Drama in the living room

From BusinessWeek we get Apple's iTunes Movie Muddle, which touches on some core technology opportunities. Someone, somewhere is going to come up with a box that allows access to HD videos from the internet. But, it's simple to say and hard to do.

First of all, most "video sharing" sites present materials in less that HD, and most videos on those sites are less than 10 minutes long. Myspace.com actually restricts videos to that length, unless a user registers themselves in a special publisher's program.

Second, as the article points out, watching videos on an iPod or even a computer screen gets old. Why not video walls, retail video displays, and the old living room mainstay?

Finally, Hollywood makes far too much money the old fashioned way to want to switch. Someone has to show them how they can get even richer (or lose their shirt) before they change their "first release window" practices.

Will a breakout product cause the dam to break? Or a "must see podcast"? My bet is at the other end of the chain. Those HD flat panels are showing up in all sorts of places, playing all sorts of materials. Increasingly, they are fed by efficient, internet-sourced content.