[Updated Sept. 4th 20102:Check out my new review at: “Roku 2 vs. Apple TV: How To Chose The Right $99 Streamer“]

There’s a lot of streaming devices in the market today and even though there are big differences between them, lots of folks are quick to compare them to one another or use Apple TV in the same sentence as Google TV. But the truth is, you can’t compare an Apple TV to a Sony Google TV or a Boxee to a Roku. Just because a device is broadband enabled and supports the streaming of videos, does not mean it’s going after the same type of customer or has the same functionality. Many of these boxes are trying to fill very different voids in the industry and targeting different types of consumers.

For all the devices currently in the market today, there are four that should be compared to one another based on their functionality and cost. These would be Apple TV, Roku XDS, Western Digital’s WD TV Live Plus and Sony’s SMP-N100. There are other groups of devices that can be compared to one another, like Boxee and Western Digital’s WD TV Live Hub, but they should not be compared to the $99 boxes mentioned above. Last month I held a special device demo event in NYC where I showed off more than a dozen boxes in action and went through the pros and cons of each. Here are some highlights from that presentation and my take on which of these four boxes has the best chance at surviving in the long run.

Apple TV
– Retail price: $99
– Number sold as of December 2010: 1M (source: Apple)
– Released September 2010 (2nd generation)

Hardware Specs:
– HDMI, optical audio, ethernet, WiFi (802.11a/b/g/n)
– supports video playback up to 720p only
– no hard drive, no support for 1080p, no support for older TVs, no support via USB
– supports .m4v, .mp4, and .mov
– not DLNA compliant

Software and Content:
– setup is very simple, interface is smooth, clean and polished
– Netflix, YouTube and $0.99 rentals for TV shows from ABC, Disney, Fox, and the BBC
– $2.99 rentals for SD movies, $3.99 rentals for HD movies
– 24 hours to watch movie rentals, 48 hours to watch TV shows once you begin viewing
– no open SDK, no app store, closed iTunes system
– Airplay allows wireless streaming from computer to TV
– does not support video shot with the iPhone

Of the four devices, Apple clearly has the biggest advantage and opportunity in the market thanks to the sheer size of their brand and the volume of other Apple devices they sell each quarter. Apple has a huge ecosystem across iPad and iPhones that they can tie into their Apple TV, but that by itself won’t make them successful. While many are quick to point out how well designed the Apple TV is, the fact remains that today, the content available on the device is limited. Apple TV doesn’t support Hulu Plus, MLB, NHL, Amazon Video On Demand and other content supported by some of their competitors.

Of the four devices, Apple TV is the only one that doesn’t support 1080p and while some will argue that no one can tell the quality difference between video at 720p and 1080p, or that no one is streaming in 1080p anyway, those are poor arguments. 1080p is the future and consumers should not have to buy another device two years from now when 1080p streaming is more mainstream.

One of the big features of the Apple TV that many think could be a game-changer is Airplay. The technology allows a user to start watching a video on their Mac, iPhone, iPod or iPad and then continue watching it on their TV. While Airplay looks promising, it not a game changer and only works within the Apple ecosystem. Airplay is also limited in that you can move content from iOS devices to Apple TV, but you can’t move content from Apple TV back to iOS devices. Airplay looks like interesting technology, especially for streaming music, but for video, it’s not going to be the reason most folks buy the device even if it lets you stream your content wirelessly from your computer to your TV. For some, Airplay may be the one feature they want, but it’s not something most users even know about.

With Apple TV, I suspect that many of their sales of the device are impulse buys and tied to someone being in an Apple store purchasing another product and throwing down an extra hundred bucks to give it a try. There’s nothing wrong with that, the device looks nice and is cheap, but those kinds of purchases are not as a result of someone trying to change the way they currently consume content.

I like Apple devices, in fact I’ve never even used a PC before and I currently own two MacBooks, three iPods, an iPad, an Apple TV, and two of Apple’s wireless routers. But that said, there is no way I would recommend buying an Apple TV to anyone until Apple makes some major improvements to the functionality of the device, adds more in the way of content choices and offers an app store for the TV.

