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2008 - The Year Internet TV Became Mainstream?

Posted by Zonk on from the every-dog-has-his-day dept.

revilo78 writes "Will 2008 be the year we can finally drop our expensive cable bills? It's sure looking like it with Joost constantly adding content, ABC announcing it will stream shows in HD, and media boxes such as the Apple TV becoming popular. Television networks finally seem willing and ready to distribute their shows on the web, and hardware manufactures are finally making easy-to-use media boxes that will bring the web to the living room. Do you think we're finally there, the internet-based TV-on-demand we've all been wanting?"

3 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. Bill Shifting by Belacgod · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Goodbye to pricy cable, hello to expensive broadband! They'll get your money regardless.

  2. There's another issue, for cable modem users... by Travoltus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    People who watch a lot of TV over the internet are no doubt going to experience a fairly annoying problem fairly quickly.

    TV over the internet will push anyone far over the so-called standard deviation from mean internet usage; HD over the internet, especially high quality HD, will bring the utter wrath of cable modem ISPs... especially if you decide to forego cable TV service as a result.

    Also watch out for a huge upsurge in packet prioritizing - as in all but blocking TV-over-internet sources outside your ISP's network.

    This is where secret ISP "bandwidth hog" limits and non network neutrality are guaranteed to hobble the next big thing.

    --
    --- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
  3. Well by ShooterNeo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's already pretty trivial. Welcome to my living room. I use giganews, a pay usenet service that gives phenomenal throughput. I'm able to download at a sustained, average speed of 10-15mbps to my university internet connection, for any file on usenet. Giganews has 120 day retention, so just about any episode of a popular tv show in the last year can usually be found. Almost any popular movie can be found as well, and you can download it in minutes.

    Since it is a pay service, with an SSL protected link to my HTPC that downloads this stuff, I am unlikely to be sued. Only giganews knows what I download, and they claim to not keep records. No third parties (such as RIAA/MPAA sniffers) can tell what I am downloading. This is vastly superior to bittorrent and other P2P services. As much as I download, there's a significant chance I could have been sued by now had I used the "free" P2P services.

    Yes, I am technically a pirate. Usually, however, I download TV shows that I *could* have seen on my fuzzy analog cable. Instead, I get an HDTV rip made from someone's computer who lives in an area where this show is broadcast in HD.

    I get things that I CAN'T pay for : for instance, the last 10 episodes of Battlestar Galactica were shown in High Definition on a Canadian TV station. I was able to download these.

    Stargate Atlantis is also available in High Def (the sci-fi channel is NOT, even on satellite or premium cable packages) including 10 episodes that are unaired in the United States.

    While you may find fault in my taste in TV, the quality is incredible - the PC is connected to a large 1080p HDTV via a digital HDMI cable.