[opendtv] Multicast to the World?
- From: dan.grimes@xxxxxxxx
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 09:41:43 -0700
It is my understanding that passing multicast packets is not widely
available, at least not widely active, on the world wide web. Thus, one
might be able to provide multicast streaming within their own network
("walled garden") such as the cable company's broadband system. However,
for independent content providers, streaming over multicast to anyone is
not yet a reality. Am I correct in this? If so, I am not so sure that
delivering media over multicast within a cable company's own
infrastructure isn't the same as delivering the media streams over
modulated carriers, whether in IP packets or continuous MPEG-2 streams. I
suppose it does provide more VOD functionality. I see the ability to
reliably stream program content directly to anyone in the world to be the
important barrier lift. For now, that means unicast.
But I understand Craig's point that there are political reasons for not
providing direct streaming. It certainly would affect the big media
income.
Dan
Original messages:
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Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 08:27:08 -0400
From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [opendtv] Re: ATSC and Lip Sync
>
>
>From Wikipedia's multicast entry:
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multicast
>
>"No mechanism has yet been demonstrated that would allow the IP
>multicast model to scale to millions of senders and millions of
>multicast groups and, thus, it is not yet possible to make
>fully-general multicast applications practical. For these reasons,
>and also reasons of economics, IP multicast is not in general use in
>the commercial Internet."
>
Somebody needs to update the entry. The end result is essentially
correct. But the reasons that this is not happening are purely
political, given the reality that cable and the telcos control the
market for broadband and DO NOT want to kill the subscription TV PIG.
Regards
Craig
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