Local Option Tax: What's Your Opinion?

Lately there's been some discussion about using a Local Options Tax as a way to fund local economic development.





See http://www.state.vt.us/tax/businesslocaloption.shtml



What's your opinion?





Dave Brown

Woodstock

Cutting The Cord - Part 12

All the signs point to television program delivery via the Internet. Before that can happen, we need to reach a tipping point. 

Author Malcolm Gladwell describes the Tipping Point as "that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire.” The good news is that the idea for Internet distribution of television is well established. If the number of cities and towns who are developing municipal fiber optic networks is any indicator, the trend is definitely toward Internet-based TV. 

Just look around to see social behavior shifting away from traditional delivery mechanisms. Broadcast television virtually disappeared several years ago when the FCC re-allocated TV frequencies. Copper-based networks are hitting their physical limits at the same time "Internet everywhere" systems are demanding more and more bandwidth. DSL is now generally thought to be obsolete technology. Every new television set you can buy today is "Internet-ready."

In this series, we've discovered many independent, small- and mid-market providers who already have tipped. We've experimented with the hardware necessary to make it happen. It's just a matter of time.

Don't expect incumbent telephone and cable network providers to pass quietly into the night. They will defend their infrastructure investments mightily over the next few years -- to do otherwise would be a disservice to their shareholders. Nevertheless, I believe the most firmly established cable TV providers can easily be unseated by a new breed of fleet-afoot, cash-rich technology companies like Apple and Google.

Hang on to your cable TV and DSL service for a while longer. Watch for the tipping point when I expect municipal broadband networks to spread like wildfire, as Gladwell puts it. When a gigabit fiber optic pipe reaches your home, television on demand will rule the day.

David Brown, Woodstock VT


Read the  entire text of this series at:
http://www.aroundwoodstockvermont.blogspot.com/

Read Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point at: http://www.fspcol.com/ARTICULOS/Educativos/The%20Tipping%20Point%20How%20Little%20Things%20Can%20Make%20a%20Big%20Difference.pdf

Cutting The Cord - Part 11

From the outside, the QPlay appears to be similar to the AppleTV and Roku and Chromecast in that the output of the QPlay device (a box about the size of a deck of playing cards) plugs into one of your TV's spare HDMI ports (in my case, the last of my 4 HDMI ports). Power comes from a conventional plug-in power cube, just like Roku and Chromecast.

What aroused my curiosity was that the QPlay was developed by the two guys who invented TiVo, the first and arguably best digital video recorder (DVR). It was the TiVo that changed my viewing experience by introducing me to TV on Demand -- watching programs when I wanted to watch them instead of when they were on.

The catch with the QPlay is that you must use it with an Apple iPad. It has no remote of its own. The "magic" of what QPlay does is done online. You use the the QPlay app for iPad to create what QPlay calls "Qs" -- queues of programs you want to watch when you're ready to watch them. The technical term for this is "content aggregation."

If you already own an iPad, the idea of "building" an evening's (or weekend's) lineup of shows you've been waiting to watch sounds appealing. The only problem, right now, is that the list of available sources is quite limited -- mostly programs you can already watch on AppleTV and Roku without having to borrow or buy an iPad. 

What prevents me from boxing up my QPlay and sending it back is the knowledge that Michael Ramsay and Jim Barton, co-founders of TiVo, have proven themselves to be real visionaries and -- get this-- they expect content aggregation (a-la QPlay) to include the MAJOR NETWORKS before long. 

I'm not holding my breath, waiting for QPlay to embrace NBC, CBS, PBS, ABC, CNN and others. But if it does, I'll be ready to cut the cord to my DirecTV satellite service and you might be tempted to toss your Comcast cable box. Except for one thing...

(To be continued...)

