New York City based K2B Inc. today
announced an aggressive direct marketing campaign to accompany the launch,
broaden availability and enhance sales of a new product called TV2Me
which is the first of its kind to reliably allow cable and satellite
television subscribers to space-shift their entire range of subscribed
channels to anywhere they travel, without sacrificing quality. The heart of the TV2Me system is a powerful dedicated video server that
runs like an appliance, without a monitor, keyboard or mouse, and enables
its owner to control channels and view them using the Internet. The
server’s hookup consists simply of plugging in video and stereo audio, and
a broadband Internet connection. Programs can then be watched from
anywhere the owner travels on a PC, laptop or large-screen monitor.

“Transporting a handful of selected television channels from one place to
another has become routine,” said TV2Me’s inventor Ken Schaffer, who is
also chief executive officer of K2B. “Shifting the entire telemedia
environment of a far-away city is new and exciting.”

Through an aggressive targeted marketing campaign, K2B aims to
dramatically broaden the sales of TV2Me, which was introduced to
cutting-edge customers beginning in the summer of 2003, and is currently
in use on 4 continents. Units are priced from $4,750. Typical customers
are business leaders, entertainers, government agencies, diplomats and
sports fans.

“There are many ways to use this capability,” said Schaffer. “For example,
a New Yorker visiting Prague can watch his favorite Seinfeld reruns or
select from the more than 200 channels offered by his cable company, or a
Russian businessman can watch 66 channels of Moscow cable live from his
midtown Manhattan hotel room.” TV2Me also has appeal amongst broadcast
companies, educators, advertising agencies and diplomatic communities
throughout the world.

Reviews of TV2Me have been extremely positive. In a comparison of TV2Me
and its only competitor, Sony’s LocationFree TV, The New York Times
reported that “Mr. Schaffer’s unit transmits a clearer picture over the
Internet ... a clear step above that of Sony.”

  PBS.org’s technology guru Robert X. Cringley wrote:

  “Sending live TV over the Internet is a very difficult thing to do,
especially over distances like that from Moscow to New York. There are live TV feeds from Moscow available today, and they look terrible no
matter how much bandwidth you have.  What blew me away this week when I
saw a demo of TV2Me was the quality of the image. TV2Me’s feed, running
at an average of 384 kilobits-per-second, looks like TV. When you change
channels to any of the 60 or so on the Moscow cable system, it takes
about 10 seconds to rebuffer, and then you have TV. Amazing!”  (See
Robert X. Cringley’s PBS review:
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20041028.html.)

TV2Me inventor Ken Schaffer is renowned for prior inventions including the
wireless guitar and microphones first used by the Rolling Stones and now
standard equipment for most major performers, and his unique satellite
tracking systems. While the Cold War was raging, Schaffer’s satellite
systems allowed U.S. scholars and agencies to monitor a single channel of
the internal television of the former Soviet Union. As a struggling
start-up, The Discovery Channel’s decision to use Schaffer’s satellite
tracking system to carry an unprecedented week of live Soviet television
resulted in a Golden Ace Award and 10 million additional subscribers.
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