It seems to me that multi-cast is a technical solution for the bandwidth
consumption problems precipitated by real-time Internet video broadcast,
but it doesn't seem to me that the bulk of current (or even future)
Internet video traffic is going to be amenable to distribution via
multi-cast - or, at least, separate and apart from whatever happens with
multi-cast, a huge and growing volume of video traffic will be flowing
over the 'net...
I don't think consumers are going to accept having to wait for a
"scheduled broadcast" of whatever piece of video content they want to
view - at least if the alternative is being able to download and watch
it nearly immediately. That said, for the most popular content with the
widest audience, scheduled multi-cast makes sense... especially when the
alternative is waiting for a large download to finish - contrawise, it
doesn't seem reasonable to be constantly multi-casting *every* piece of
video content anyone might ever want to watch (that in itself would
consume an insane amount of bandwidth). How many pieces of video content
are there on YouTube? How many more can we expect to emerge over the
next decade, given the ever decreasing cost of entry for reasonably
decent video production?
All of which, to me, leaves the fundamental issue of how the upsurge in
traffic is going to be handled left unresolved.
Thomas
Simon Lockhart wrote:
On Tue Jan 09, 2007 at 07:52:02AM +0000, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Given that the broadcast model for streaming content
is so successful, why would you want to use the
Internet for it? What is the benefit?
How many channels can you get on your (terrestrial) broadcast receiver?
If you want more, your choices are satellite or cable. To get cable, you
need to be in a cable area. To get satellite, you need to stick a dish on
the side of your house, which you may not want to do, or may not be allowed
to do.
With IPTV, you just need a phoneline (and be close enough to the exchange/CO
to get decent xDSL rate). In the UK, I'm already delivering 40+ channels over
IPTV (over inter-provider multicast, to any UK ISP that wants it).
Simon
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Thomas Leavitt - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - 831-295-3917 (cell)
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