[opendtv] Re: Cable vs. Telco: What Happens When Competition Outpaces Washington Rules
- From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "OpenDTV (E-mail)" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 15 May 2005 19:23:43 -0400
Silvio Macedo wrote:
> TV from the Internet? Not real?
>
> Just for a moment, lets suppose that the following is true:
>
> Imagine content I get through my ADSL is 70% of what I see
> on TV. The other 30% are news or simply to make me some
> company while I'm reading or work at my PC.
I think the real point is, what you and Craig have been
describing already can/does exist. And it has *nothing* to do
with the IPTV the various telcos have been hyping up.
As Kon has pointed out more than once, these schemes are
mainly used for pirating programs. But in principle, they
could be made legal.
What's to stop *any* producer today from establishing his
own web site, perhaps aided by a Bit Torrent scheme if he's
willing to trust (or pay?) people to help him out, and
distribute content that way? He can charge for it a la
carte, if he so pleases. Or offer package deals. Or make it
available for free, if he so chooses.
Of course, unless viewers are the least bit savvy, they
would be confined to the PC to watch this stuff. But a visit
to Best Buy should be able to get them a PC card with output
connections compatible with TV/monitors.
So this already does, or can, exist. It hasn't been called
TV. It's been called streaming media, or just plain old
file download. Similarly, MP3 downloads have not been called
"radio," either.
This sort of scheme has NOT revolutionized a thing so far,
yet it's been around for many many years, in one form or
other.
And much more to the point, the IPTV the telcos talk about,
which is much more similar to cable than this basic Internet
download scheme is, is even more unlikely to revolutionize
anything. And even much more unlikely to bypass any middle
man. It's just another walled garden, like cable or DBS.
Bert
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