What does the home entertainment experience of the near future look like? First thing that comes to mind, of course, is the next generation television, digital surround sound, connected devices of all sort, packed into the living room, remote controls covering the coffee table – basically upgrades of the existing components in today’s living room. All of that is interesting, but the hardware side of things is less interesting to me. What’s truly cool is the convergence of media traditionally consumed in the 2 foot or PC experience and media traditionally consumed in the 10 foot or TV experience. Convergence, as a theory, has been around for a while, but not until IP delivered video became a common time sink for the bored office worker did the theory take on real meaning for everyday folks.
Prior to the emergence of players like YouTube and Hulu, most talk around convergence dealt with the double and triple plays offered by cable operators, telecoms, and satellite television providers. Today, it’s taken on a deeper meaning. The 10 foot experience of the future won’t just be about a long list of professionally programmed channels with expensive-to-produce content, it will be about live local content like high school football, religious services, even your grandkid’s high school play. With the production of content becoming more democratized, audiences will be given a broader group of more relevant and personalized choices. Several new platforms are addressing this phenomenon including Atlanta based Clearleap (full disclosure – we’re an investor). The most successful solutions will be the ones that work with existing cable and IPTV infrastructure to provide consumers with a network delivered “over the top” experience without the need for an AppleTV, XBox or other peripheral.
More info on Convergence - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Converged_device
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