Cutting The Cord - Part 10

I was just about to write to you about a new Internet TV device I just received when one of my sources called to fill me in on a couple of late-breaking developments related to the Roku devices we've been discussing in recent posts. Here's the scoop:

Word has it that HBO (a stalwart of cable TV offerings) has just signed a deal with Roku to make "older" HBO special programming available for free on Roku devices. When I asked what "older" meant, the answer was "greater than 3 years." So if you can remember some HBO special that you missed seeing (or would have seen if you had shelled out the $100/month to get cable TV back then) here's your chance to catch up. Why would HBO just give away this content? Apparently they figure that if you get accustomed to watching their "high-quality, commercial-free" programming, you're more likely to sign up with your cable TV provider to get current HBO programming.

Unless I'm missing something, there doesn't seem to be much downside for HBO to dust off its old specials and offer then up as cable TV "subscription bait." I'm not convinced that Roku watchers are going to flock in numbers to the legacy cable TV model, but time will tell. Worth a look-see anyway.

Another interesting development is the availability of YouTube on all Roku devices (it been available on Roku 3 for a while, but it's now enabled for Roku 1 and 2 too). YouTube is perhaps a greatly under-appreciated resource that I'm suggesting readers of this blog explore more deeply. If you don't have an AppleTV, or Roku, or a Chromecast yet you can check it out on your PC or Mac computer by going to www.youtube.com. YouTube is now the second most active web search engine (behind Google, of course). Let me illustrate:

Suppose you attended a recent Pentangle event featuring the Carolina Chocolate Drops (fantastic, wasn't it?) and you were blown away by an opening act you've never heard of before, Birds of Chicago. All you have to do is type "birds of chicago" in the YouTube search field and -- Presto! -- this is what you get. Short cut: click here. In a few moments you've got a front-row seat at a private Birds concert! Carolina Chocolate Drops? Yeah, they're on YouTube too! Short cut: click here. 

Now imagine that you've never changed the oil in your car and you want someone to show you how. Just fire up your Roku, select the YouTube channel, and type "how to change the oil in your car" in the search field. Short cut: click here.

I know you weren't thinking about cutting the cable TV cord so you could get all kinds of alternative entertainment and instructional programming essentially for free, but I think it's a compelling reason to ask Santa for a Roku (or just order one on Amazon or pick up one locally at Best Buy in West Lebanon). Get one even if you ultimately decide to keep your cable TV service.

Now, where was I? Oh, about the QPlay device I just bought.

(To be continued...)

Cutting The Cord - Part 9

I was just getting comfortable with my Roku, watching TV on Hulu+ and an occasional movie on Amazon Prime, when I saw an advertisement for a new device called Chromecast. Its maker Google calls it "the easiest way to enjoy video and music on your TV." At $35 with free shipping, I decided to give it a try.

Chromecast is different from AppleTV or Roku in a number of ways. First, it's a small plug-in device about the size of my thumb. To install the Chromcast, you plug it into one of the spare HDMI ports on your television. Power comes from a nearly USB port (e.g. computer or cell phone charger) or from the included power cube that plugs into the wall outlet. 

Unlike AppleTV or Roku, Chromecast comes without a remote control of any sort. Instead, you control Chromecast (and select the programming you want to watch) using your laptop, tablet, or smart phone. You download the Chromecast app onto the mobile device of choice, and that device becomes your remote control.

Accidentally or intentionally, my Chromecast arrived with a minuscule instruction sheet, so I learned what I know about the device and its associated app by fiddling around. The breakthrough came when it finally occurred to me that Chromecast is basically a way to transmit to your television whatever you're seeing on Google Chrome (the free web browser you can install on your computer). The Chrome web store allows you to select from a dazzling array of free (or trial) apps that get "installed" on your Chromecast and displayed on your TV.

I'm not a gamer and I already own all the programs (apps) I need to run my business and personal life, so Chromecast doesn't get me any closer to cutting the cable or satellite TV cord -- except that I can get the same TV shows from www.hulu.com and www.amazon.com. I can, but then I'd need to fire up my iPhone or iPad every time I wanted to watch television.

