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P2P Television?
An Anonymous reader submits a link to this "very interesting article on TVP2P," writing: "While the author doesn't really mention "P2P," think of the permutations of having TV's becoming Napster-like file servers. The tech can't be too hard to work out, since CATV systems are now piping Net access into millions of homes (anyone doing this hack yet?). If you thought the RIAA raised hell, wait until the MPAA and the relevant TV lobby groups figure this out. Of course, if history teaches us anything, they won't figure it out until way after the genie is out of the bottle ..."
Since most broadband providers will soon be metering access, depending on the costs involved in file sharing, maybe P2P will just be dead.
--tom
That's not going to fly by the networks. At the very least, the cable companies that offer highspeed access will put a stop to it. They need to get their cut of the telly pie.
Interesting... If the cable companies are so against TiVO and the similar product lines, how do they feel about this?
It also brings the menu to mind... Right now we have a list of channels to flip through. If you have Digital Cable or Satellite, you have a menu so you can skip to other channels. How will things be done if you have 1,000,000 hours of footage available to watch?
Will it be like Napster or Morpheus or Kazaa? Will you have to be like "Ok content providers, I want the 4th episode of Twilight Zone... any of you have it?"
That's what I want, really... having to rely on them. Imagine if the MPAA and RIAA join up... you "download" it to your TV only to find it was a 30-second looped promo for the new Mariah Caray special...
Plus, the theme of Pay Per View could be expanded dramatically... it's scary.
"PC Load Letter? What the $@#% does that mean?!"
In the UK someone got convicted for redistributing radio over the web.
Anything else comes to the courts the judge is giong to look at this case and say wrong.
There is a link here.
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
At this rate, I'm surprised the MPAA & RIAA hasn't started to complain about the copyright laws specialized for news, where you can use so and so number of seconds of a copyrighted material for informational purposes.
I'm the Devil the Windows users warned you about.
is it just me or does every article have to have a reply with "pr0n" in it,....now if it were funny, thats fine, but sheesh......
It's not quite the same as what the article suggests, but I do think a reasonable P2P 'TV' network (it'd really be a PC network...) is rather plausible.
I have a Pentium 2 400 machine in my bedroom. It has a Hauppage WinTV card ($49, $99 for stereo) and the PicVideo Motion JPEG Codec. It can capture at 640 by 480 @ 30 fps without breaking a sweat. I use it as a VCR. The data rate's pretty high, I usually compress it to DivX later if I want to keep the show. I wouldn't put this stuff out on Kazaa, though, with my 256kbps limit.
However, I live in a pretty big complex that is laid out rather nicely for 802.11. I could see a few people taking really old computers, turning them into virtual VCR's, and making the shows available on 802.11.
One guy could be capturing That 70's Show, while the next guy is capturing Enterprise, all at near-broadcast quality!
The reason I'm mentioning this is that I expect one day there'll be a huge 802.11 network built. (Or something like it...) It'll start with an apartment complex sharing an internet connection. Then they'll share their files. Then they'll connect neighboring complexes.... and so on. There won't be any charge for bandwidth other than electricity.
I have a feeling that the way the internet is going, individuals will build something like this so they can break away from the WWW. Maybe I'm just fantasizing, but who knows? Sharing TV shows, like the article describes, could be the killer app that gets this type of thing launched.
"Derp de derp."
Sure, they're pretty much the same thing. Bob records a show and offers copies to others.
Practically, it's much different to record a show, drop it onto your machine, and let people make an unlimited number of identical, almost zero-cost copies of it (discounting any forthcoming bandwidth tarrifs) at will. Video tapes and postage aren't free, real-time tape copying takes a long time and is lossy.
All things considered, it's much easier and cheaper to trade via P2P than trade tapes via mail.
The thing that "let the genie out of the bottle" for digital music was:
Now with VCDs we definitely have (4) we may have (1) (2) depending on your definition of easy but we certainly don't have (3) for a 650MB VCD image. ...and the latest news makes the future of broadband certainly look more expensive.
The video P2P genie looks like it's still in the bottle to me.
You've raised a good point. Here we are, in a day and age when there are hundreds, if not thousands, of geeks out there who would love to build the next home theater component, whether it's for P2P television or some kind of streaming video box or whatnot, and the folks with the content see this as a threat rather than jumping on it as an enormous business opportunity.
When phonograph records were invented, the music industry was horrified that nobody would attend concerts any longer. When film emerged, theaters saw their own end as folks would no longer attend live performances. And when the video tape player became available to the consumer, cinemas worried that nobody would attend the movie theater.
Am I wrong in assuming that these technologies have actually increased the worth of these businesses? For live music and theater productions, just check out Ticket Master! There are hundreds of performances every single day! As for the movie theater, have you seen the lines at the ticket booths lately? Sure, there might be 10 or 100 or 1000 or even 10000 geeks out there who will pass up the "real" performance for some crappy downloaded version played in a little window on their computer with people's heads in the way, but the rest of the world will continue to support theaters and concerts.
I believe the numbers of live theater productions, live concerts and movies in the theater have increased by several orders of magnitude since the invention of recordable media. If only the dull, boring gray-haired old men in management of the RIAA and MPAA would understand that and use MP3, P2P, and every other "obstacle" to their advantage, rather than try to fight an impossible battle against good technologies, causing the government to pass all kinds of laws reminicient of George Orwell's 1984.
The media companies are supposed to think of innovative ways to move content around BEFORE the pirates do it for them! But once again, the ever-important "bottom line" way of thinking among the idiot management crowd causes them to favor some silly numbers over good, solid technical knowledge and decisions, and that is what screws up their bottom line in the first place! Management thinks they don't need to know or get involved in the details. What those dumb-asses don't understand is that try as you might, those details NEED attention, because they are what compose the overall picture. And they need MANAGEMENT'S ATTENTION, just as much as the attention of the lower-level employees who deal with the details first-hand. And management needs to fully comprehend the depths and importance of these details. If they manage a programming company, they should study programming. They don't need to program, that's the programmers' job. But they need to understand, in order to make better decisions. They can't just say, "Well, why isn't it done?" Or, "You say it'll take a month, but you have two weeks to get it done." Well, excuse me, but if it takes a month, it'll be done in a month, and not a moment sooner. Management needs to understand that. And management of the RIAA, MPAA and all the media companies need to understand that the world changes, businesses rise and fall, and their time has come and gone... or, they will choose to understand that those ever-pesky details of their business need to change, and maybe, MAYBE they'll be able to profit from these changes.
Regardless of what happens in the world, it is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE for companies of ANY type to have laws passed (like DMCA, SSSCA, etc) to protect their alleged right to profits, because they have no such right in any sense of the word. The government provides patents, copyrights and trademarks. With the original limitations, those are quite enough to provide ample protection for any business.