You Want That 4K With Fries? The Demise of Tethered Media
In doing research on what the latest and greatest in media codec has to hold for us with the advent and application of 4K, 6K, 8K or whatever K you want to bring to the table as far as video resolution, it became increasingly apparent whatever standard or standards become the standard really doesn’t matter against the very large mastodon walking all over this web browser – that the cable industry as a business model, just as the landline base telephone industry, is doomed to extinction in its current form.
Bold statement? Not really. The writing has been on the cave wall for some time, there just haven’t been any asteroids large enough, or in proximity close enough, to set the countdown sundial until now.
The asteroid in question is a confluence of factors rapidly reaching a maturity that will all but cement this coming tethered media extinction. With the application of Wide Range Gigabit Wireless Networks coupled with some amazing new video compression schemes you will never have to turn your cable box on again. Content creators will be able to launch their own portals, or channels if you will, to stream their product. Consumer will no longer be tethered to “Channel Packages” that the cable companies have so thoughtfully contrived to sell an unwitting and captive consumer class. Gone will be the days of 300 channels of excrement on the TV to choose from (to paraphrase Pink Floyd)– now there will be 3000, yet, you will be able to decide for yourself exactly which ones you want to subscribe with.
However the new business model or models shake out there are a couple of things that are certain: The technical quality of the content (i.e. How it looks and sounds) is going to be head and shoulders beyond anything that cable is currently delivering and the consumer is going to have a lot more control over what and how and, especially, where they consume that content.