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ivi.tv now cary locals from NY, LA, Chi and Sea!!

I agree more competition is better for the consumer but you have to look at it from the other end.

I worked in a hotel and it was an independent hotel. Very upscale and we wanted a flag for it. We went with Best Western. Part of it was they said, we had a ten mile exclusive zone around the hotel. No other Best Western could locat 10 miles from us.

Six months later Best Western awarded a franchise less than half a mile up the road and it was a dump.

To make matters worse we were on an island and 90% of our business entered from the north end of the island, past this other Best Western.

So you can see our problem. We pay a large franchise fee, a fee for every reservation booked by us or them and then they not only violate the exclusitivity zone but make our customers think for a minute they're paying a huge rate to get the dumpy Best Western they past first.

Well we got rid of Best Western in a hurry

This is how affiliates feel. If they pay for a zone of exclusiveness they should get it.

If we don't want to do this, then I say let's do away with affiliates all together and just have one station in NYC and have it relay small translators all across the country.

That model certainly would save spectrum and make it more efficent. But would this be better? I don't know maybe it would. Maybe localism has run its course.

I remember reading about an experiment with WLW in Cincinnati and they were allowed to go to 500 kilowatts. (Way way back in the 30s and 40s) Yes, that many. They found that the could charge more for their advertising but found the additional cost of power and hiring more people to sell ads, were about the same as running the station at 50kw. That and complaints of them overpowring stations from Omaha to Toronto, the FCC decided localism would be better.

Now again, maybe this is an idea that is no longer valid today.
 
BRNout said:
As much as I LOVE this idea, I smell trouble. Look at how the individual stations behave when a cable system offers or dish subscriber gets an out of market network affiliate (even one from nearby).
Click to expand...

.....as well as some private individuals too. Those who are sooooooooo into those Neilsen & Arbitron market rankings to the point where they feel that to watch a TV station or listen to a radio station that is not inside one's home market..well it shouldn't be allowed and be totally illegal. And many of these same people aren't in the biz at all either. Besides this one I belong to another website and there is a another member who is like that, always going on about Neilsen DMA market ranks and Arbitron market ranks and how I am "evil" for listening to WBZ's Steve LeVeille overnight program online when I should be listening to Rick Barber's overnight show on our local KOA...and this guy doesn't even work in broadcasting. He works in retail. There are people out there who are like that. ???
 
I can understand stations being upset at the thought of losing any viewers. I get it. I really do. But the other side of the coin is my rite to be able to grab whatever stations I want out of the air. If I have the best antenna in the world on top of the tallest building in my city and it allows me to receive TV stations from 300 miles away, than that is my right. Nobody can tell me that I can't do that no matter how much my local affiliates may hate it.

For example: I'm located about 50 miles from Boston. However Boston affiliates are not carried by my local cable company. That is because I am in Rhode Island and Providence stations worked out a deal where they are the only ones allowed to be carried on the local cable system. SO... I bought my own damn antenna and fixed that problem. Local stations do not OWN the airwaves. They can't stop anybody from grabbing signals out of the air. They just can't.

So... the way I look at it is that ivi.tv is not doing anything wrong by being able to view these channels at it's headquarters. All the channels are free. It's their right to do this. However things start to get a little tricky when you start retransmitting signals. This is different than me grabbing out of market stations with my antenna and viewing them from my home. The law is on my side when it comes to doing this because I am not retransmitting them. The problem for ivi.tv is that they are. So every day I am holding my breath along with the rest of you in hoping that ivi.tv sticks around. Praying that there is some kind of loophole that allows them to keep doing this.
 
Seems like ITV should be allowed to retransmit as long as they are not doing anything
to the station (inserting adds, etc.). But, somehow it's OK for cable and satellite to
insert adds. Go figure. SOUNDS LIKE CABLE AND SATELLITE HAVE A LOT OF
CONGRESSMEN AND THE FCC ON THE PAYROLL!!!

Here ITV invents something that is both practical and useful. I bet if Comcast or
Dish had invented this it would be all systems go ................another way to get
another $50 a month from people...........and then give to congressmen so they
can get elected and support the AGENDAS of Comcast and Dish.

P.S.
And if ITV gets Antenna TV......on which channel will we see it?????
 
I know that cable companies even need to get permission from the Network and affiliates to carry stations. Fox pulled several affiliates off the cable lineup in New York and Philidelphia recenty until they reached an agreement. So if huge Cable corporations can't even carry stations without an agreement, what are the chances that ivi.tv legally can? That is the depressing reality that this company is faced with.
 
I don't know the ultimate fate of this company. But I was just reading an article that says any court trial is still a few months away. It looks like ivi TV will be around until at least Spring. So I'm going to enjoy all the cool programming this winter and hope for the best in 2011.

http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=72770



PS. I'm wondering how ivi TV gets signals from stations all over the country. I wonder if they have Dish Network or Direct TV and somehow managed to get the locals from every city. It's a very interesting trick that they are pulling off.
 
I saw an article that said they were getting them from cable tv.......but don't write that on
the wall just yet.

Now, if they do lose in court.......I wonder if they could just pack up and move to another
country that would not mind the service. They say they are available worldwide, so that
does seem to be a viable option. My credit card would be just as good in Jamaica as in the
USA.
 
gregg75 said:
I saw an article that said they were getting them from cable tv.......but don't write that on
the wall just yet.
Click to expand...


