Streaming media becomes complicated when the bandwidth comes anywhere close to the total average bandwidth you have available. Then you have considerations of constant and max bit rates plus a significant time to accumulate any sort of a safety buffer. This used to be true for quality real time audio but these days an audio stream takes only a small percentage of a broadband connection and people can afford to be a bit sloppy, which simplifies things. Likewise, streaming HD video still takes some cleverness on broadband and is mostly not available yet for wireless mobile. But there is some sort of Moore's law equivalent for wired and wireless broadband and it should do for video the same as for audio. This should mostly reduce the issue to a fight between rights holders and distributors. Local TV broadcasters seriously need to start looking into streaming. - Tom Manfredi, Albert E wrote: > Craig Birkmaier wrote: > >> Hmmmmm... I think I predicted something like this a few weeks ago... > > Yes, you did. And this also has ramifications in the TV arena, not just > OTA, but also DBS and cable broadcast. > > But I think this quote from the article misses the point: > > "Sirius (nasdaq: SIRI - news - people ) chief executive Mel Karmazin, of > course, sees the company's prospects differently. In the same Fortune > story, he says that despite the increased competition from internet > radio, Sirius will be fine because it introduces listeners to new music > that may not be in their iPod libraries and has exclusive content from > sources like Howard Stern and CNN." > > The exclusive content aside, future competition to the broadcast media > (OTA, stallite, and cable broadcast) is not so much from pre-recorded > content downloaded from the Internet, but more from streaming media over > wireless Internet. As wireless Internet expands its reach, e.g. over 3G > and 4G telco links. IMO. > > I think that streaming media, over wired or wireless Internet, is > considerably more complex than broadcast. Which is why it's taking so > long to become a credible competitor to broadcast. But its time is > coming. > > Bert > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways: > > - Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at > FreeLists.org > > - By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word > unsubscribe in the subject line. > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways: - Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at FreeLists.org - By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line.