A lounge room revolution

The convergence between computers and TV sets – between the internet and lounge room – which has long been promised but has never quite arrived, seems to be upon us.

In October, Foxtel will launch a small innovation that could change everything for the TV industry.

It‘s called a powerline network extender, and simply connects a TV set in the lounge room with a computer in another room, through the electricity wires. A small device sits at the power points of each machine and connects them via the power grid in the house, eliminating the usual interference that’s caused by other things that are connected to it, such the fridge, microwave oven and lamps.

I haven’t seen it demonstrated yet, so I can’t guarantee it works as promised. But in a way, it doesn’t matter. NEC and others sell these things already as replacements for, or add-ons to, home wireless networks. And in any case, TV sets can already be connected to the internet via computers, either by wires in the same in room or wireless in other rooms.

The Foxtel plan later this year is more about marketing than technology.

Foxtel’s plan is to make a version of internet television that is easy to use, and then flog it. Of course, the last thing any subscription TV company will want to do is let its customers loose on the internet so they can stream channels from all over the world, along with YouTube and pirated movies, to watch in their lounge rooms.

Obviously it can’t stop us – or rather, our children – doing that at our computers. But if you connect to the internet after October via a Foxtel IQ box you will simply be able to download “catch-up” programming – several hundred shows and movies that you might have missed.

It’s not clear whether the Foxtel boxes will also provide access to the ABC’s excellent iView service, which is its own catch-up programming service, currently only accessible by computer. Hopefully it will.

The full convergence of TV and the internet, and the destruction of commercial television, has been talked about for at least ten years but has never happened.

It has not been prevented by regulation or by technology, which has long been available, but by two simple human truths: we need to be marketed to, and we like to watch TV with someone else, not alone.

Nobody has marketed internet TV – and packaged it up so it can easily be done by non-geeks – because you can’t make money from it. Internet TV is basically a money destruction machine.

Foxtel’s most recent generation of set-top boxes, both standard and high definition, have been capable of connecting to the internet and streaming squillions of global channels and movies to us for at least 12 months. But this has been held back because Foxtel wants to “get it right”.

No doubt that means getting the business model right, and that means a “walled garden”: that is, you won’t be able to go wandering off wherever you like, but you can use the internet to download specific movies and programmes from Foxtel.

Eventually, the uncontrolled internet will steal into our lounge rooms, as it did long ago into our studies, offices and kids’ bedrooms. But the reason that did not produce an entertainment revolution and the end of commercial television as we know it, is that we watch TV together (even, sometimes, with our children).

I’m writing this column on a nice big Macintosh screen at my desk at home, almost as big as a TV and with a better picture. Occasionally, between articles, I’ll look at something on YouTube, or the ABC’s iView, or even a bit of a movie.

But when I watch TV, I do it with my partner, on the couch: it’s the main thing most couples do together. And setting up the telly to connect to the internet, with a wireless keyboard or complicated remote, is just too hard. Who can be bothered? There’s usually something on worth that’s watching, or perhaps just a replay of the 2000 Grand Final to while away the hours.

Anyway, from October, Foxtel is apparently going to start marketing the internet to us and making it easy – either through its new internet-enabled boxes or by connecting old boxes to a computer in the next room via a power line extender.