assuming that this difference is made up mostly of people watching OTA TV (not satellite TV, fiber, other, or non TV watchers), that still leaves a pretty massive audience. I wish I had numbers, but my understanding is that retransmission fees are currently not the majority of income for broadcasters. Certainly, they are quite significant and growing, though.
Yeah, it's a shame really because American reliance on cable distorts the technology market: at least part of the reason that tablets and phones don't already have TV tuners in them has to be that one of the biggest markets isn't interested.
I still don't really understand the point of Aereo. Are there people who have high-speed internet (i.e. not in remote areas) but who can't just put up an antenna?
The only reason I can imagine is international viewers who want to watch US broadcast TV.
1 - People who don't have a TV but don't mind watching the occasional show on their computer
2 - People who rent so can't put up antenna and get lousy reception on the indoor types
3 - People who just get crappy antenna reception
I find it fascinating that so many people are confused about Aereo. Many of these people pay their cable provider for the privilege of watching local stations over the wire. It's basically the same service, only you're not tethered to a television to watch.
I have TiVo Product Lifetime Service and built my own antenna but would love Aereo because of #3. I live in an area where it's difficult to get good reception and this would solve a huge problem if I could get the local stations reliably.
At the moment Aereo locks you into the metropolitan region specified by the billing address on your credit card. So if your card has a Denver address, you can only see Denver channels.
So this would not be a usable solution for international viewers. Perhaps in the future if things loosen up.
You have to be physically located in the market whose content you wish to receive. Sending NYC broadcast television to anywhere but NYC is not in Aereo's business model, and they actively attempt to prevent doing so. If they were caught doing it, they'd be shut down without a question.
Just because you're in a market doesn't mean you can actually receive broadcast TV. I need a 100 foot mast to see over a nearby mountain to broadcasters that neighbors 2 miles away can get with rabbit ears. Aereo's NYC region goes out to the tip of Long Island https://aereo.com/coverage/nyc
Wow, that makes it even less valuable than I realized. Thanks to digital broadcasting, I get a perfectly clear picture with a $10 rabbit ear antenna from a thrift store.
Aereo is not just for watching live broadcasts. In fact, it's somewhat annoying for that because as soon as one program ends, it kicks you back to the Guide and you have to select the next program to watch it. It's really geared towards using it as a DVR in the cloud.
The DVR functionality is nice. Sure, assuming your antenna can pick up the OTA channels you want, you can build your own DVR but if you want it to be better than an old VHS recorder (simply setting channel start & stop days/times), you need a good source of TV schedule data which last I heard you have to pay for (not $8/month, but something). Aereo can be set to record only new episodes and has options to start a recording early and/or stop it late (especially helpful on Sundays when sports seem to regularly delay CBS programming).
I also pay $8/month for Hulu Plus and mostly watch that. I use Aereo (through a Roku3) to watch shows on channels that aren't on Hulu (CGS, PBS) plus Saturday Night Live (because sometimes Hulu's version is edited).
$8/month for Aereo a bit much for how I use it but it's still cheaper than Comcast's DVR set-top box. One could watch a lot more through Aereo, in the Boston area there ~25 channels available, but they're pretty crappy.
https://aereo.com/channels
And I don't get a picture at all with a $50 amplified antenna. The local ABC affiliate hasn't put any transmitters in my area, so I'm SOL without cable or a service like Aereo.
(more info: I'm in Greenville, SC, which is part of a TV market that covers a large, mountainous area and has 4 cities in it. The stations actually based in my city (NBC, Fox) come in very clear; the stations based farthest from my city (ABC) don't come in at all.)
It does sort of demand a permanent installation. I guess similar designs are good too, I think the Channelmaster is actually better, but it is discontinued.
You can get a tv tuner for your computer, and storage for what you record, to roll your own DVR for about $100, but it may be less of a hassle to pay $8/month.
Don't forget putting a streaming server + firewall on your computer to let you watch when you're out of the house. Plus another inbound server to let you schedule recordings. Plus the upstream bandwidth at your home to stream to that device outside the house.
Are there people who have high-speed internet (i.e. not in remote areas)
How does this equivalence work? Last place I lived wasn't exactly a major city, but there was still cable internet available. Sitting at the bottom of a valley meant no OTA service.
