From PC to TV

It seems like such a no-brainer. With the studios developing new ways to download movies and TV shows onto PCs, what about a gadget that transfers content from PCs to television sets? I mean, who wants to watch "Dreamgirls" on a computer monitor, right? The trouble, according to the WSJ, is that consumers don't seem interested, at least for now. A Forrester Research survey found that 80 percent of the respondents say they wouldn't buy an Internet-to-TV device. From the WSJ:

Josh Bernoff, a Forrester analyst who is distributing a research report about the market, notes that consumers routinely pan unfamiliar product concepts. But he adds that the survey results show that educating buyers about such products over the next 12 months will be crucial. "People have no idea what you're talking about," he says.

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Unless it moves to TVs, Internet video will remain a niche market, Mr. Bernoff and other observers argue. "Most people watch their televisions, and that is not going to change quickly," says James Chiddix, a cable-industry veteran who is chief executive of OpenTV Inc., a maker of digital-TV software.

Not everybody is keen on this new means of distribution. For cable companies, the prospect of their customers watching movies from an Internet download is hardly appealing - not after they've spent billions of dollars for on-demand services in which they collect a piece of the action. Downloading gives them nothing. Of course, cable competitors see opportunity. Last fall, Apple semi-introduced a $299 device code-named iTV that will wirelessly retrieve movies from PCs. More details on the product and its availability could be offered at next week's Macworld conference.