The TVs the middlemen don't want you to have

28 July 2009 4:05 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Your TV could offer you a host of new features as soon as tomorrow, however many set-top box operators around the world, are failing to embrace new technology as they struggle to understand what the technology can do.

Imagine being able to transfer content automatically from your television to a portable device, so you could watch your recorded programmes on the go? Or the latest recommendations based on what you've watched, what your friends are watching or even your favourite TV critic recommends.

In a series of proof of concept demos in New York, NDS, a company that you are unlikely to have heard of, but that has created the software behind 135 million set top boxes in circulation, says the above are just some of the technologies it has ready to roll out across the world.

Take the portable PVR, that would allow you to side load your recorded shows to play away from the home, which is ready to roll off the concept shelf and into reality if only a set-top box operator like Sky or Cablevision was willing.

The idea, which has been touted before by Sky, but always dismissed over technological rights and licensing issues, would work like SlingMedia's SlingPlayer for mobile application, however, without the need for an internet connection.

But it's not just about letting you watch television away from the TV. Take the company's recommendation service. It will not only recommend content to consumers based on their viewing habits, but what their friends are watching and which TV show critics they rate, they then compile a series of suggestions.

You'll like this because your best friend did and it's got the dude from The Wire in it which we can see you've watched all five series.

Some of the technology, which has yet to find its way into a set-top box as yet, is already starting to appear on the Web. The company already powers a website called LocateTV which allows you to find out when your favourite actor is on television, what they are in and what station it is on. You can search by show, actor and many other elements, with the information working in different countries around the world.

Want to know when The Wire is on television, type it in and away you go.

Other Minority Report style features to expect from the TV of the future include the ability to serve different households different adverts based on their location or viewing habits. The move, which some would suggest has privacy issues similar to Phorm, monitors what television you watch down to the second with the aim of serving you more relevant and more useful adverts.

Users of NDS Dynamic, as the company calls it, would be asked to punch in a number of details such as your location, as well as who lives in your house, before the software starts snooping on what programmes you watch. Based on your viewing habits it would then be able to serve you adverts more relevant to you.

However, it is clever enough not just to show you car adverts based around you watching motorsport and Top Gear. If your kids also watch kids TV then it would change the advert demographic you are part of.

Get past adverts and the TV of the future will let you connect to other devices to stream content from a networked storage device in the home.

Whether it is a standard hard drive or iPhone, the company's Infinite TV project sees a mashing together of a number of technologies, giving you access to paid content and free content to your connected TV through a consumer friendly Flash lite interface.

The initiatives sound compelling, technologically advanced from what we have today, and therefore, no doubt from an operator point of view, incredibly hard to understand what and how to implement them without losing money.

That sees to be the problem.

Sky has told Pocket-lint before that is has looked at a portable solution on a number of occasions, but while the technology is there to implement it, is there a need? How do you get around the DRM issues of taking content away from the original box and how do you market it? Is it an added extra, a bolt on for the subscription, or even just part of the initial subscription package? Questions that all have to be asked.

Of course the people that lose out are us, the consumers, but you only have to look at Apple to realise that for the most part we never get the latest technology all of the time.

NDS says the proof of concepts shown should be in homes at some point.