It’s tough to glean the exact plan for deployment and the business model of ZillionTV. And that, to me, is a clear indication that this start up does not yet have anything concrete to offer consumers. This seems to be a company with an idea, but nothing actually in place to make that idea a reality. Never-the-less, they are speaking up and attempting to get some press because – well, let’s face it – without getting noticed, they have zero chance of being taken seriously by the TV networks and movie studios that would supposedly provide all of the content!

ZillionTV’s plan, from what I can piece together, is to work hand in hand with Internet Service Providers, giving them a dedicated set top box that will stream content licenced to ZillionTV directly from the TV networks and movie studios. Essentially, it’s just cable TV, but distributed over the internet and with the option of watching all shows and movies on demand rather than being beholden to a broadcast schedule. Given that many ISP companies are also cable TV providers, I can’t imagine they’d have much, if any interest, in offering such a service. It would seem more likely that only DSL ISP companies may be interested as ZillionTV would basically give them a cable TV alternative that they could offer over their telephone infrastructure.

As always though, the ones who are really in control are the TV networks and the movie studios. They are the ones who get to decide what content is available, when it is available and for how long.

For all the talk of downloading and streaming content being the future, I still try to remind people that it will only ever happen when the TV and movie studios decide that it will happen. Netflix could be offering every DVD ever made if the studios allowed it. But they do not, which is why the bulk of what is available via Netflix streaming are older movies, catalogue titles and TV shows.

ZillionTV clearly wants to offer more content and they are attempting to persuade the TV and movie studios to allow them to do so with a slightly different distribution plan than what is already available.

After waiting for more than a year for syncTV with backing from Pioneer – same idea, but no box, PC only delivery – to emerge out of beta I don’t know what chances ZillionTV has to make it work. I don’t see why At&t would agree to push their box over At&t’s stupid Uverse.

To be blunt, if cable TV were to simply offer a greatly expanded library of movies and TV shows via their On-Demand Service, wouldn’t that basically give us everything we’re after?

What does Netflix streaming really offer? You pay a monthly fee, you load the movies and TV shows (selected from the available library) into a queue and then you can watch any of those movies or TV shows whenever you want.

AppleTV (iTunes), Vudu and Amazon On Demand let you rent a movie or TV show from their available library and you pay for each show individually.

Hulu, TV.com and supposedly ZillionTV allow you to watch any show from their available library for free – provided you sit through their commercials.

And all of them offer lower audio and video quality (save for the HDX titles on Vudu)!

So if cable were to greatly expand their On-Demand library, what do any of these other services really offer? Cable could offer higher audio and video quality. They can already let you rent shows and pay for them a la carte. So long as you have a DVR and set up a Season Pass, it’s as good as being able to download or stream shows as soon as they become available. All that’s really missing is being able to catch a show that you forgot to record, but a greatly expanded On-Demand Service could easily take care of that.

So really then, it just becomes a question of price, doesn’t it? The only reason people are looking for an alternative to cable is because of the monthly bill and the hopes that internet streaming + downloading could provide a cheaper way of getting all of the same content.

I can understant that, but at the same time, cable is really the method that makes the most sense in terms of existing infrastructure and quality.