I have talked to vendors about building a TV head-end, but I’ve never done it. I’m certain that everything you’re saying here is true, and that is why I think it has to be something turnkey. I want the back end of it to be someone else’s problem.
There’s a strong trend towards over-the-top streaming services, but there’s still a market segment that wants to just turn on the TV and flip through channels. For my kids’ entire life we didn’t have cable, so they found it novel and interesting whenever we went somewhere with cable service. I guess I’m saying the market for it hasn’t gone away and it might even come back some day. More importantly, it’s a vehicle to help sell the Internet service which we actually make money on. When I was in the WISP-o-sphere we kept reselling satellite TV in spite of how much we hated it because some people would never switch off cable if we didn’t have a TV option for them. -Adam From: AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com> On Behalf Of Chris Fabien Sent: Wednesday, September 18, 2024 7:49 AM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <af@af.afmug.com> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] IP TV The obtaining channel feeds can be almost completely done over the Internet now. It's still a lot of pieces involved to build out a headend but we are down to less than 10 channels coming in over satellite. For a large MDU situation or where you can serve several MDU/Campus, I could see it being worthwhile to run a conventional headend and be able to just plug CATV into the TV directly without needing any STB/Roku/Etc. For normal residential I agree with probably not worth the hassle anymore these days, however we are still running it profitably and increasing our # of video subs as we grow the FTTH footprint. On Tue, Sep 17, 2024 at 9:59 PM <ch...@go-mtc.com <mailto:ch...@go-mtc.com> > wrote: A few of the reasons I don’t like IPTV: (after built several headends in my lifetime) Too many earth station antennas. Too many LNA, B, Cs Too many receivers Too many encoders.transcoders. stream processors etc Too many transmission – retransmission agreements Too much money paid for content Too little ROI Too much support From: Robert Sent: Tuesday, September 17, 2024 11:52 AM To: af@af.afmug.com <mailto:af@af.afmug.com> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] IP TV TANSTAAFL On 9/17/24 10:12 AM, Bill Prince wrote: and need not mention that "free" is almost never totally free. bp <part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com> On 9/17/2024 8:46 AM, Ken Hohhof wrote: I’m surprised how openly they sell these: https://vseebox.com/ Plus there are the Android boxes that come with pre-installed backdoors and malware. But hey … free TV! From: AF mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com On Behalf Of ch...@go-mtc.com <mailto:ch...@go-mtc.com> Sent: Tuesday, September 17, 2024 10:17 AM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group mailto:af@af.afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] IP TV I wonder if the streamers embed a watermark to allow traceability. From: Ken Hohhof Sent: Tuesday, September 17, 2024 9:07 AM To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' Subject: Re: [AFMUG] IP TV TV (broadcast and streaming) is getting expensive enough that pirate TV boxes are making a comeback. From: AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com <mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com> > On Behalf Of Nate Burke Sent: Tuesday, September 17, 2024 9:45 AM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <af@af.afmug.com <mailto:af@af.afmug.com> >; dmmoff...@gmail.com <mailto:dmmoff...@gmail.com> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] IP TV I'm not sure of the brand, this was many years ago, and I don't think I could find a logo I was in a largish hotel that had a STB that had a single Cat5 running into it. HDMI to the TV, Analog phone port to the room phone, and WIFI AP. You turned on the TV and it worked. Maybe The Hospitality arena already has something that you're looking for that could be adapted to MDU? On 9/17/2024 8:59 AM, dmmoff...@gmail.com <mailto:dmmoff...@gmail.com> wrote: Well, the main reason is for MDU’s. If the owners are going to build a TV service into their leases then their option is either a deal for both TV and Internet from cable, or to work with two different companies. They’re probably not going to work with two companies. Our solution right now is mybundle.tv <http://mybundle.tv> , which is not providing anything that the customer couldn’t get on their own, and there’s not much in it for us. I really want it to be a turnkey thing because we’ll have less sunk cost if we want to drop it someday. And I’ll say we have Realchoice for one building now, and our cost on the TV package is something like $11/month per unit. Obviously that’s profitable for us while also being attractive for the landlords. My ONLY complaint with Realchoice TV is they don’t have a set top box. There are situations where I think that would be desirable. For example, one of our customers is a fully furnished student housing facility where the TV is already there when the