So the place I’m staying at currently has IPTV.
This means that the nice big plasma TV has been locked out at the hardware layer. More specifically, it won’t accept external input. This is a real shame because I usually like to hook my laptop up to the larger screen to enjoy alternative programming (a.k.a watching DVDs from my laptop, writing code etc) since I rarely like to pay for in-house movies and I always like to take advantage or a larger desktop (more screen real estate).
In retaliation, I brought my personal LCD projector from the office and hooked it up in the hotel room. I’m projecting onto the wall adjacent to the bed, which gives a nice cinematic experience. Later today I’m expecting delivery of a high fidelity portable sound system which will complement the picture quality. Now, I’m feeling eccentric!
Anyhow, back to the evils of IPTV. Okay, perhaps it’s not evil and the "triple play" – internet, games and movies – is certainly a very enticing and valid market, but why lock out local A/V? That’s just mean! It’s not like everyone is going to have the technical nous to rewire the set for other uses 🙂
Speaking of IPTV, one of the major blocking factors has to be the crappy nature of Australia’s broadband delivery capacity. Now that Kevin ’07 is in office, will we get to see the mega encompassing changes which will revolutionise Australia into an infrastructure-driven broadband dynamo? I have my doubts. Certainly I’d like to see it happen but no matter which party is in power, they all have to deal with Telstra. Don’t we all…. at some point?