I'm leaving my AppleTV, Roku, and Chromecast plugged into their respective ports of my television, just in case I want to switch around. For now, I'm sticking with Roku.

(To be continued...)

Cutting The Cord - Part 8

From the beginning, my plan was to have my Internet TV set up, separate from my "standard" TV which is connected to a DirecTV satellite receiver and DVR (digital video recorder). Installation of the DVR (a TIVO unit back in the days) changed our family's television watching habits.

Rather than surfing the available channels in search of the program that was showing at the exact time I wanted to watch it, I was finally able to collect and store the shows I wanted to watch at my convenience. Today I rarely watch television shows as they are being broadcast. Either I record them for watching days (sometimes weeks) later, or I record the first 20 minutes or so of an hour-long program I want to watch right away. Using this technique (giving the program a head start) I can fast-forward through the commercials and catch up just as the show is ending.

In retrospect, my DirecTV DVR experience was my first encounter with Television On Demand -- and it has been a game-changer. The question is whether Internet TV can deliver the same satisfying viewing experience.

With sufficient bandwidth (7Mbps), my Roku can deliver a good high-definition picture with minimal pauses and hiccups and jitters. My $8/month Hulu+ subscription provides me access to most every old or recently-aired TV show I care to watch (and some I've never heard of before). Besides free shipping, my annual $99 Amazon Prime membership includes a broad array of second-run full-length movies. When I want to watch a first-run show, paying $5 for 24-hour access to an HD movie is still cheap enough. Then there's all the obscure Roku channels that have tons of programming I don't have time to watch.

So you may ask, "Aren't you ready to cut the cord and send your $100/month DirecTV service packing?" That's a good question.

(To be continued...)

Cutting The Cord - Part 7

So far, we've determined that if you currently have Comcast cable TV or FairPoint DSL Internet service at your home or business, there's a good chance you'll be able to use the available bandwidth to watch Apple TV. Whether Apple TV makes for a satisfying viewing experience is another thing. Remember, Apple TV is based on the buy/rent music albums of Apple iTunes. So if you're happy paying a-la-carte for movies and previously shown TV shows, you may be all set. 

I'm not, so I purchased another hockey puck-shaped device called a Roku ($89 on sale at Best Buy). Besides its almost identical outside appearance, Roku installs and sets itself up pretty much like an Apple TV. But that's where to similarity ends.

The Roku model is based on "stations" that you can subscribe to for free, or for a modest monthly fee. There are hundreds of stations ranging from big name titles such as HBO and ShowTime to obscure offerings such as the Peru Soccer and Korean Cooking stations. I subscribed to the free Sailing station so I could keep up with match racing in NZ. I also pay $8/month for a subscription to HuluPlus. By my figuring, this is a real bargain. For one monthly fee you get to choose from thousands of movies and TV shows. You'll also find some entertaining HuluPlus exclusive programming that you won't find anywhere else on TV. 

As an Amazon shopper, you can pay $79/year to get free shipping on all my purchases. That's going up to $99 this year but it's still a good deal considering what other online shopping sites charge. Another perk, besides free shipping, is free access to movies on the Amazon Prime Roku station. The movies there tend to be quite old, but there are titles you won't find on Hulu.

If there's a recently released movie you want to watch, Roku has a terrific Search function that will show you a list of the stations on which your movie is showing, together with the cost (if any). Sometimes we pay the $5 to watch a movie we missed at Town Hall, rather than waiting for it to work its way down into the free view stations.

Many "prime-time" television shows are available the next day on HuluPlus. Check them out at www.hulu.com/plus.

Recently, some news and sports stations have been added to the Roku line-up, but none of these are comparable to the real time or "breaking news" channels you may be watching on cable, Nevertheless, for less than $100 for the hardware and less than $10 a month for programming, Roku is a compelling option for anyone wishing to say good-bye to cable TV.