Roku
– Retail price: $59 (HD model), $69 (XD model), $99 (XDS model)
– Netgear OEM Model: $89 (XD model)
– Number sold to date: Expect to reach 1M by end of 2010 (source: Roku)
– Released May 2008 (1st generation), Netgear model Oct. 2010

Hardware Specs:
– HDMI, optical audio, ethernet, component, composite, USB, WiFi (802.11b/g/n)
– supports video playback up to 1080p
– no hard drive, supports playback of local media via USB port
– supports .mp4, and .mov (more format support on the way)
– DLNA compliant

Software and Content:
– setup is very simple, but user interface not as polished as others
– Netflix, MLB, NHL, UFC, Hulu Plus, Amazon Video On Demand
– open SDK, more than 100 content channels
– company moving to OEM and platform licensing model
– no easy way to stream content from PC to TV

Roku has the best lineup of content available today and is typically the first box on the market to get new content choices, like Hulu Plus. The company continues to be very quick and nimble in the market and continues to roll out upgraded versions of their player, with more functionality, at a lower price. Roku’s support for content played back locally via USB is not as robust as the WD TV Live Plus or more expensive devices on the market which are trying to act as a local network storage device. That said, Roku will announce more format support shortly and improve on the local playback experience from both USB devices and the PC.

Roku does not currently allow you to stream content from your computer to your TV the way Apple does with Airplay and that’s the only disadvantage I see to the Roku device today. That said, Roku is moving beyond the business of selling boxes and is moving to more of a platform licensing model. Roku’s goal is to get their platform embedded into third party boxes and TV sets and they recently did a deal with NETGEAR for a OEM version of their Roku player. This now enables Roku’s boxes to show up on store shelves, where in the past they were only available to purchase online. Competing in the consumer electronics market requires a lot of capital and that’s one big advantage Apple has over Roku.

Western Digital WD TV Live Plus
– Retail price: $99
– Number sold to date: No data released, I estimate less than 2M
– Released Nov. 2008 (WD TV Live), May 2010 (WD TV Live Plus)

Hardware Specs:
– HDMI, ethernet, optical audio, composite, component, two USB ports
– no built in WiFi, requires adapter
– supports video playback up to 1080p
– no hard drive, supports playback of local media via USB port
– supports .mp4, .mov, .wmv, .asf, .iso, .vob, .m2ts, .avi, .mpg, .mpeg, .mkv
– DLNA compliant

Software and Content:
– setup is very easy, interface is simple
– Netflix, Blockbuster, YouTube
– open SDK, apps built in Adobe Flash Lite
– can stream locally from a PC, but is only Windows 7 compatible

Western Digital has a nice product out on the market with the WD TV Live Plus box, but the fact it does not come with WiFi support built-in will really keep a lot of people from choosing it over competitors. Like the Apple TV, Western Digital needs to get more content on the box and they also need to do a better job of marketing the device. Almost no one I know, outside of the tech community, ever mentions the WD TV Live Plus box and you don’t see it mentioned much when you see people writing about the Apple TV or the Roku. In my opinion, Western Digital could help fix this by re-branding and renaming all of their boxes as the naming convention now of WD TV Live, WD TV Live Plus, WD TV Live Hub and WD TV Mini aren’t very catchy or consumer friendly.

The big thing the WD TV Live Plus has going for it is the support for a broad range of formats and two USB ports, although chances are that one port will be taken up by many users with a WiFi adapter. Aside from the format support, the WD TV Live Plus really has no other advantages over many of the other boxes on the market unless you are a Windows 7 user.

Sony SMP-N100
– Retail price: $119
– Number sold to date: No data available
– Released August 2010

Hardware Specs:
– HDMI, optical audio, ethernet, component, composite, USB, WiFi (802.11n)
– supports video playback up to 1080p
– no hard drive, supports playback of local media via USB port
– supports .avc, .mkv, .DivX, .mpeg, .wmv, .wma
– DLNA compliant

Software and Content:
– setup is clunky and interface needs a lot of work
– uses a stripped down version of the PS3 interface
– Netflix, Amazon Video On Demand, Hulu Plus and Sony’s Qriocity movie service

While Sony’s SMP-N100 has some real potential, Sony needs to re-name the device. I have not run across a single person who knows what the SMP-100 is when you tell them the name. Initially I heard the device referred to as the Sony Netbox, but that seems to be a nickname given to it by members of the media as I’ve never actually heard Sony use that name themselves. It’s a good name though and something Sony needs to seriously consider.

Aside from the poor name, the SMP-N100 has some nice features going for it but it needs a lot of work when it comes to the setup and interface. Initial setup skips the networking function completely and while it has built in support for WiFi, that’s not part of the initial setup at all. The Netflix app is not as well developed on the SMP-N100 as it is on other devices and navigating to all of the video services is not smooth. The device does support a lot of video formats and allows you to stream content from a USB drive or your PC which are the devices real strength, but really does not have many advantages over Roku or the WD TV Live Plus. It’s also the largest box of the four, about four times the size of the Apple TV.

