Blockbuster was actually FIRST to try streaming video to the masses.
Does anybody remember the Enron / Blockbuster deal from 1999? I was working at Enron Broadband back then and we had a deal with Blockbuster to deliver streaming movies to people's homes via a custom set-top box. And yes it was part of *that* Enron.
Way way ahead of its time. Consumer broadband was in the DSL stage. I of course had 6Mb cable modem at home but most of America was asking "why do I need 6Mb?" And DSL would barely keep up with the bandwidth needed for an MPEG4 movie. Yes we were going to use MPEG4. There was talk of having it only for condo and apartment complexes where you could install a higher bandwidth dedicated link and a server of some sort to cache the video. I don't remember too many other technical details.
We had some cool test sites, many many of the set top boxes made, and I thought we were good to go. But the deal eventually fell through because BB couldn't get enough movie rights from Warner Bros, other movie companies, and there were doubts about the practicality of it all. And Enron was about to topple anyway.
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"... including a complete human translation on the MacRumors forum" What are you saying about the Chinese?
Blockbuster was actually FIRST to try streaming video to the masses.
Does anybody remember the Enron / Blockbuster deal from 1999? I was working at Enron Broadband back then and we had a deal with Blockbuster to deliver streaming movies to people's homes via a custom set-top box. And yes it was part of *that* Enron.
Way way ahead of its time. Consumer broadband was in the DSL stage. I of course had 6Mb cable modem at home but most of America was asking "why do I need 6Mb?" And DSL would barely keep up with the bandwidth needed for an MPEG4 movie. Yes we were going to use MPEG4. There was talk of having it only for condo and apartment complexes where you could install a higher bandwidth dedicated link and a server of some sort to cache the video. I don't remember too many other technical details.
We had some cool test sites, many many of the set top boxes made, and I thought we were good to go. But the deal eventually fell through because BB couldn't get enough movie rights from Warner Bros, other movie companies, and there were doubts about the practicality of it all. And Enron was about to topple anyway.