You can learn more about Roku at www.roku.com.

Cutting The Cord - Part 6

Among the readers who reported their Speed Test results to me, most have sufficient bandwidth available to them to make cutting the cord to cable TV a viable option. Those of you who subscribe to Comcast have the fastest Internet speed (bandwidth greater than 10Mbps) and those who subscribe to FairPoint DSL have adequate Internet speed (depending on your distance from the FairPoint POP).

In either case, it is likely that your bandwidth may slow down momentarily, and you'll see that "Loading message..." while the Apple TV waits for enough data to continue. Unless you're willing to follow the advice of the FairPoint customer service rep and watch Internet TV in the wee hours of the morning, have patience.

If you are not familiar with Apple iTunes, I should tell you that their model is to sell (technically, rent) you access to almost any music album that exists. If you prefer, you can purchase just a single song. When Apple introduced Apple TV, they expanded the model to include television shows. On Apple TV, you can purchase the entire season of a favorite TV show, or individual episodes. The choice is yours.

I know there are people who are such fans of old TV shows like "Third Rock From The Sun" that they dream of being able to spend a weekend watching all 13 episodes of Season 1, then Season 2, then Season 3, and so on. I'm not one of them, so in that regard, Apple TV is not a compelling model.

More current television shows, such as the networks' late-night offerings (Letterman, Kimmel, Fallon, Stewart, Colbert, etc.) and some prime-time offerings such as Scandal are offered several days after they were originally aired. If you don't mind watching these delayed episodes of your favorite network program, then Apple TV allows you to subscribe to them quite inexpensively, or sometimes for free.

You can also purchase/rent movies on iTunes. Initially, Apple intended that you'd watch these movies on your computer. Like a music album, you can purchase a movie for unlimited use, or rent it for 24-hour use, Your choice. When Apple TV was released, viewers discovered they could watch the same movies on their big, high-definition TVs. This is the preferred viewing experience but, as you might expect, a high-definition TV requires much more bandwidth than a small computer monitor does.

Almost everyone who has reported the results of SpeedTest to me has enough bandwidth to supply at least one high-def television running in their home, so that is the option I would recommend.

If you're looking for real-time news and/or sports, you won't find either on Apple TV. So the quest goes on.

(To be continued...)

Cutting The Cord - Part 5

Having exposed BANDWIDTH as the scarce resource that can make or break your Internet television viewing experience, a number of readers wrote to me asking for a “simple” explanation of what bandwidth is, and as one person asked, “How do I get it and how can I tell that I have it?”

I apologize. Let’s drop back and talk about bandwidth – what it is, how you get it, and how you can tell when you have it.

I think the best comparison can be made to the plumbing in your house. You can’t build a house using tiny ¼-inch tubing to supply water to your sinks, toilets, bathtubs, and showers. Technically, you would have water service everywhere you’d need it – but imagine how long it would take to fill your tub! And how unsatisfying a shower would be with just a trickle of hot water. Not to mention what would happen if you were taking a shower and someone flushed the toilet.

For obvious reasons, most building codes specify that you use a certain size pipe for your residential water supply. Would your municipal water company use the same size pipe to supply all the houses in your neighborhood? No. You’re more likely to find a much larger diameter pipe supplying your entire neighborhood.

Bandwidth is the flow of digital information that originates somewhere in the Internet and ends at your doorstep. How much can flow to your home is a matter of how big a pipe you have. You can have a trickle of bandwidth, or a gusher. Your Internet service provider (called an ISP) will charge you based on how much flow it makes available to you, whether you use it or not.

Your ISP measures bandwidth in terms of “millions of bits per second” or Mbps. By the Federal Communications Commission’s definition, you have BROADBAND if your ISP is capable of delivering at least 3Mbps of bandwidth (flow) down to your home. Their requirement for “uploading” to the Internet is a much slower 0.768Mbps. When watching Internet television, it’s the download speed that concerns you.

