[opendtv] Re: News: The Internet revolution is about to be televised

> problems McClenny points out below (overloading central servers with
> 100's of "a la carte" users) may be solved with more IT like
> solutions, like peer to peer islands on the edges of the networks.

The usual scenario is that the edge always has the most bandwidth. Its your 
areas north of 
the edge that can be bandwidth challenged.
 
> In a p2p solution, like for example IBM P2G Media Broadcast
> (www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/p2g), the more users want a piece of
> content (or channel?), the more capacity will be available for it -
> although, near online with a delay.

It doesn't appear to offer any advantage when the peers and edge server are all 
at the edge. 
The edge server feeds one and only one client, and that client then branches 
via virtual layers 
to peer groups, all using unicast. IP multicast is more effective in this 
situation.
 
> personalized "broadcatching"
> (www.engadget.com/entry/1234000167021291/) during off-peak network
> times, for watching whenever it suits the viewer - or even a full
> personalized channel based on something like a playlist.

I've seen one such box that does exactly this, but its problem was that it 
exposed the notion 
of 'downloading' and 'queues' to the user. Other than that, yes and no. Content 
providers 
prefer walled gardens, and so do CA companies. Also, RSS isn't designed for 
carrying 'real' 
broadcast data (how do you carry keys in an RSS feed) or handling billing (how 
do you figure 
out how/where/when to bill someone if the feeds are from diverse sources, and 
how do you 
securely automate this process). Its a nice first try though, but the modern 
equivalent of a 
wooden coach wheel. 
 
> If the content is encrypted or not (ie: freenet.sourceforge.net), if
> devices have DRM technology or not, those are second-order issues.
> Once the bandwidth is there, IP and good software will do it.

Freenet is an anonimity service - so you can pirate movies without fear of 
being traced. What 
does that have to do with DRM? :-)

> In my opinion, the switch from cable to IPTV will not go very far if
> IPTV simply tries to replicate the cable/channel/one-for-all model on
> IP. Actually, I believe both solutions will coexist for a looong time,
> each exploiting its profitable market.

I believe if these technologies that are out there in their infancy now 
continue to be 
promoted for illegal downloading (the Engadget article is priceless - 
screenshots of Battlestar 
galactica divx'd episodes, clearly illegal), then the motion picture industry 
will continue to 
push away from them, no matter what advantages they hold.

Cheers
Kon

 
 
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