Slashdot Mirror
The Rise of the Internetwork
Thomas Hawk writes "The Seattle Times is out with an article today profiling Jeremy Allaire, the founder of a new internet television company called Brightcove along with, well, a program on 'hog cooking' to be broadcast on the Barbeque Network by DaveTV. DaveTV and Brightcove, along with companies like Akimbo, Total Vid, Open Media Network and OurMedia are part of a growing new group of companies called internetworks that are seeking to compete with regular network television and offer alternative niche video content. Look for these offerings in your living room through platforms like TiVo and Microsoft's Media Center shortly."
Does anyone else find the term "Internetworks" annoying? After all, internet basically is short for internetwork already.
Thinkin' Lincoln - a web comic of presidential proportions
I just have one question.
What took so long? This was overdue the day video streaming over the net became possible.
Up to this point, the reason has been that the bean counters at the cable company and TV production studios decided they would get more dollars per channel by featuring the BBQ network as opposed to an anime channel. Hopefully services like this will make it easier and more affordable for a company to put together a TV lineup, which means that something like an anime channel that may not have been profitable before would become profitable now. Not to mention, there won't be a cable company monopoly anymore with multiple networks available to each house.
I recently had a conversation with a director of acquisitions at a network here in Canada who told me the biggest problem with sci fi was that there were only maybe 300,000 people in the country that would watch it, and that wasn't enough to build a production around. If you're not bound by geography anymore (which is SUPPOSED to be one of the benefits of the internet, non?), you can then collect your 300,000 viewers in Canada, U.S., England, Australia etc... and now you're looking at better numbers, and you're starting to look at GOOD numbers... so why would anyone avoid that? The key is to make the kinds of shows you like and you know your fellow [xyz]s like, and just do it. Don't put Ewoks in to make it fun for kids, cause that's just costing you passionate core viewers.
The world's only surviving livewriter.
Any time anyone hypes a new technology/service with the words:
...they are always either wrong or deliberately full of shit.
"Other companies will pop up to complement [this] and offer great business opportunities"
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
The RIAA does not have a chokehold on all music distribution. Musicians have no less freedom to self distribute, assuming they are not contractually bound, all their music as they see fit. Napster proved only one thing; people just want shit for free. The ensuing battle over copyrighted material being distributed over P2P networks on the internet further proves this point as more and more apps are being developed with the sole purpose of allowing anonymous distribution. People just want shit for free and they want to remain anonymous while they do it so they remain free of responsibility for their actions.
Simply put, it could be a bad thing if there's not enough money to make good (big budget) shows. Lots of money to pay for production comes from advertising. I really wish I knew how much. If the distributor can't prove to the advertisers that the show is watched, or there aren't ads at all, etc., etc., then the only money for shows will come from viewers' dues. If that only covers bandwidth costs and licenses, then they'll only be able to pay for shows that have been made. They won't be able to front the money for production costs ahead of time as the major networks currently do. So... no production strength without strong advertising revenue. Or something. 'Something' could be another deep-pockets company, but than again, those companies already own pieces of the current infrastructure, with which this project would compete. So, nobody big is going to buy into this, unless we get lucky.
Playing pornographics games during the day is evil! Play at night!
I know a good Internet anime channel. It's known as BitTorrent.
Seriously, why would anyone want to watch a noisy, interlaced broadcast with the broadcast companys logo smeared over the image and far too often horrendous dubbing, when you can download a DVD-quality video file with both original and dub sounds and subtitles in a subtitle channel, possibly on several languages ?
And while Internet broadcasts might be made from non-interlaced material (or they might not be - after all, the publisher wouldn't want the Internet broadcasts to compete with DVD's, now would it ?), they will still have the problems of logo branding and dubbing. And, since they need to be sent realtime (remember, making local copies makes you a copyright infringer) the bitrate can't be very high, especially since it takes a fatter (and theremore more expensive) pipe and beefier (and theremore more expensive) server to serve higher-bitrate content. Not to mention the advertisements that such a company must place on its broadcasts to make money...
And finally, do you really think that a single company can ever match the sheer number of titles available from fan community ?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.