Bandwidth is a shared resource, so If you have two people consuming it in your home, each of you may have an average of only 1.5MBps (just a trickle of bandwidth). If you purchase 7Mbps bandwidth as I do, that’s likely to be the most flow you’ll get – when other people in your home shut of their devices and, possibly, when other people in your neighborhood aren’t watching Internet television.

How can you tell how much bandwidth is available at your home or business? Simple. Turn on your computer and browse to http://www.speedtest.net/. Click on the BEGIN TEST button, sit back and watch.

Just for fun, reply to this post with the download speed available at your home. Should be interesting.

(To be continued…)

Cutting The Cord - Part 4

If you have an Apple TV, disabling the “test your bandwidth” function has its ups and downs. True, when the show you wish to watch appears on the screen, you will be watching the clearest (highest resolution) picture available. The downside is that you may have to wait many seconds, sometimes minutes, for your show to appear.  Instead of the latest episode of Scandal you may be looking at the word “Loading…” while all the data required for the first frame of your TV show downloads over your Internet connection. The slower your connection, the longer you have to wait for the first frame of your show.

But what about the second frame and every other frame that comprises a full-length movie or TV show? Because data doesn’t flow from the Internet to your home at a constant rate, your program material is often delivered in fits and starts. If the delivery falls behind, as it often did in my experience, the “Loading…” message reappears, and you wait. Needless to say, if the delivery falls behind, as it often did in my experience, the “Loading…” message reappears, and you wait. Needless to say, having your program constantly interrupted with “Loading…” messages doesn’t lead to a satisfying viewing experience.

In an effort to better understand what was going on with what I thought was reasonably fast (7Mbps DSL Internet service I contacted FairPoint for advice. The customer service rep was well prepared with this advice: 1) Try watching Apple TV on weekdays, rather than on weekends when many other subscribers are doing the same thing. 2) If you prefer to watch on weekends, do your watching after midnight when the “load on the system” is less. Right.

This conversation confirmed my suspicion that the product I am purchasing from FairPoint (bandwidth) is a limited resource that needs to be consumed judiciously if you don’t plan to abandon good picture quality in your quest to cut the cable TV cord.

I would advise not hacking the Apple TV as I did, and having patience while the device determines the optimum picture quality for the available bandwidth at your home. If you aren’t accustomed to watching good high-definition TV programs, you probably won’t know what you’re missing.

(To be continued…)

If you missed previous posts in this series, you can catch up at http://aroundwoodstockvermont.blogspot.com/

Cutting The Cord - Part 3

Apple TV’s offering of television shows and movies appears as a matrix of small images arrayed across your TV screen. I decided to take the plunge and try one out by clicking the Apple remote’s Down and Right buttons until the show I wanted to watch was highlighted, then by pressing the Select button.

After about 30 seconds of watching the Loading… message, my TV show appeared, but I was horrified with the image quality, far worse than the old Standard Definition TV we used to watch (now known affectionately in my home as “fuzzy-vision”). So I quickly switched to another show and experienced the same horribly fuzzy picture. No matter which TV show I selected, my Apple TV delivered an impossible-to-watch picture. Was this the end of my adventure?

What I needed to know (as later explained by my tech-savvy kid) was that, when you start watching a program on Apple TV, the computer inside the hockey puck is figuring out what you have for Internet bandwidth – starting from “you have such pitiful Internet service all we can give you is a fuzzy picture” to “hey, this is looking pretty good, so we’ll crank up the video resolution to optimize your viewing experience.” Translated, this means if you can hang in there for another minute or so, you’re likely to see a step-by-step improvement in the picture quality.

Sure enough, after a half-minute or so, the picture was much improved, but not what I had come to expect as high-definition TV. Another few minutes of watching didn’t help. Apparently, the Apple TV had decided that my 7Mbps wifi connection was sufficient to deliver good (but not great) picture quality.