Conclusion: So which box comes out on top? For my personal usage, the Roku box is the clear winner of the four as it has the most content choices. But it all depends on exactly what you want to do with your content and how you want to stream it. In the long run, I think Apple and Western Digital have the best shot at selling the most devices in the market, simply due to the fact they are big companies who can spend a lot of money on marketing. It took Roku 3 years to sell 1M boxes, but only took Apple 4 months to sell the same. But that’s not because Apple has the better device.

While many are quick to declare one company the winner, you can’t. The race for control of the connected living room has only just started and no one will be crowned the winner for many years to come. As an industry, I think we also tend to forget that consumers have different viewing habits and preferences and multiple devices can and will be needed in the market. There can be more than one winner in the future and in any industry, there are usually 2-3 companies that share the majority of the market share.

In the long run, the device that should make the most impact is the broadband enabled TV set, but that’s many years away. And that will only be successful if we get past all of the TV platform fragmentation issues that will surely cripple adoption for the next few years. In the mean time, the current crop of stand alone devices in the market are providing a really exciting glimpse at what the future holds for the consumer streaming industry and even more devices are on the way.

If you have any questions on these or other devices in the market, put it in the comments section and I will try and answer it. At last count, I have 24 streaming enabled devices at home, so if you want me to test something for you I can.

I’m giving away a NETGEAR Roku NTV250 player to one lucky reader of my blog so go here if you want to enter the free drawing and go here if you want to enter to win a Boxee Box by D-Link.

Those who have read my blog before know that I believe that there is a lot of hype around cord cutting. Yes, it is taking place by some, but it's not a "trend" and the numbers we have seen to date show it's not having any major impact on the broadcast industry. We also don't know what percentage of people who are cutting the cord are doing it as a result of the economy and the desire to save money as opposed to the ability to get the content they want online. Many are quick to point out how easy it is to cut the cord but the truth is, even for someone who does not watch a lot of TV, it's not easy to cut the cord, as I found out from my mom over the holidays.

By all accounts, my mom is probably the ideal type of person that cord cutter supporters would say is the best candidate for getting rid of cable. She watches very little TV, does not watch any sports and up until the holidays, didn't even have an HD capable TV. She's also one of the many customers of Cablevision who is paying nearly $75 a month for a cable TV service that she barely uses. One would think it would be easy for her to cut the cord, but as I found out first hand after trying to help her dump Cablevision, it's just not that easy.

After hooking my mom up with a Roku box and Netflix account, one would think that the majority of her shows would be available via streaming or DVDs. But the one thing my mom does like to watch is live news and right now, I don't know of any streaming device that offers the ability to get live news. The Roku and other devices allow you to get live streaming of the news in an audio feed, but not video. And while Roku has channels that allow you to get the entire news show from the night before, nothing is available in real-time.

So in addition to anyone who watches sports, those who watch news can't easily cut the cord. I'm sure some will suggest that my mom could just hook up her computer to her TV and stream it that way, but my mom's TV is downstairs and her computer is upstairs and she's not about to put her computer in her living room. I could look at some wireless options for her but she has no line of sight between the devices and a lot of distance and barriers between the two devices.

In addition to live news, my mom happens to like a lot of shows from PBS and other non-mainstream channels which I thought she may be able to get via Netflix, but right now, Netflix does not have many of them for viewing, even in DVD form. The reality is, even for someone like my mom who watches only a few hours of TV a week, she simply can't cut the cord unless she wants to give up access to her shows.

Those who are quick to talk about how big a deal cord cutting is or how large a role it is going to play in the New Year never tend to talk about how hard it is for the average consumer to actually accomplish. Most of the articles I read of how families have cut the cord are written by someone in the household who is pretty computer savvy and already has a decent amount of computer or Internet knowledge but that's not the average person. The average consumer won't be installing antennas, building PCs or installing Mac Mini's to act as their DVR.

Rewind to a week ago when an older women from the Midwest contacted me through my blog thinking I was tech support for Roku. I actually get this quite often and always call or email the person to see if I can help them as it's great real-world feedback. In this case, the women was not getting the video quality she was expecting from her Roku and wanted to know what was wrong with the device. She was looking to get rid of cable TV but as I quickly found out after trading a few emails with her, she couldn't even tell me what speed Internet she had. While I put her in touch with Roku so they could fully diagnose her problem, I believe that she simply had a very low speed Internet connection and didn't have the bandwidth for good quality video. But showing just how new this is to the average consumer, she told me she hired a local video shop in her town to install a new router but it didn't help with the connection.

