By Ian Hollidae, 2026/02/21

When I think of the beginnings of television, my first thought is to some of the early shows (reruns when I first saw them) such as "I Love Lucy" and "The Honeymooners" that ran during the 1950's. So when American Institute of Physics published the news that television had turned 100, it was sort of surprising. I realized that what I viewed as the history of television was more a history of TV shows. The technology of television and broadcasting, however, has been around since the mid-twenties.

For someone who was involved in a number of streaming video projects during the mid-aughts, this was a great post. What was really interesting was the note about the Image Orthicon (RCA) breakthrough in efficient storage of images and picking up pictures in low light. Sound familiar?

I guess we should be amazed how much things haven't changed. Given the ongoing transition to all things streaming, the current advancements are simply the modern day equivalent of what was happening a century ago.

We all know how TV turned out. I'll go out on a limb and say streaming, despite whatever troubles it's encountering, will turn out just fine as well.

By Ian Hollidae, 2026/02/10

So YouTube has finally released prices for their skinny bundles and my initial reaction is ambivalence. They're somewhat cheaper than cable, and you certainly know what you're getting, but will the price still be off-putting. My biggest question is how will cable companies respond now that they know what they are up against.

By Ian Hollidae, 2025/12/12

Let me say this up front: the only reason I have cable is sports. I do watch a few of the basic movie channels (TCM, Flix, Sundance) but they aren't actually needed. If I could get a sports-only subscription, that's the route I would take. Since I can't, my only options are to continue on as I've been doing or sign up for multiple sports streaming services. Neither path is optimal.

However, this all could be changing with the news that YouTube will start offering genre-specific subscriptions. The details haven't been released and the specific offerings will probably determine each bundles success. What's really important though is if YouTube is willing to bundle up specific packages, all the other streaming services might have to follow suit. Will this finally be the start of true a la carte TV?

I certainly hope so.

By Ian Hollidae, 2025/11/26

It appears that HP and Dell are disabling playback of videos that use the HEVC format on certain PC models because the licensing fee is set to increase in 2026. This obviously brings up a number of questions such as will other venders follow suit, how many end users will ultimately be affected, and how big of a problem will this turn out to be.

From my own perspective, I wonder if this could be the beginning of the end for proprietary formats given the rising importance of video in so many areas such as entertainment and communications. I have to imagine that every major streaming and video chat service, and anyone looking to start a new service, will be looking to cut delivery cost any way they can. And as for the end users, who care nothing about licensing agreements, how many times will they put up with disruptions to vital features.

Regardless of how this all plays out, royalty free formats such as AV1 seem like they have an increasingly bright future.

By Ian Hollidae, 2025/10/05

I remember getting a TiVo back in the mid aughts while looking into buying satellite TV service. DirectTV offered a TiVo package and a friend, who already had the service, let me play around with his. I was fairly impressed so I decided to give it a try. That for me was the start of my “digital TV” journey. So the news that TiVo is exiting the DVR business has a mildly sad and nostalgic feeling.

But the end was inevitable long before this announcement.

A few years after my purchase, the iPhone was released and the concept of streaming to all devices took off. TiVo never made the necessary adjustments, which was unfortunate, because so many changes could have been made at that point in time. The whole streaming field was still wide open and the market hadn't been overrun with service and hardware choices. I always thought a TiVo/Blockbuster pairing would have done well.

Nowadays, DVR is just a minor feature in the streaming/TV landscape. But I still have to wonder what-if.

By Ian Hollidae, 2025/07/24

A recent Wall Street Journal article, How YouTube Won the Battle for TV, highlights how Hollywood is losing the battle against YouTube. The following sums things up:

For most of the past 20 years since it was founded, YouTube was an alternative to television, a home for cheap, low-quality ephemera like how-to videos and skateboard tricks that Hollywood worried was distracting people from real entertainment. YouTube started as a website to watch videos on PCs. It made its way onto televisions in 2010, but the interface was clunky. By the 2020s, a generation that grew up watching internet videos alone on their phones and tablets began watching YouTube together in their living rooms and with their own children.
...
In the process, [YouTube] became a media juggernaut. MoffettNathanson analysts estimate YouTube's revenue last year was $54.2 billion, which would make it No. 2 among entertainment companies, behind only Disney.

I could waste a lot of words on the disconnect between Hollywood and the so-called amateurs but what would be the point. Hollywood spent hundreds of millions of dollars (or more) trying to be the next Netflix. They spent practically nothing trying to meet the YouTube challenge. I'm guessing somewhere down the line, YouTube might just swallow Hollywood whole.

As for the average daily YouTube viewer, we just keep on watching.

By Ian Hollidae, 2025/06/17