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Up Next... Skypecasting
Davis Freeberg submitted linkage to a short story talking about Skypecasting Television. Essentially using Skype and Yahoo Messenger to rebroadcast video to the internet. While it isn't a PVR, it circumvents the regionally oriented programming that prevents the UK from watching our "Football" or us from getting Dr Who. It also raises yet another battlefront the content owners will need to contend with in the upcoming years.
While it isn't a PVR, it circumvents the regionally oriented programming that prevents the UK from watching our "Football" or us from getting Dr Who.
You can already get football from a variety of sites, at least one is hosted in China, no idea where the others are, you just have to put up with the commentary. Further, by Fox Soccer Channel and PPV you have access to more matches than you do in the UK, where IIRC 4 matches are televised out of the EPL schedule each match day. If you're wishing to watch Everton v Sunderland, or some other low end of the table match, you are out of luck.
It also raises yet another battlefront the content owners will need to contend with in the upcoming years.
Oh, yes. Expect all digital signals to have some encoded regionality which is intended to put the content owner in command. The major problem with these methods is they effectively kill foreign markets, because there's usually no distributor or the distributor asks too high a cost for content, which ultimately drives piracy.
Maybe some day they'll learn that you can maximize profit by maximizing access.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Podcasting, Skypecasting, ummmm... blogcasting? Seriously, it's just a media stream, not something new. Please invent words responsibly.
Let's give a catchy buzzword to a non existant problem so that we can attract the masses of clueless people to the concept who will inevitably post questions all about the net in an attempt to gain access to this "Skypecasting" which will lead to the creation of one or two small skypecasting applications which will inevitably draw the attention of the media companies who will see it as a massive problem plaguing their business and inevitably bring about lawsuits and laws which serve to do nothing other than make life more difficult and suckier for the common man.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Amateur broadcasting of media... none of it matters until there's a good reason to do it. As for video blogging / vidcasting, the best reason to date is sending video messages to active soldiers serving overseas. All it takes is a webcam and 30 seconds to record, viewable around the world, independent of timezones, with software that's already available on 97% of computers anyway.
Mooniacs for iOS and Android
most Europeans are too snobby to watch our "football"
Why would they when they have Rugby Union?
Serving Suggestion: Defrost
I think you'll find that it's good taste that prevents the UK from watching American football :). It's not a real sport if you have to stop for a rest every few seconds, and it must be a game for girly men if you need to wear armour! It's basically rubgy with padding and resting, isn't it?
...And players who are large enough to turn your average rugby player into something like red paste.
...as opposed to a bunch of (relatively) half-naked men scrabbling in the dirt for a ball, as in rugby.
Serious injury is common on the football field (and I mean Football, North American style), and that's WITH armor. Considering that football players collide with a force that often snaps bone, and how often they go flying into the air and land on their heads, or have 5 large men leaping onto them full-force... that armor is what keeps them alive.
Do not confuse "Freedom of Choice" with "Free Will".
Ummm what country do you live in again? Violence related to sports happens all of the time in the US - especially if you have school rivalries involved. Having lived in VA and seen some UVA vs. Tech animosity and in SC and seen USC vs. Clemson nastiness (including the players ending up in brawls on the field after a game) I can attest to the fact. Heck, it even happened at my high school. Sports and civilized behavior don't seem to be very related to each other in any country I know about. Kind of makes you wonder the term sportsmanlike behavior came from...
oh, you're just asking for it, aren't you? :-)
never mind the fact that you're right. American Football's a fun game - i used to play it after church on sundays with my mates at the school next door - but a sport? please. i've timed games to compare time spent doing something vs. time spent doing nothing; the ratio in the last two superbowls, supposedly the hight of the season, was about 1:7.5. that's just lame.
and you're going to get all the guys talking about how (american) football players are so much larger and how hard the impact is. please. the injuries are largely because of the armor (added weight), not in spite of it. it may by physically challenging, but then so is pushing cars through swamps or having someone throw bricks at you. those aren't sports either. rugby detractors need to go watch serious rugby. those guys just tear each other apart! and women's rugby isn't exactly a lady's game, either. fun stuff.
American Football could've been an awesome sport if it hadn't changed the way it's played for television and sensationalism. the game that's played on school rec lots is still a great game.
and i love the fact that half your mods are insightful/informative.
