New service will stream local TV stations in New York
February 15, 2012
Access to broadcast TV anywhere there's broadband Internet --- NYC initially (Credit: Aereo)
Barry Diller, who created the Fox television network almost 30 years ago, has introduced Aereo, an Internet television service that will use broadband Internet to stream HD-quality broadcast television from the major TV networks (ABC, CBS, PBS, Fox, NBC) and local channels to phones, tablets and Internet-connected TVs, such as AppleTV and Roku.
The service will be available in New York City on March 14, with a 30-day free trial and membership fee of $12 per month. Aereo will provide an easy-to-use, tiny, proprietary remote antenna and DVR.
UPDATE: Federal lawsuits against Aereo, a startup that plans to show broadcast TV online, could influence the awkward relationship between television and the Internet, Technology Review Editors blog reports.
UPDATE: Barry Diller to broadcasters suing TV service Aereo: Bring it on — CNET
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Comments (3)
by Giulio Prisco
UPDATE: Federal lawsuits against Aereo, a startup that plans to show broadcast TV online, could influence the awkward relationship between television and the Internet, Technology Review Editors blog reports.
by kesh
It’s not “an anetnna.” It’s a VHF tuner PLUS an antenna. Why it’s described so consistently as an “antenna” is curious. (Nice piece of miniaturization, though.)
by Editor
Right, I’ve searched extensively for an engineering description without success, but I’ll contact the company and try to get details. There’s no way for users to pick and convert TV signals, both because the data has to be first customized to the user and because a main benefit is to provide quality TV, bypassing blocking by buildings (the antennas are also too small to work efficentlly at VHF/UHF frequencies. According to CNET and a few other sources, Aereo has an antenna farm at a Brooklyn location, with each customer assigned one of those small antennas. It’s not clear how that would work. The tiny customer antenna size suggests microwave frequencies, such as WiFi, and it doesn’t make sense to use the same antenna to receive TV signals and aslo transmit in duplex to customers (if VHF/UHF, the signals would interfere with broadcast and would not solve the building blockage problem; makes no sense) . So my best guess is that there’s a central yagi antenna in Brooklyn aimed at the Empire State building that feeds the various channels to a system that demodulates the digital data then feeds a custom HTML5 stream to/from each customer via a multiplexed distro system that uses a new (or licensed from Verizon, etc.) LTE mobile broadband service that feeds all of those tiny antennas with customized data streams to devices (or via local WiFi access points, which seems unlikely). Very rube Goldberg. Anyone have more info?