Boxee’s spat with cable companies over their desire to encrypt basic cable programming got a lot of press this week, but one interesting detail hasn’t been reported yet: A publicly available copy of Boxee’s most recent filing with the FCC (PDF) contains large sections of blacked-out content. An accompanying letter (PDF) describes that this measure was necessary to conceal “confidential commercial information regarding Boxee’s business plan, technology and product pipeline.” The folks at the FCC obviously got the unredacted filing, but the rest of us are left wondering: What exactly is Boxee working on?

“We’re not ready to discuss our future product roadmap… but it was a useful tool to demonstrate to the FCC where innovation is headed in the TV space for both over the top and over the air/QAM,” we were told by Boxee VP of Marketing Andrew Kippen. The filing itself also states that “both the Boxee Box with Live TV and the products under development provide consumers with competitive alternatives to traditional pay cable delivered via rented set top boxes.” Of course, one could argue that any over-the-top offering with access to online sources like Netflix can be an alternative to your cable box — but that’s already true for the existing Boxee Box. The need to black out two entire paragraphs in the filing leads me to believe that Boxee is instead working on additional ways to access and consume over-the-air broadcast and cable TV.

So what do they have in store for us? Here are some possibilities:

• DVR functionality. This has been the most-requested feature ever since the Boxee Live TV tuner came out earlier this year. The tuner currently only displays what’s airing at any given time, but a software update and an attached hard disc could turn the combination of Boxee Box and Live TV tuner into a full-fledged DVR.
• A Boxee TV. Viewsonic was supposed to release a TV set powered by Boxee last year, but scrapped its plan when consumer demand for Smart TVs didn’t materialize. Of course, that doesn’t mean that another TV manufacturer couldn’t fill the gap — and a TV with built-in tuner would obviously also have access to Boxee Live TV, and as such be impacted by any attempt to encrypt basic cable.
• A revamped Boxee Box with internal storage. This would go well with any DVR offering, in part because not every consumer wants to have an external hard drive and a USB dongle dangling from their Boxee Box. Of course, it would also be possible to directly add the TV tuner to the Box — but this could bring costs up even further, so I’d expect this to be sold separately for the foreseeable future. Iomega is already selling a Boxee device with hard drive in Europe, but the company told us it doesn’t have any plans to bring the device to the U.S.
• A cable set-top box. Yes, you read that correctly. Boxee has been big on cord cutting rhetoric lately, but the company is reportedly also talking to smaller cable operators about using Boxee’s platform as an alternative to the traditional cable box. This could be done with the existing Boxee Box and a Live TV tuner, but one could also imagine slightly revamped hardware that could offer subscribers online video, basic cable channels and a DVR for a small monthly fee, much like Sezmi used to offer — but instead of selling it directly to consumers, Boxee would offer the device through a regional cable company.

We’ll likely have to wait a while until we know what the company has up its sleeves. However, the success of the Live TV tuner — the device is currently sold out and on back-order — shows that the company is clearly onto something here. And while the list of possible products above is admittedly pure speculation, it goes to show that there is lots of potential for Boxee to innovate in this space.

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Millions and millions of viewers, high-profile international partnerships, live audiences that dwarf Western competition: For years, it looked like there was little that China’s online video industry couldn’t achieve — except for reaching the living room. Strict regulation of TV services made connected devices off-limits, and companies who snuck their apps on set-top boxes had to deal with repercussions. Now it looks like this may be changing.

Last week at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, China’s online video provider PPTV announced a strategic partnership with WASU Media Group. WASU is a local cable TV operator in one of China’s many provinces, but it has something really valuable for PPTV: A license to bring online video to the living room, which it has been using to bring triple play offerings to their customers. However, WASU’s license isn’t just restricted to the territory it works in. Instead, it’s able to launch online services on connected devices everywhere.

PPTV, which is also known as PPLive, has been trying to get into the living room for years. The company’s P2P video client is installed on 240 million PCs across China, and it has been adding some 30 million users with its iPad and other mobile clients in recent years. The company worked on its own set-top box project some three years ago, but never shipped the device because China’s regulators were starting to crack down on similar offerings from competitors.

At the core of the issue is China’s complicated licensing framework, which requires that online video operators get separate licenses for addressing PC, mobile and connected TV usage. The TV space has been the most heavily regulated, and regulators have effectively been treating any video startup the same way they would treat an established cable TV operator.

The result has been that there hasn’t been a move towards streaming in the living room, as there has in the U.S. PPTV and WASU hope to change this by combining their efforts, while also securing a big share of the coming connected TV boom in China. Digital TV Research expects the Chinese online video market to grow from $ 50 million in 2010 to $ 1.38 billion in 2016, and connected devices could play a huge role in that growth.

The good news for PPTV’s competitors is that there are still other ways into the Chinese living room. Lenovo announced an Android-based TV set at CES, and Chinese CE manufacturers have been introducing countless Android-based set-top boxes in recent months. None of these devices has access to Google’s Android Market — which isn’t available in China — but consumers will nonetheless be able to install third-party apps from a variety of sources. This in itself could lead to a connected TV revolution within China, and possibly even force regulators to rethink their stance on online services in the living room.

Image courtesy of (CC-BY-SA) Flickr user x-ray delta one.

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