In order for cord cutting to become mainstream, over-the-top services need to be as easy to use as the TV, which they simply aren't. And most of the new services are all about teaching consumers a new way of doing something and changing the way they already consume content. The average consumer needs to be able to use these devices and platforms and right now, the majority of those using them are not the average consumer but rather early adopters like you and me who tend to forget the technical ability of most folks. That's also part of the reason why right now, the number of these devices that have been sold in the market, while growing, is still very small.

I don't see this as a failure of Roku, Netflix or any of the other devices and platforms in the market today only because this market is just starting out and this is all still so new. But it is an indication that right now and for the mid-term, the average consumer can't cut the cord and still enjoy the shows they want, at the quality they want, on the device they want, with ease. Those that suggest a large portion of consumers can and will cut the cord any time soon are simply in denial.

Related Posts:

– Judge The Success Of This Industry On Real Business, Not Hype Like "Cord Cutting"

– Internet Video Distribution Will Not Displace Cable TV: "Cord Cutting" Is Hype

– Latest Sales Figures For Broadband Enabled Devices and Over-The-Top Services

Tata Communications announced this morning that it has agreed to acquire privately held content delivery network BitGravity. As I reported last week, the two sides has been working on a deal for some time and while terms of the deal were not announced, I will get some details on the numbers and update this post shortly. Once the deal is complete, BitGravity will operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tata Communications. You can learn more about Tata's CDN business here.

Updated: I've spoken with a few folks and estimate the size of the deal to be around $35M.

In my opinion, the Roku box is the best non-gaming streaming device in the market today thanks to the lineup of content available. And in case Santa didn’t bring you one for the holidays, I’m giving away another NETGEAR Roku NTV250 player to one lucky reader of my blog. To enter the drawing, all you have to do is leave one comment on this post and make sure you submit the comment with a valid email address. The drawing is open to anyone with a mailing address in the U.S. and I will select one winner at random on January 31st.

Thanks to NETGEAR for the giveaways and congrats to Ron Ramkirpaul and Gina Sepowski who won the previous giveaways.

For content owners, it used to be that the answer to most website performance problems was either to add more hardware, use a CDN, or reengineer their backend application code. But for a number of reasons detailed below, investing in backend optimization is now providing diminishing returns. Google’s research shows that for many popular sites it’s the frontend that accounts for over 90% of a users wait time. Content delivery networks (CDNs) help to address part of this problem by reducing network latency, but even larger performance gains can be achieved through what’s referred to as Frontend Optimization (FEO) techniques that streamline the Web page HTML code and resources.

Before diving into the details of FEO it’s important to define the difference between frontend and backend performance. Backend wait time refers to the time required for the server to respond to requests and generate the content requested. The frontend wait time refers to the time required to download the content and render it in the browser.

There are three trends shifting the performance bottleneck from the backend to the frontend. First, is the growth in the size of Web pages. Since 1995, the average size of a page has grown over 35x, and the number of objects per page has grown 28x. Second, the growth of JavaScript and AJAX usage means that more and more code is being executed on the browser vs. on the server alone. This trend will intensify as content owners move to replace more of their desktop applications with browser based, SaaS services. Lastly, the growth in mobile browsing means that Web pages are increasingly being viewed on less powerful devices with slower connections.

There are proven techniques in the market for addressing frontend performance, and it’s a subject that I’ve heard being discussed more often in the market over the past few months. Content owners and vendors who offer solutions in the market say these best practices include methods such as resource consolidation, versioning, domain sharding, minification and use of compression amongst others. There are even tools like Yslow and Webpage test that will analyze your site and make recommendations on which optimizations you should implement.

FEO might sound similar to another subject I have written about lately, dynamic site acceleration (DSA), but it’s very different. DSA’s focus is to bring network resources closer to the user by prefetching or caching files. FEO makes the content itself faster. DSA makes page resources download faster. FEO reduces the number of page resources required to download a given page and makes the browser process the page faster. For example, analysis shows that popular sites like CNN, who already use a CDN, can double current performance by implementing FEO.

In addition to improving performance, FEO can also dramatically cut operating costs and improve conversions. Shopzilla’s redesign project took their page loads from 6-8s down to less than 2s. The result was a 7-12% improvement in customer conversion and a 50% reduction in their hosting infrastructure costs of hardware and bandwidth.

