One of the benefits of the FCC's often-laborious process of rulemaking is that it allows new issues to be discovered and resolved. This is what has happened in the Commission's proceeding on a seemingly-arcane issue: "encryption of the basic tier."

As you may have noticed, Public Knowledge spent some time at the Consumer Electronics Show this year. While we wandered the floor with the best of them, we also found time to talk with some of the people who are trying to bring Internet video to your TV.

Syabas (Popbox)

I spent a lot of time at CES talking to companies that are trying to bring Internet video to your TV. Looking back, two types of companies emerged: Browser companies and Widget companies.

Browsers vs. Widgets

Browser companies are companies who see no difference between accessing video on a traditional computer monitor and accessing it on a TV. As far as they are concerned, if you are using a computer to access content on the Internet it should not matter if you are watching it on a screen classified as a monitor or a screen classified as a TV (or, for that matter, how far away you are sitting from the screen). This allows Browser companies to make all the video on the web available to users.

Public Knowledge has long argued that the market for "video devices"--things like set-top boxes and DVRs that you attach to your cable or satellite provider's network--is not as competitive as it should be. In fact, it's not as competitive as the law requires: back in the 1990s, Congress directed the FCC to adopt regulations promoting common standards of interoperability to make the market for these video devices as competitive as the market for other high-tech equipment. As a result of this lack of competition, consumers end up paying high prices for limited devices.

There are many reasons for this lack of competition.

As devotees of our hit video series Five Minutes with Harold Feld (or as the cool kids call it “5MWHF”) will no doubt recall, on the eve of Thanksgiving MPAA dropped a lengthy filing into the Selectable Output Control (SOC) docket. Among other things, it called Harold a liar. Harold immediately took five minutes to tell MPAA to chillax, and yesterday we filed our official response with the FCC. Although I urge you to read our full reply (I promise it is much shorter than the MPAA’s), if you are in a rush here is the short version. Our response basically made three points.

**Most of MPAA’s Filing is Unrelated to SOC.

As the Selectable Output Control (SOC) battle continues here in Washington, Public Knowledge just sent a letter to the FCC pointing out that movie studios are doing some of the best work to show why SOC just doesn’t make sense.

As you may recall, the entire point of SOC is to allow movie studios to release movies via Video on Demand (VoD) prior to the DVD release. The MPAA claims that without SOC protection, the VoD releases (which, unlike DVDs, are not protected and therefore theoretically easier to copy) would immediately be used to make perfect copies available to pirates. These perfect copies would destroy the market for DVDs, and ultimately destroy Hollywood. SOC protection would allow studios to protect VoD distribution and therefore save Hollywood.

You may remember that at the end of last year, the FCC declined to give a small group of Hollywood studios the ability to turn off the video inputs that over 20 million high definition televisions rely on. Almost a year later, the MPAA is back, threatening not make content available, responding to year-old arguments while trying to pretend 2009 never happened, and making a lot of noise without saying anything new. So we're back, too, with a letter detailing why the MPAA's petition to use Selectable Output Control (SOC) at worst imposes millions of dollars of costs on consumers and at best leaves us scratching our heads asking why the Commission would even consider it.

After an 18 hour sojourn to get to Las Vegas yesterday (thank you, US Airways), I settled down this morning to hear Consumer Electronics Association President Gary Shapiro's "State of the Industry" address as well as Sony Chairman and CEO Sir Howard Stringer's Keynote. Gary's address was particularly notable for its video opening, which included Gary embedded in a series of old movies - as Groucho Marx in "Duck Soup", as Dr. Frankenstein, as George Bailey in "It's a Wonderful Life," among others, thanks to a technology called Yoostar., which allows people to play characters in their favorite movies. Watch the video here.

All one needs to do is go to the Presidential Transition website, Change.gov, to see how busy the various agency review teams and policy working groups have been getting the new administration ready to take over the reins of government on January 20. The agency review teams are busy talking to the current occupants of agencies like the Federal Communications Commission to determine what their current agendas are and how things can be improved in the future. The policy working are thinking only of the future and how to implement policies going forward in areas like the economy, health care and national security. And both types of teams are meeting with stakeholders to get their ideas on how the Administration should proceed.

Today, PK was a participant in two meetings organized by the Media and Democracy Coalition. Nearly 40 individuals representing two dozen public interest organizations and foundations attended.

If you’ve never seen the intro (original/new) to the TV show “The Outer Limits” then perhaps now is the time. Be sure to have the sound up:

There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission…

Perhaps if the intro was written today, it would say, “There is nothing wrong with your television set. But do not attempt to view our movies. The MPAA is controlling transmission.”