Mitch Weinraub
Articles by Mitch Weinraub
-
Amazon’s Fire TV — Chicken or egg?
Monday, April 07, 2014Last week saw the release of the Amazon Fire TV. It is by all accounts a capable box with a slick interface and a fast processor. In short, it allows you to put most anything you can find on the Internet onto your TV — except live TV.
-
TV’s cold war conflict: Cable vs. Netflix
Tuesday, March 25, 2014It seems that U.S. cable is now mirroring geopolitics and having its own superpower conflict. The Netflix vs. cable cold war conflict started as threats of arming cord-cutters with the weapons of mass defection and escalated to bidding wars.
-
Has linear video topped out?
Tuesday, March 04, 2014Linear video isn't going away anytime soon. Live sports, news and real-time programs like "American Idol" and "The Voice" will keep people watching live, linear TV and tuning in to appointment television for the foreseeable future. However, 2014 may be the year that cable television engineers will finally stop having to focus so much of their energy on launching new linear video channels.
-
Will there still be a cable TV industry?
Monday, February 17, 2014Since cable was invented, there has been a diversity of cable companies both large and small. With the proposed purchase of Time Warner Cable by Comcast, we need to ask: Will there still be a cable TV industry after the merger?
-
5 technical reasons big cable will get bigger
Monday, January 27, 2014While the industry goes back and forth on the details of Charter's proposed purchase of Time Warner Cable and rumors of Comcast or Cox involvement, the opportunities for cost savings get discussed quite a bit. However, most of the conversation tends be focused on reducing programming and administration costs or maybe maximizing ad revenue. On the technical side, there are five reasons that big cable will continue to get bigger, regardless of which board governs or who owns the shares.
-
CES 2014: Curved, smart and wearable
Monday, January 13, 2014At this year's CES tech-fest in Las Vegas, a few clear themes emerged from all of the noise, color and fury. For the most part, if a product wasn’t labeled as curved, smart or wearable, there was risk that the crowds would just walk on by. Let me explain.
-
Looking forward to apptastic CES 2014
Friday, December 13, 2013As we turn our calendars to 2014, most engineers' and technologists' dreams turn not to sugar plums, but to CES. The annual tech fest in Las Vegas usually sets the technology tone for the year and lets us know what everyone will be buying next Christmas. Judging by the pre-CES announcements and leaks that always start around this time of year, the one "word" that will be included in every announcement is not really even a word, just an abbreviation — app.
-
Why 4K? The latest TV tech flop?
Friday, November 22, 2013As the "soft" announcements continue to roll out that a number of players (DirecTV, Netflix, etc.) are planning to launch 4K TV services, it probably makes sense to take a step back and ask both why and when? Of course, planning could mean anything from "we've penciled it for 2017" to "we will have a channel launched before the end of the year." That aside, why would anyone be in a rush to ready a 4K TV service?
-
TV viewer choices — Cool vs. quality
Monday, November 11, 2013For those who have spent years trying to make television pictures better (often with less bandwidth or fewer bits) and improve the quality of video services being delivered to pay customers homes, there seems to be a growing and disturbing trend.
-
All it takes is a triple, but no new TV service has hit more than a double
Monday, October 28, 2013We continue to see myriad new "smart TVs," OTT set-top boxes and/or services step up to the plate in the home entertainment market, but they all seem to be missing the mark. In order to reach mass-market status — in the U.S. at least — three key elements are required. Yet each new entrant to date has hit no more than a double.
-
Netflix is just HBO minus the delivery
Friday, October 11, 2013I don't know about you, but the next time I hear or read that "Netflix is killing pay TV," I'm going to scream. Anyone who takes a step back will realize that Netflix is pay TV. Netflix is a competitor to HBO, Showtime and Starz. They all offer different (but similar) collections of feature films, episodic programming and original content. Content-wise, it is only a difference in quantity, quality and price. They all allow programming to be watched on large screens and mobile devices, although some services are better at one than the other.
-
High-end highlights from CEDIA 2013
Monday, September 30, 2013In September, Denver hosted the annual CEDIA (The Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association) conference. This show focuses on high end electronics and home theater installations with everything from the mild to the extremely wild. While a number of exhibitors showed items that will likely never make it to the mass market, others serve as a preview of what, as prices decrease, will soon become available to the masses.
-
BYO: The new trend in media consumption
Monday, September 16, 2013What started as a trickle seems to be turning into steady stream and may soon become a full-fledged flood. The newest Bluetooth speakers (such as the Logitech Z6000 and Moto DECK), Chromecast and the recently hinted (but not officially announced) update to Apple TV all have one thing in common, they allow multiple sources to easily connect and stream content. Basically, anyone can "bring your own" content.