EU Funds P2P-Based Internet TV Standard

oliderid writes to let us know that, even as the UK threatens ISPs who don't clamp down on P2P traffic, the rest of the EU is going the other way. (Here is a link with a a bit more technical detail.) Europe recently agreed to: "...spend 14M Euros to create a standard way to send TV via the Net. The project will create a peer-to-peer system that can pipe programs to set-top boxes and home TV sets. It will be based on the BitTorrent technology. The four-year research project will try to build a system that can stand alongside the other ways that broadcasters currently get programs to viewers."

Comments

sounds like the smart way

[RichMan]

This is best way for the ISP to provide real service is to offload the data traffic to as low a common point in the network as possible. As long as there is a reasonably sized common data set to transfer.

I can see the networks requiring clients to have a P2P client that talks to a common local network aware host. This is the best way to handle the large data needed for video on almost demand. If the IP provider could be convinced to drop seed nodes in at balance points it would be great.

The end of niche programming

[boundary]

If it's BT based, that means the popular stuff is easier to access, and the niche stuff isn't... Doesn't sound like the quality of programming is going to improve if the only teevee seeds you can access is what the majority of cretins wants to watch.

Summary

[RonnyJ]

oliderid writes to let us know that, even as the UK threatens ISPs who don't clamp down on P2P traffic, the rest of the EU is going the other way.

That's a bit of a silly summary when you consider the UK probably has the biggest TV streaming project out there with the BBC iPlayer, which uses P2P technology.

It's especially silly when you consider that 'the rest of the EU' in that statement actually *includes* the UK, with funding from the BBC.

"the rest of the EU"?

[elvum]

There are UK contributors to that project - where does this "rest of the EU" stuff come from?

can I have my money now?

[Viking Coder]

Download Miro. Can I have my money now? Any time a group tries to re-invent the wheel, spending a ton of money along the way, offer to solve the problem by re-branding the wheel.

Why p2p?

[Sloppy]

Mr Ahola said peer-to-peer was crucial because, without it, broadcasters trying to serve large audiences would likely be overwhelmed as the numbers of those watching TV via the net grew.

Translation: if the broadcaster externalizes the delivery cost, the broadcaster comes out ahead.

Unfortunately this is horribly inefficient. You're not only shifting the cost to the ISPs closer to the viewers, but you're multiplying it. A hundred viewers will receive a hundred separate transmissions of the exact same gigabytes. Not to beat a dead horse, but it would be vastly more efficient to have your content be cacheable, as well as using multicast when possible.

But why care? You've externalized that; the increased inefficiency is somebody else's problem, right?

No, it's your problem, because the "somebody else" is going to come looking for you. This is why the network neutrality debate is happening. The "somebody else" is going to want to shake you down. And their view is somewhat justified: your decision to use inefficient delivery, is costing them extra money. If you were more responsible, the conflict could be avoided.

But suppose the ISPs don't shake down the broadcasters, or are unable to. (I don't know it will happen, but I can sure easily imagine Europeans winning their network neutrality war at the legislative level.) What then? They're still going to get compensation from someone. Guess who is left? The ISP users.

Kill p2p for large content delivery. Kill it now, before it gets more entrenched. You, the viewers, are going to pay for this inefficiency. Unless there's some massive technological leap that creates a wealth of truly cheap (not cost-shifted or otherwise subsidized) bandwidth, then you can't afford it. You waste, you pay.

Re:Why p2p?

[KublaiKhan]

Or potentially the demand could drive widespread investment in the appropriate infrastructure, and research into ways to make it still faster.

If the companies serving the customers cannot handle the demand, then that's their problem. Perhaps they should not advertise services that are beyond their capability to provide?

As-is, though, it is entirely possible to build infrastructure that can handle this traffic, and to do so relatively cheaply--optical fibre isn't -that- expensive, and the plastic type is getting cheaper these days.

Re:Why p2p?

[Changa_MC]

I don't actually understand why you think p2p is incompatible with cacheable content. Let's say I run their p2p software. When I want to watch something, it downloads to my local media player from the closest p2p point. If I have already watched this show before, I am the closest server. No traffic. Or if my neighbor has watched it, he's the closest server. A single-link download, minimal traffic. For more obscure shows, I travel farther away, until I hit the original seeder. Looks like caching to me. You want to add multicast over the internet? What would that look like? Repeating a multicast is not free, and any time someone on a different subnet asks for it, it must be repeated. The only person who is better off is the original broadcaster, the backbone still carries the traffic.

You cant fight the Eu

[unity100]

It is a very fortunate coincidence that those who are manning the eu bureaucracy behave like they are reincarnates of those people who have brought the age of enlightenment.

regardless of how some control freak governments here and there try to strangle them, eu protects and sees that the innovations and progress is preserved. this is just one more example.