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ICraveTV II - Canadian showdown

Posted by Hemos on from the tv-for-all dept.

typecast writes "It's taken nearly 10 months, but this story says JumpTV is finally just some not-so-short hearings away from what could be an entirely legal (in Canada) version of iCraveTV. But the company says it probably won't wait for the hearings to end to begin Webcasting off-the-air TV signals live on the Net ... using its technology to reduce that iCraveTV-like "leakage" into the U.S. If JumpTV's border control technology can keep the MPAA out, could it keep French Nazi hunters away from Yahoo!'s servers?"

6 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Why do we want it anyway? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4

    American Culture?

    That wont take much bandwidth.

  2. Here's why this service could be valuable: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4

    I am looking forwared to a JumpTV surviving censorship attempts, because I will use it to watch channels that the broadcasters won't let me see otherwise. This is similar to how Napster lets us (or used to) let us listen to music that the record companies refused to sell us (bootlegs and old stuff), and how those DVD utilities let us view DVD material that we otherwise would never be able to see due to the Region system. There wouldn't be any of this problem if the related industries weren't so reluctant to sell us this material in the first place: the problem isn't unauthorized viewing/listening without paying the company. Rather, it is unauthorized viewing/listening to material using these controversial sources since the industry refuses to sell it to us at all. Here is a good example of this: there is a major-label DVD I want to view. It is sold in Region 2, and they have no plans for a DVD for Region 1 that I could view. Instead of paying the company for the DVD that I can't watch, this encourages me to buy a pirated VHS version of the DVD off of eBay, which I could watch.

  3. Re:JumpTV link - RM vs. WM by iainl · · Score: 5

    If I remember correctly, the increasing popularity of Windows Media format over Real Media is mainly down to two things:

    1) Cost. Real charge a lot more for the server licenses and encoders than Microsoft do; not surprising as every .wm file out there is an implicit advert for the joys of switching to Windows rather than Mac or whichever flavour of *nix you might want.

    2) Quality. Given the option, I choose .wm over .rm every download, as to my eye the .wm looks better for the given file size. Its crisper but blockier, so I can see some would disagree, but then everything is going to be a matter of personal judgement to some extent.

    Also, the general nightmare of getting Realplayer and Realjukebox to not gobble resources and stick its spyware and taskbar rubbish off my system means that I'll take every opportunity I can to get the piece of junk off my box.

    None of the currently popular formats are ideal - mpeg 1 isn't the greatest quality per byte and doesn't stream well, Real has the player problem above, WM is Windows only and Quicktime is only Windows or Mac. Since Windows is such a large share of the market I can see why some would rather forego the other platforms to avoid the other problems.

    --
    "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
  4. JumpTV link by Earthling · · Score: 5
    They have already started broadcasting several stations, which you can find here, but you need to have javascript on. And don't bother unless you're running windows, because everything is in Windows Media format.

    Speaking of which, can someone please explain to me the reasons for the popularity of that format? I mean, not that I particularly like Real Media, but at least it's running on more than one freaking platform.

    -Earthling

    --

    -Earthling
    "I'm sorry, I had to; the irony was just too thick."
  5. Internet Death Through Corporate Greed by General_Corto · · Score: 4

    Let's face it, on one hand, most of us love the idea of a company being able to screw the TV companies over, no matter how they manage to do it exactly. It certainly sounds good to me, taken on its own. However, the fact that the company has to put in place regional barriers means that this is a Bad Thing.

    Think about it for a minute. The Internet is (or at least, was meant to be) all about inclusion of peoples, freedom to access content wherever it is located, and sharing. Instead, we're now looking at situations where, for instance, I can get a service that others cannot.

    Extrapolate that a little further now. Based on region, Big Company Inc is able to charge different amounts of money for their virtually-delivered (i.e. online) service, and for no other reason than the fact that they can.

    JumpTV's service, even if free, manages to have enough parallels with the DVD regioning system that it's not funny.

  6. yah by flynt · · Score: 4

    this is how i feel about this sort of thing... click