Yeah, but cable companies just carry local affiliates. So I don't understand how they are getting stations outside of Seattle where they are located. I guess it's possible that the company develops relationships with people in different markets and sends them some encoding equipment. Then those people send the signals to ivi tv via the internet. That would make sense.
 
gregg75 said:
I saw an article that said they were getting them from cable tv.......but don't write that on
the wall just yet.

Now, if they do lose in court.......I wonder if they could just pack up and move to another
country that would not mind the service.
Click to expand...

Of course, I'm wondering how they're getting the channels sourced from cable in the first place...
 
This should be my last post......as I'm ready to leave this thred.

Anyway, I am wondering why sometimes the signal is almost crystal clear and then
at other times it pixelates. I'm thinking it must be the internet DSL connection which
varies in strength over time.

I've seen old sitcoms that were crystal clear (on film or CD) and then some
current shows on ivi seem to pixelate the most.....very inconsistent.
 
If they stick around I am sure the picture will get better. Go to the FilmOn.com website and see what they are doing with Live TV. Download the free player. No monthly fee for them yet. Take a look at their picture. It's so perfect that you could swear that you are watching regular TV.
 
azumanga said:
Another legal tangle may involve transmission of stations outside their home market -- satellite companies are generally restricted from broadcasting stations outside their home markets, with exemptions being for areas where there are no local affiliates for any given network. No doubt the FCC also has these restrictions for internet rebroadcasts as well.
Click to expand...
And that doesn't even cover the HOLY HELL the sports leagues (Pro & College) will raise.

Remember what happened to the website that retransmitted Buffalo TV? If history is any indicator, it's only a matter of time before IVI.TV is history too.

At least FilmOn was smart enough to switch to a user-generated live streaming video site once they were shut down as a retransmitter of terrestrial TV (Not that it'll pay the bills though).

Heck even LEGIT services like FloTV can't even get to first base with the NAB.

I hate to say it but if you subscribed to this service, you may wanna cancel it before they wind up SELLING YOUR INFORMATION to keep the shirts on their backs.

(And before someone throws up the San Francisco stations on TVU Networks, it should be noted that NONE of those stations even acknowledge the existence of those feeds)

Cheers :D
 
Pat Cook said:
At least FilmOn was smart enough to switch to a user-generated live streaming video site once they were shut down as a retransmitter of terrestrial TV (Not that it'll pay the bills though).
Click to expand...

FilmOn is still retransmitting plenty of TV stations. They still have KTLA up there and a bunch of cable channels like the Food Network.
 
So much for ME-TV............

Unless they put up the other sub for WCIU. The spot that WAS Me-TV is now U-Too
(which hasn't started up yet, but is mirroring the main WCIU 26.1 signal).

Will itv discover what happened and bring back ME-TV, or not?
 
Ok now they have fixed it.....Me-TV is back.

But, the program guide is off for Me-Too, I guess they will fix that also.

They seem to be on the ball.......at this rate I think Antenna TV will get on ivi.
 
Hi,

I love Ivi.tv. I been watching it for almost 2 months. I emailed them this morning about me tv and me too they got back to me fast they fast it. The guide just has to be updated for the programs. But if you look at TV Guide, Titan TV it has all the wrong programming so they might get it from one of them. They said HD is coming and the record feature as well. I just hope they can survive. I hope they add more local cities also. Be nice if they added Denver or Albuquerque for Mountain Time Zone. Then they would have all the time zones.

Chris
 
Well okay I downloaded both players BUT I've more impressed with FilmOn than with ivi. Here's why.....

1) The ivi Player is prone to crashing on my system whereas the FilmOn Player is not
2) The FilmOn Player has a sleeker looking skin whereas the ivi player just looks like it uses the Windows-supplied DirectX Viewer (What codecs does ivi use?)

I will play around with the compatibility settings for ivi.exe to see if I can create a temporary workaround to the persistent crashing problem but I think a more permanent fix for this would be either a patch or (Better yet) a complete overhaul of the player design that addresses the stability issues would be in order IMO (Trust me, ivi.tv's techies could learn a thing or two from their counterparts at FilmOn).

The lone knock against FilmOn is that it has far fewer local channels (Only the LA channels & out of those, I only get KTLA). Ironically, the two lone things the ivi Player has going for it are more local channels (And ALL of the networks I might add) & more international broadcasters (The ivi Player has CCTV 9 whereas FilmOn doesn't).

And yes, FilmOn still carries a plethora of mainstream content although as I said before, they seem to be making room for some user-generated content as well (BattleCam TV is a good example of this).

That said, I'm gonna enjoy switching from watching KITV 4 Honolulu, HI (Who has their newscasts on the web) say GOOD NIGHT after their 10:00 PM news only to switch to some East Coast station saying GOOD MORNING to its viewers just a few minutes later while I can ;)

Cheers :D
 
Pat Cook said:
Well okay I downloaded both players BUT I've more impressed with FilmOn than with ivi. Here's why.....

1) The ivi Player is prone to crashing on my system whereas the FilmOn Player is not
Click to expand...



Well I agree that FilmOn has the better player. I don't think many people would argue with that. FilmON has a much better frame rate on their channels as well. However what "ivi" lacks in their interface, they sure make up for in their content. They've got a ton of channels and that is awesome. Now if they just had a player like FilmOn, things would be perfect!
 
Perhaps you have an older computer. Mine is only a few years old. It's 64 bit with 4 processors.
IVI works fine on it. So FilmOn only has LA stations, that a bummer as I'm mostly watching ME
in Chicago. They have been around longer than IVI, haven't they? Why have they not had their
plug pulled? How much a month is FilmOn?
 
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