[mythtv-users] Is skipping ads really a good idea?
David Brodbeck
gull at gull.us
Tue Jun 19 21:16:44 UTC 2007
On Jun 19, 2007, at 1:26 PM, Michael T. Dean wrote:
> We're going to need some significant upgrade of infrastructure to
> support that. I saw an article a couple of years ago saying that
> NetFlix shipped in one day more than twice the data that could be
> carried by the internet (and that was with SDTV DVD's).
>
> Short of using some "almost" on-demand technology (i.e. multicast to
> everyone and let some IPTV DVR record it for later playback), we're
> probably going to have a long wait for 'net-based on-demand TV.
Maybe. But compare to the way music is distributed. Sure, if you
add up all the bits on all the CDs sold in a day it probably adds up
to some massive number. But people have shown they're willing to
trade off quality for convenience, and the result has been a trend
towards compressed music formats that download quickly.
Likewise, I doubt anyone's going to be shipping DVD-quality MPEG2
files around the Internet. They'll use another form of compression
that trades off quality for a smaller file size. Videophiles will
probably still insist on getting real DVDs for the better quality,
just like audiophiles still insist on vinyl LPs, but they'll likely
be a minority.
Some kind of local caching would help, too, and it could be cable
companies will get into this act so that they can still keep their
fingers in the content pie. Otherwise they'll be stuck simply
providing network pipes, and that's a low-margin business.
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