'course, i still can't follow cricket.
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
I've often wondered why the production companies don't market direct to a world wide audience. The technology is in place and there is an audience for the most minortity interest.
Where's the upfront money going to come from?
It's the distribution rights that the creator, say, Joss Whedon's 'Mutant Enemy Productions," 'sells' to, say, Fox, for, say, an 8th Season of Buffy. They haggle over a fee, which reflects MEP's production costs attenuated by whatever rights MEP decides to retain (if MEP can sell the season to someone else for International play, or DVD rights, or game rights, Fox will pay less. If Fox wants it all, they can expect to pay more.)
Fox then pays Joss, and Joss pays the writers, actors, and crew. Fox crosses its fingers that it recoups in domestic ad revenue, syndication, DVD sales -- whatever rights it bought -- the dough it paid up front.
What you're asking Our Boy Joss to do is create something on spec, and hope that he can make the money (whose money? His OWN Money? You Gotta Be Kidding!) back based on what he can get in adword revenue or pay-per-download fees. Works for books, sort of, cuz the production costs are minimal. Works for music, maybe, because of the (relatively recent) economies of the Home Digital Studio. But television? Especially Science Fiction television? Different league.
Must say I don't see the football angle here, since our TV system offers plenty of both kinds, domestic, british and american.
:-)
But what I see as more important in this regard is that we might finally get access to the sci-fi and fantasy that other civilized countries get. I grew up in the seventies when our socialist government decided that that kind of TV probably wasn't good for you, and it' kind of stuck ever since. So this kind of tech would enable us to finally get at things that we never see like Farscape, Dr. Who (the latest episodes with Chistopher Eccleston and Billie Piper are in the words of the doctor himself 'fantastic') and so on.
Now I don't want to infringe the copyrights of anybody here, but it seems that even though I pay my taxes etc etc. and everything else that goes towards financing TV around here I either get the choice for highbrow mumbo jumbo about allegedly serious issues, reruns of american sitcoms or whatever is the latest incarnation of the "survivor" franchise. So I really don't get why the content owners don't cash in on geeks like me - I'm sure we aren't a broad audience, but I'm pretty sure a lot of us would pay good cash to get what we want
Be alert, the world needs more lerts!
What really amazes me is that every day, users are finding new ways to stream content over just about any protocol or program. And yet, these companies that are supposed to be shaking in their boots over lose of control over their programs are still working on streaming TV over the Internet. Sure, they are looking for a Pay-Per-View option, so as to not stream completely free, but I pose this to them.
Do: First, with commercial television, just stream it as is in very high quality (HD if available) over existing channels. I know they have local affiliate licensing issues, but they need to start new shows that are net-only. Try the ones that the networks won't pick up or aren't running anymore. AOL is doing exactly that, and all should follow suit.
Why: Because you make money on the advertising. If you restrict it to current channels, the redistributed pirated versions will strip away your advertising, and you gain nothing. The best way to compete with the pirates is to mimic their channels, but improve the service. Just look at Shoutcast TV. So many of those pirate channels are always maxed out. If you provide a 600Kbps+ streams that are always available and never full, nobody will bother with those cheap imitators. And guess what, your advertisers will LOVE you! Why? Because as a streamer, you have automatic statistics on how many viewers, time of day, and length of watching.
Do: Utilize a channel like Skype for your own pay-per-view/commercial-free television.
Why: Because you could set up your own payment scheme with Skype (who already has a system to pay for phone calls), and charge viewers just like a phone call. $1 per month per channel. That's competitive with cable television. I, for one, would gladly pay you to watch Discovery, Comedy Central (Daily Show/Colbert Report), History Channel, CNN, and Sci-Fi online anytime I want. Better yet, add $0.25 per channel for on demand show watching. As it is now, I've done away with a huge $30 a month package (rape) charged by my cable company. But, I and others are more than willing to pay for online a la carte programming.
So, you see, it's pretty simple really. They don't even have to restructure any of their operations, only the mode of transfer. Unfortunately, none of this will happen anytime soon. The grasp of the technology still escapes people who think that Survivor is quality programming, that Gigli was a brilliant idea for a movie, and that 14yr old girls who download Happy_Birthday.mp3 are the scourge of the music industry.
I8-D