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

How does this compare?

[The Ancients]

There has been increasing commentary on the relative scarcity of bandwidth, and how web 2.0 (or whatever you'd like to call it) with increased video and interactive content is putting more and more strain on existing internet infrastructure. Can anyone offer insight into whether user to server or server to users to users puts less stress on internet infrastructure?

Re:P2P?

[LWATCDR]

Well Comcast doesn't do business in the EU.
Second I was involved in tv project in an EU country. They could have purchased out software for $8000 a copy so there total cost would have been under $100,000. Instead they spent six million dollars to write their own. It didn't work so they paid us to come over there and tell them what they did wrong. I think we made more money than if they had just bought the software to start with.
So I would put that down to "We will see."