Despite the potential for large performance gains, not many content owners I have spoken to have invested in frontend optimization. This is sometimes due to lack of knowledge but more often due to the high cost of implementation. FEO projects compete for the same scarce engineering resources that are focused on adding more functionality. Also, implementing FEO requires an upfront investment to retrofit sites and an on going investment to keep it optimized. Ongoing maintenance costs can escalate due to the constant stream of new desktop and mobile browser releases and each browser has it’s own performance nuances. Keeping up to date with these changes can be resource intensive.

In order to reduce FEO time and cost concerns, new technologies are now available that will automatically optimize pages. These technologies dynamically transform HTML and page resources to apply FEO best practices as users browse the site. Automated page transformation negates the need for manual investment and allows the site owner to continue to benefit from FEO while still maintaining existing designs. There are three different types of FEO players in the market; software (Aptimize), appliance (Strangeloop) and hosted services (Blaze).

Performance is a complex science and no single optimization approach works for all sites. Continued movement to more complex web applications and mobile browsing will only accelerate the need for investment in FEO. Going forward, automated FEO solutions will play an increasingly important role in helping to reduce the time and cost required to implement and maintain frontend optimization. The Web frontend is clearly an under optimized area that will offer significant performance gains for many sites and is a topic I think we’ll hear more about in 2011.

Related Posts:

– How Dynamic Site Acceleration Works, What Akamai and Cotendo Offer

– An Overview Of Transparent Caching and Its Role In The CDN Market

The call for speakers for the 2011 Streaming Media East show, May 10th-11th in NYC and the Content Delivery Summit, taking place the day before on May 9th, 2011 closes on January 10th next week. I know many folks are at CES this week, so if it takes you a few days past the 10th, no worries, but get it in soon after as I already have hundreds of submissions. If you are interested in being considered as a speaker or presenter, please submit a request via the show website. Getting a submission in on-time is crucial if you want to be involved.

Everyone always wants a speaking spot but I simply don’t have enough to go around. The key is to get a submission in on-time and for vendors, introduce us to customers. 75% of the speaking spots go to content owners and end-users, the companies who buy and use online video services. I always need introductions to new customers.

If you have any questions about a submission, ideas you want to run by me, thoughts on what you can do to help the show, call me at anytime at 917-523-4562. I pick up my phone 24 hours a day 7 days a week. I am always reachable. If you want to be involved in the show in some way, now is the time to pitch me ideas and suggestions as I will have locked down the advance program by the end of January.

[Updated Jan. 11th: The deal is now official.] Tata Communications, which in 2008 invested $11.5M in BitGravity and licensed their technology for Tata's own CDN service, is looking to acquire the rest of the company. Tata already owns about 15% of the company due to their initial investment in BitGravity and is now looking to acquire all the remaining shares in the privately held CDN. I've heard that the terms of the acquisition been agreed upon but that the deal is not yet official. When reached for comment, BitGravity said Tata had not closed a deal for the company but I'm hearing some BitGravity employees who are already telling others that they now work for Tata. When reached for comment over the holiday weekend Tata didn't deny or confirm the deal saying, "we do not have any information to share at this time."

For those that follow the CDN space, this deal probably comes as no surprise as BitGravity was pretty much out of options with regards to their business. BitGravity has been in the industry for a couple of years but simply wasn't able to grow revenue fast enough to seriously compete in today's crowded CDN landscape. The company also offered some of the lowest pricing in the market, without commits, and really focused their pitch on being the low cost leader in the market, which is simply not sustainable for any CDN. Even last month, the company was marketing their services via emails pointing out that their live event pricing started "at $1,000 per event in North America or Europe."

For BitGravity, the company made some of the same classic mistakes as many of the other CDNs have made over the years. The company spent so much time talking about their technology and trying to convince everyone about how much better it was than competitors that they never focused on how to turn it into a product. Technology is great, but it does not matter how good the technology is if you can't make it into a product or service and explain to the market and customers what the value is and why they should buy it.

The company also stayed in stealth mode for a really long time before they truly launched and when they did, they never really focused too heavily on marketing and sales and focused a lot of their product efforts on live streaming. BitGravity never really provided much in the way of technical details on their service and really focused on a lot of marketing words like "next-generation" without defining what that meant for customers. The company also took a big hit when their co-founder and CTO Barret Lyon left in mid 2009.

BitGravity's only real option at this stage of their business is to sell to Tata Communications, which would enable Tata to own 100% of the technology that runs their CDN. For Tata, it's a good move as long as the price is right and in this case, even though we don't yet know the terms of the final deal, Tata clearly has the upper hand in the negotiations.

Related Posts:

– Tata Communications Launches CDN, Invests $11.5 Million In BitGravity

– BitGravity Announces Live HD Streaming, But Traction Will Be Hard To Come By