While doing some online research into the problem, I discovered that some Apple TV users had experienced better picture quality by replacing their wireless (wifi) connection with a “hard-wired” connection to the hockey puck device – theory being that some speed is lost in a wireless connection to the Internet. So I purchased a new cable (called an “Ethernet” cable), plugged one end into a previously unnoticed port on my Apple TV and the other into the router FairPoint had installed in my basement. Gratefully, this took me up another notch in picture quality, but still not to “great.”

Mentioning my frustration to the tech-savvy kid, I was told that any twenty-something person knows how to hack an Apple TV to force it into great picture quality mode regardless of the bandwidth available. I followed his instructions for holding one button down for three seconds, then pressing another button 4 times in sequence, then holding two other buttons down simultaneously.

(To be continued…)

PS: If you’d like to read a serious review of Apple TV, try this: http://www.cnet.com/products/apple-tv-2012/

Cutting The Cord - Part 2

I set out to figure out if I could cut the cord from our “almost every DirecTV channel” satellite TV service and rely on my new FairPoint DSL Internet service for a “fulfilling television watching experience.”

In order to not alienate the rest of the family for the duration of my high-tech experiment, I purchased a relatively low-cost flat-screen TV. If you’re asking why I would need a new television when someone like me would likely have several old sets lying around, the answer is that you need a TV with an HDMI input – better yet, several HMDI inputs. Mine has three. Your old TV won’t have any HDMI inputs. In case you haven’t been paying attention, the way you connect all manner of televisions, computers, and cameras these days is via an HDMI cable.

WARNING: if you decide to purchase an HDMI cable from a retail store, you might pay $20 or more for a cable worth no more than $5. And don’t expect that any device you purchase will come with an HDMI cable – make sure you add one to your cart.

To get started, I purchased an Apple TV ($120 on Amazon) which, surprisingly more resembles a hockey puck than a TV. There are two connections coming out of the hockey puck: one for power, and the other for video (via, you guessed it, an HDMI cable that connects the Apple TV to the television).

The setup of the Apple TV is quite straightforward and it can be accomplished entirely with your television, the hockey puck, and a tiny remote control that comes with the Apple TV. Setup automatically finds your FairPoint wifi connection and asks for your Apple iTunes username and password. Yes, you need an iTunes account to use the Apple TV but that is free and easy to get at www.itunes.com.

As soon as your Apple TV logs itself into iTunes, you’ll be presented with a dazzling array of TV shows and movies Apple is ready to dish up for your viewing pleasure.  Success!

(To be continued…)

Cutting The Cord - Part 1

In this discussion (which will span several weeks) we'll explore the ways it is possible to reduce or eliminate your dependence on cable TV service providers if you have broadband Internet service available at your home.

By way of background, when our family first arrived in Vermont and discovered that it was impossible to reliably receive television over the airwaves at our location, we signed up for DirecTV satellite TV service and use it today as our primary source of television programming.

When FairPoint deployed DSL broadband service here 3 years ago, it piqued my interest in exploring alternative sources of television programming – television delivered over the Internet rather than from a satellite orbiting high above the earth.

We initially ordered the best (the fastest) Internet service available from FairPoint, knowing that fast Internet was necessary for a satisfactory viewing experience. Within a few months, FairPoint dialed back our 15Mbps service to 7Mbps as they explained due to the “excessive length” of the copper telephone wire running to our home.

Many subscribers in Woodstock have even longer connections to the FairPoint “point of presence” (called a POP for short) and therefore have actual download speeds considerably less than 5Mbps. If you have FairPoint DSL Internet service, the further you live from their POP, the slower your Internet connection will be. No amount of money can fix that -- it’s just a matter of physics.

So the question is: with 7Mbps Internet service (or less) how practical is it to “cut the cord” from your current cable TV provider and rely on your broadband Internet service for your television viewing experience.