US TV walled garden timed to fade to black in 3 years

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Friday’s top story from our site:

If the traditional TV and film industries are fretting today over how to maintain their 20th century business models as the digital tide creeps up the beach, they’re going to be even more challenged in about 3 years’ time when it’s in full spate.

By then Web-based video sources will be shunting content onto recording devices, directly onto web-enabled TVs and even, apparently, onto games machines. Trying to enforce copyright by using the courts to stamp out filesharing will be an even more King Canute-style enterprise than it is today (see – It’s about the e-conomy, stupid)

The deals which will bang those final nails into the broadcast coffin are being done today. For instance, web to snail-mail movie service Netflix, this week signed up with another leading CE equipment maker, LG, in order to channel its newly-downloadable online content to the company’s Blu-ray disc player. The recently-unveiled, web-enabled LG player is capable of streaming movies from Netflix web rental library to the TV.

Though Blu-ray equipped, which makes for good video quality (not something so far associated with the net) the box does not offer a wireless facility like most of the other players including the diminutive and practical Roku box that Netflix already offers on its website for US$99.

Netflix has consistently been at the head of the pack, talking up its 2008 net-to-TV plans since before January’s trend-setting Consumer Electronics show held each January inLas Vegas.

Netflix Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO, Reed Hastings, said in a statement “LG Electronics was the first of our technology partners to publicly embrace our strategy for getting the Internet to the TV, and is the first to introduce a Blu-ray player that will instantly stream movies and TV episodes from Netflix to the TV.”

More on www.telecomtv.com

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