So, a big trend lately is internet video/movie streaming...

Concerns are raised about the death of conventional TV/cable and the rize of the Internet broadband on-demand video services.

I've been watching the press releases and reviews...

It seems the HTPC space is transforming from a hobbyist's tinkering land into a more consumer level easy to use options such as a set-top-box (i.e. Apple TV (itunes), SlingBox, TiVo (amazon), Roku (netflix,amazon) or nettop media PC's (Asus EEE, nVidia ION), or simply connecting your PC to the HDTV directly. There are even TV's coming out with their own streaming connectivity built in (Panasonic, Sony Bravia)

To avoid buying and setting up something that is useless in 2 years, I am trying to gauge what the future will hold. I think of the future of the various services that are out there now, such with the Hulu's of the world (not available to Canucks without HotSpot Shield) and the CTV.ca/GlobalTV.ca streaming and the BellVideoStoreOnDemand, and the Amazon Video On Demand (not available to canada),

Rogers themselves are working on released a video on demand web based service for free to their cable subscribers, and perhaps for a "fee" to their internet customers later?

I wonder that it seems the box/tech doesn't matter as much as the content, the size of the library, the deals behind the scenes by the companies to house enough content.

I don't want to have to manage and store terabytes of movies and catalog and track it all myself. I just want convenient, good quality (HD) entertainment/educational libraries available to me and my family at any time.
Though I love tech, I don't want to have to keep fiddling with it.

It seems the Apple TV is the closest in terms of usability, while Hulu is the closest in terms of convenience and cost (free/ads), yet the Amazon video on demand has the biggest library of content from what I understand.

Currently I am on Ottawa Rogers internet, supplemented with OTA TV (only CBC is HD, so OTA is not a solution) and Internet TV; I tend to watch the most popular shows a day or two after broadcast (30 Rock, Lost, Heroes) on canadian streaming internet sites like ctv.ca and globaltv.ca while the american ones I try to catch on Hulu. All on my laptop.
My laptop has no HDMI connection. My HDTV has no VGA connection.

What I'd like, is a solution that lets me watch those programs in better quality, better sound, conveniently(time shifted, no fiddling) for a low cost.

It seems to me I should wait about 6 months to a year and get a new media laptop or nettop (windows 7) with HDMI and watch for the HD streaming of CTV (They already have an HDbeta website using Silverlight instead of Flash) and maybe Hulu/Amazon becomes more available, as the option that will have the most content, convenience and low cost.

But if it takes 2 years before any of that happens, maybe I am better to get an Apple TV and pay 3$/episode of Lost wait it out?

What do you think is going to happen? Did I miss any options?

Thanks!

I don't want to have to manage and store terabytes of movies and catalog and track it all myself.
I just want convenient, good quality (HD) entertainment...
Don't we all, eh...? And cheap, I'd add.

If you talk near term, I don't think much will change.
Two issues - net neutrality and DRM - are capable of killing any initiative on this front.
Until those are resolved, no one will commit to doing this in a big way. And I don't think they will be resolved in the next two years.

Managing terabytes of storage might get easier faster than online streaming of hidef to be common. ;)

If you drop the hidef requirement, I think that will be doable - i.e. streaming - for the most part in your time frame of two years.
If you drop the real time streaming requirement, then maybe even hidef will be doable. For a premium.

But just like CDs in audio, DVDs will rule the world for years to come.

My $.02...

Personally I torrent HD copies of the shows I like and stream them just over the home network. Not really a option I can suggest but I always buy the boxset to ease my guilty conscience. Kind of an odd arrangement as I don't always view the discs I buy but eh I got the entertainment. Have to pay for it somehow.

More and more, I'll skip a season of a show and later get the DVD box set to watch at my convenience. I learned to not mind at all being behind a season.

Other shows I'll get on torrents, but the options above is increasingly becoming our main source of TV shows.

We rarely watch anything live on cable TV nowadays except for local news. That and the "reality" TV things that my wife enjoys. If it weren't for those, we'd be canceling our cable service.

I think the future will be an amalgamation of content and content providers using IPTV.

This way, they can stuff more content down the pipe (only streams what you watch) and hollywierd can still control the content delivery & security (read: no fair use).

AT&T and MTS (Manitoba) are rolling out such services but it is in the early stages.

For now I'm sticking with Media Center (true multi-room solution) to record and stream my content (with torrents as a backup source).

With all the red tape, hollywierd, can-con, crtc, broadband caps, and who knows what else roadblocks the future, we might be waiting a while yet...

:(