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Verizon and Microsoft Partner for IPTV
benore writes "According to the AP, Verizon joins other baby bells SBC and Bellsouth in choosing Microsoft to provide TV content over high speed internet. IPTV, whose technology will deliver TV content in much the same way as VOIP delivers phone service, relys heavily on fiber optic speeds. According to SBC, Microsoft's IPTV technology will allow a home to receive 3 standard TV signals, 1 HD channel, and high-speed Internet access all at the same time."
I like how Microsoft, like Apple, is moving beyond just PCs.
Will the general public latch on to this? In the past, to my knowledge, they have not been jumping to joy to buy new equipment to use a service that ultimatly has less costs overall. Main Point : Comsumers are lazy. They dont want to have to do anything to get what they want. They want good TV, and they want it now.
But you can bet it isn't going to be good for the rest of us in the long run.
Microsoft does a lot of smart things, but the smartest thing they did was pouring all that money into snapping up nearly every researcher in video codecs in the world and having them all work on WMV. There have been a number of things resulting from this; the main one is that within not too many years, WMV will be the only remaining non-MPEG standard in the field, and MPEG will be declining in importance.
Another possible result, which as of today seems a lot more likely than before, that within 10 years the Tivo will be utterly gone and there will be no difference between the terms "PVR" and "Microsoft Media Center".
While simultaneously allowing Microsoft to spy on your TV viewing habits, not to mention which shows you tape. Oh sorry, I thought I was reading the WMV license terms. But you get the idea. Let Microsoft in your living room and you never know what you are agreeing to.
Oh well, just a little baseless paranoia for a Friday night.
I don't want to point out the obvious here, but Microsoft is a convicted monopolist. I guess it's lucky for them that they've got friends in the top ranks of government, otherwise a Justice department that was doing its job would be all over this kind of illegal expansion of business.
besides my TV viewing being at the mercy of DOS attacks and trackable (you think http cookies have been abused, just wait) and limited since I can currently buy more satellite receivers if I want more simultanious HD streams?
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
For years, both the cable companies and the telephone companies, when confronted about the fact that they respectively tend to hold local monopolies in many areas, have defended this by saying "we're not a monopoly; I mean, we have a [cable/telephone] monopoly, of course, but it isn't a monopoly because we have to compete with [telephone/cable].
But then something interesting started happening, and we see the beginnings of the final stages of it with this Verizon/Microsoft partnership. Now the Cable companies are all trying to do exactly what the telephone [now dsl] companies do, and the telephone [now dsl] companies are all trying to do exactly what the Cable companies do, and they're both getting good enough at it that anything having to do with satellite dishes will be entirely marginalized pretty quickly.
I can't help but think it won't be too long before your area's one telephone company does, in fact, compete with your area's one cable company, and your area's one cable company does compete with your area's one telephone company, but neither of them compete with anyone else in any fashion. When this happens I don't think it will be too long before collusion between the cable and dsl companies becomes an absolute standard. Why not? Duopolies are good for business, and what's good for business, at the expense of consumers or no, is apparently good for America.
No matter what the article said. Just because this is Slashdot.
Regular TV just wasn't doing it for me... I mean, actually having to move *from* my computer *to* the couch? How am I supposed to manage that? I also have always hated how big my TV is and how comfortable my couch is. I would much rather watch a small screen that a) has bottom and top black boxes or b) has a horrible resolution and sit on my computer chair!
Who needs them ! What we need is high speed fiber to the home thats AFFORDABLE ,$20-30 a month that uses all it's bandwidth to INTERNET 2 or something similar. Having 3 regular Digital channels and one HDTV channel is stupid. I don't want to see QVC in HD. Who will decide on what we see ? Same problems as always without Alacarte. Same stupid Kiddy shows, Sports shows, News shows, reruns. Fuck em all. I am sick of Corporate rule.
it's really going to suck when my tv signal freezes up for no reason like my windows box does.... I don't know that I really want microsoft taking over anymore of the world than it has already...
This is just a backdoor into the cables and hollywood. MS can see the writing on the wall with OSS. Now, they need a new monopoly.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
1 HD channel = 20Mbit/s (maximum at 1080i, dont know if it would support 1080p/30)
3 SD TV channels = 3Mbit/s each, 9Mbit/s total
Internet variable, probably at least 1-2Mbit/s
Total BW: 30Mbit/s.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
Great. Now we will have the same piss-poor programs from the same five mego-opoly media behemoths streaming into our homes but, this time, transmitted on a different pipe using a different transmission protocol. Whoop-tee-do.
Seriously, more competition in the service provider space might keep prices down, but since it will be the same garbage programing, I can't get very excited.
Although I'd rather not see Microsoft's proprietary technology used in the transmission protocol, I'm not too worried. TV streams from the Baby Bells are still a long way off for most people. The vast majority of their outside plant facilities need backhoe-style upgrades to get that fiber to your house.
I know they are claiming these services are just around the corner, but they have been saying that for about 15 years now. How many of you can't get a DSL line because you are on a long line? Of those who can get it, how many get more than 1.5 Mbps? Yeah, thought so.
They need at least 10 Mbps to each house for this roll-out. It's gonna be a while.
Delivering TV over IP is not as hard as you might think and not as expensive either. At least not the consumer part. Laying the fiber is the expensive and time consuming part but that can be handled. The most annoying part of the whole sh-bang is the content providers. None of them want to see their content comming anywhere close to the internet. I have worked with many people who wanted to develop such a plan and everyone was stopped by the content providers. Then again, who has every lasted long against microsoft?