Philoking.comfrom Jason Burns’ perspective…

Surely some cool dude is sitting at his desk at Comcast or Time Warner just thinking things up. He probably has tons of cool ideas, but I thought I would save him a little time and give him the ideas he needs to get into development right now.

IMDB Integration
If you like movies and TV, IMDB.com has become the bible for video entertainment. You can get lost on that site. Look up an actor or actress, see instantly everything they have ever acted in, directed, produced or wrote or performed music for. Click any of those titles and see who was involved in that, what they have coming ahead, what it’s about, trailers, synopsis, etc. It’s the most comprehensive and enjoyable site to just sit and surf…right behind Wikipedia.

Take that, and integrate it into a search feature. I was just watching Life on Stars network. I saw a little blooper with Bernie Mack at the end and thought, “I wonder what else he is in that’s on cable.” With OnDemand there are always tons of movies on. Wouldn’t it be cool to be able to search what’s on TV Now, in the next period of time and what’s on OnDemand be Actor/Actress, Producer, Director, Writer, Genre, Rating, etc.?

I know there would be licensing involved, but imagine reading people’s comments on the movie, maybe integrate some Rotten Tomatoes style rating with commentary. Talk about your awesome entertainment choosing experience. Most cable systems have two way Internet connectivity, they have a CPU and an OS, hard disk storage commonly these days and a pretty cable remote to navigate things with. What are you waiting on???

Remote Record
Media Center has figured it out. They have the connection to our boxes. When I am at work and someone asks me if I am recording the golf tournament, let me say, “Oh crap, I forgot, let me log in and start it!”

Think about it. They have the guide on their sites, add a simple user system that you authenticate into. You select the show in the guide you are interested in, it shows the boxes you have with DVR (you can alias them like bedroom, living room) and you click record, bam, you get home and you are ready to watch. Slick!

Guide Format Options
I don’t want to always have a tiny picture and a big guide, I have an HD TV for a reason, it’s big. Let me set aside say the right 1/3 of my screen and have it display the guide. We are in 1080i people, let me take some advantage of that real estate.

There are so many opportunities here, raise the resolution, add some Web 2.0 looking grace to it. Make it glossy, pretty, Media Centery! (I know that isn’t a word)

Central Storage
Speaking of Media Centery, I know you want to jack me to no end for $15/mo DVR rentals, and I get your point. I would rape and pillage my customers too (no I wouldn’t) but seriously, why can I not have ONE cable box with a DVR, and the ability to watch it’s content on any box in the house. Close the loop, use the coax like an internal network, and let me stream shows from box to box. That way I don’t have to have a DVR in every room to use it. Think OnDemand for my local content.

Dashboard
Ok, now this is pie in the sky, but stay with me for a minute. Think about the Dashboard in OS X. More economical, think iGoogle. Give me a portal type situation so I can throw on Weather, Stocks, Flickr Sideshows, whatever… and let me display it when I want. Give me a little picture in picture so I can throw a Vista Gadget looking deal so I can monitor something I want to keep an eye on while I watch TV. You might not want it while you are watching a movie, but how about when you are telecommuting and the TV is on but you aren’t paying a great deal of attention to it. Would be awesome then for alerting type stuff.

Ok, those are my ideas. What ideas do you have? What does cable need now! Other than a price cut of course….