kids move in. If we’re a box on HDMI1 then they could just turn on the TV and it would work immediately. Otherwise we have to provide instructions for them to open the app, which a lot of them will never read, and with new tenants coming in every year I’d rather it was just *there* when they turn on the TV. The same logic would apply for hospitality and commercial scenarios. If the hotel TV required you to turn on a Roku and open an app then I’ll bet half the guests are going to call the front desk not knowing what to do because they didn’t read the instructions posted next to the TV. If the doctor’s office TV requires you to open an app after turning it on, then I’ll bet we’ll walk in and see the Roku home screen most of the time because the staff won’t know or won’t care about doing that every time. Basically, while I love that they have apps for Roku, Android, iOS, etc, I want a set top box to be available as an option because I believe a lot of people are terminally lazy or stupid. If there’s a way to have an Android set top box that automatically opens a particular app on bootup then that might solve my one Realchoice quibble. It would have to be something we could buy already set up like that. 1. I already know Dish/Direct are going to have a system where I do all the work and they get all the money. That’s how they did satellite and I doubt their streaming would have any different philosophy. 2. I have one opinion that Rodeo wasn’t good. Any concurrence or disagreement on that? 3. I’ll never get buy in from upper management to invest six figures in a head-end, and I don’t really want that to be my problem. There must be other players for reselling an IP TV option. Do we know of any? If Layne is still on this list I do apologize buddy. Your company has always responded when we needed something and I’d advocate your product to anyone. In fact, I currently *am* advocating your product to our upper management. I only have the one issue, and I know I’ll be asked about it, and I want to have an answer prepared ahead of time when it comes up. -Adam From: AF mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com On Behalf Of Chuck McCown Sent: Tuesday, September 17, 2024 6:51 AM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group mailto:af@af.afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] IP TV I have been through this several times. Huge pita, not worth the effort. Sent from my iPhone On Sep 16, 2024, at 11:28 PM, Darin Steffl <darin.ste...@mnwifi.com <mailto:darin.ste...@mnwifi.com> > wrote: It's probably best to avoid TV at this point. Very low margin, lots of issues, increasing wholesale rates, churn, etc. Lots of companies are dropping TV and pushing people to streaming instead. On Mon, Sep 16, 2024, 7:13 PM Ken Hohhof <khoh...@kwom.com <mailto:khoh...@kwom.com> > wrote: Out of curiosity, why do you want to do TV? From: AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com <mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com> > On Behalf Of Adam Moffett Sent: Monday, September 16, 2024 6:48 PM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <af@af.afmug.com <mailto:af@af.afmug.com> > Subject: Re: [AFMUG] IP TV Good to know Get Outlook for iOS <https://aka.ms/o0ukef> _____ From: AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com <mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com> > on behalf of Chris Fabien <ch...@lakenetmi.com <mailto:ch...@lakenetmi.com> > Sent: Monday, September 16, 2024 7:30:35 PM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <af@af.afmug.com <mailto:af@af.afmug.com> > Subject: Re: [AFMUG] IP TV We had an extremely bad experience with Rodeo TV, FYI. We ended up building a proper cable TV headend. It was definitely not a turnkey project. On Mon, Sep 16, 2024 at 3:24 PM <dmmoff...@gmail.com <mailto:dmmoff...@gmail.com> > wrote: The last time I dug into doing TV I found anything from companies that would help you set up a head-end to the turnkey players like Realchoice. I think I’d rather be on the turnkey end of it. The most I know Realchoice TV is a good product. They’ve always been responsive whenever I needed anything, and the TV works fine. What else is out there these days? 1. Realchoice TV 2. Rodeo Networks? Are they still a thing? 3. Direct TV has something you can resell as well, but frankly I’ve been a retailer for Dish Network and DirecTV for satellite TV, and both were like having an abusive spouse. What else is there? -Adam -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com <mailto:AF@af.afmug.com> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com <mailto:AF@af.afmug.com> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com <mailto:AF@af.afmug.com> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com _____ -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com <mailto:AF@af.afmug.com> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com _____ -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com <mailto:AF@af.afmug.com> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com <mailto:AF@af.afmug.com> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com
-- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com
