EMERYVILLE, Calif. – July 19, 2007 – Even as consumers race to buy the latest high-definition (HD) TV hardware and start embracing tomorrow’s television promise, they continue to place more value on the breadth of available programming than on picture quality, according to survey findings announced this week at ITV Con – an Internet TV and interactive TV technologies conference in San Jose, Calif.

“As content providers race to ramp up their digital offerings, the audience continues to see the true future of television more in terms of additional programming choices than better quality,” said Herve Utheza, vice president and generation manager of TV properties for Orb Networks, and presenter of the survey data.

Orb is a free service that enables users to stream their personal and internet content to any other internet-connected device. Orb works with infrastructure providers to design and deliver solutions to create a single-user environment that links personal content on the PC, content resident on, and delivered from, the Internet and “traditional” TV content. Orb’s recent survey asked TV viewers about their preferences for programming and quality.

At press time, the survey results show:

• People valued programming choices over TV image quality (74% to 26%)
• Looking ahead, to a world where “TV” will soon be offered on a variety of screens from small, to mobile, to large, the percentage of respondents choosing programming choices jumps to 90% against 10% to image quality
• Programming choice preferences were highest for news (87%), comedy (83%) and general TV shows (77%)
• TV image quality was cited as most important among movies (45%) and sports events (31%)
• Movie audiences are pretty much evenly split between choice and quality
• Sports is the only category where image quality is the clear winner, but 41% of respondents also admit not being interested in sports

“People want their HD movies or sports on the big screen TV in their living rooms, but they also want to see YouTube videos, Johnny’s baseball game, and their favorite Internet TV program on the big TV,” Utheza said.

Utheza continued, “The Holy Grail for the television industry is creating systems that harness this demand for “new media,” by making it as simple and easy to consume on the TV screen, as today’s TV content. This is where IP delivered TV truly unleashes the promise of tomorrow’s television: a hybrid world of PayTV, personal and “over the top” content where the consumer makes the choice of what they want among branded and “long tail” programming.”

To see how Orb enables the viewing of hundreds of Internet TV channels to the big TV screen, go to www.orb.com or www.orb.com/gamers.

 

About Orb Networks, Inc.
Orb Networks is an award-winning developer of software and services that unlock the digital media stored on personal computers. Orb MyCasting gives consumers secure, free, instant, and everywhere-access to everything from their photos and video to TV and music on virtually any Web-enabled device. The company’s partners and affiliates include: Amino, AOL Winamp, AMD, Creative Labs, Hauppauge, Hutchison, Nokia, Orange and Vodafone. Orb Networks is a privately held company in Emeryville, Calif. For more information about Orb Networks and the Orb MyCasting service, please visit www.orb.com.

Orb and MyCast are trademarks of Orb Networks, Inc. All other trademarks and/or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Media Contacts:
Liana Miller
eLuminatePR for Orb Networks
949.276.8920
liana@eluminatepr.com