And if the agreement (read: license) allowing them to stream the media disallows caching of the media on client units, it, uh, let's see here, would pretty much rule out your system.
I vaguely remember being told some line about licensing when I asked my very knowledgeable friend at Cox (essentially, the regional VP for the Cleveland area) why there was a record button in the VOD screen on my DVR, though it refused to record any VOD programming. He assured me that, while he could keep my account from being disconnected a month longer than normal were I to find myself unable to pay my bill, he lacked the power to enable that record button, at the peril of a multi-million dollar lawsuit and possible loss of content licensing from multiple networks. He did manage to put my account on the new promo rates when the old ones expired (I know, any sales rep can do that, whatever) but he wasn't willing to risk costing the company that much money and headache.
The people who provide the service may very well provide the hardware and software, but if the people who provide the content don't want it cached to disk, your system falls apart.
Further, I'd be less than amazed if some part of the agreements that even allow VOD to exist disallows such caching. It may be even more of a moot point than I've already stated it to be.
VOD users are already unaffected by P2P traffic. VOD and cable internet are separate services, provided on separate channels, on separate network equipment and do not affect each other whatsoever.
While implimentation would be prohibitively expensive, it would solve only the problem of the 1-3sec delay between pressing a button and seeing the action take place on the screen. Actually, it probably wouldn't solve that, either, as it is most likely a processing limitation of the VOD box rather than network latency on a dedicated network.
So because something is legacy, it should lose functionality? This is precisely (one of) the problem(s) with DRM and is unacceptable here for the same reasons that DRM is unacceptable.
Forced obsolescence is a major part of the reason I'm primarily an open-source kinda guy, though I'll support proprietary vendors when they have a proven track record of dealing honestly.
A hard drive in a non-DVR box is added expense and complexity; one more thing I have to pay for even if I don't plan to make use of VOD services with your scheme and one more thing that can^H^H^Hwill break if I do.
Beyond that, what you described is basically BitTorrent with a tendency toward grabbing earlier pieces of the file. BitTorrent streaming is already being worked on and, honestly, wouldn't be a half-bad idea given a GB or two of RAM in the box for cache, in lieu of a hard disk for non-DRV boxes.
Either way, still irrelevant to the topic at hand, cable internet throttling.
How, exactly, do you multicast an interactive service?
Digital cable is multicast. That multicast broadcast can be recorded to a DVR and timeshifted. This is not the same as VOD.
VOD allows you to decide when the show starts and stops being broadcast. Further, this can be (and often is) accomplished without the use of a DVR.
Please, explain to me exactly how you would accomplish this with multicast?
Let's completely ignore the fact that digital cable television and VOD are related to cable internet only in that they share the same cable. They use entirely different parts of the spectrum and are completely unrelated services. Use of one does not affect the others, namely in that the use of VOD streaming does not affect cable internet bandwidth, caps or throttling.
The only interesting part is that iPhone users can drive the software update process without it being forced upon them by the carrier, and/or users can upgrade it without having to buy a rarely-available cable.
As can BlackBerry users. With a standard mini-USB cable. And the software included on the CD that comes with the device.
P.S. -- I'll accept the flamebait mod. I was aiming for Funny (or Fucking Hillarious, but the joke wasn't original enough for that). Redundant? Smoke crack much?
re-dun-dant -adjective 1. characterized by verbosity or unnecessary repetition in expressing ideas; prolix: a redundant style.
I haven't seen this idea expressed yet in this thread.
2. being in excess; exceeding what is usual or natural: a redundant part.
Such a comment is certainly usual and natural here.
3. having some unusual or extra part or feature.
Again, Vista jokes have become a usual feature of Slashdot.
4. characterized by superabundance or superfluity: lush, redundant vegetation.
Superabundant on Slashdot, yes. Please read on to see why this simply does not matter.
5. Engineering. a. (of a structural member) not necessary for resisting statically determined stresses. b. (of a structure) having members designed to resist other than statically determined stresses; hyperstatic. c. noting a complete truss having additional members for resisting eccentric loads. Compare complete (def. 8), incomplete (def. 3). d. (of a device, circuit, computer system, etc.) having excess or duplicate parts that can continue to perform in the event of malfunction of some of the parts.
We're not engineers, here. Ok, some of us are. I'm not. The comment was not engineered, nor did it need to be.
6. Linguistics. characterized by redundancy; predictable.
Predictable, perhaps. Again, read on to see why that simply does not matter.
7. Computers. containing more bits or characters than are required, as a parity bit inserted for checking purposes.
Nope, while appearing on the screen of a computer, a post is not, itself, a computer.
8. Chiefly British. removed or laid off from a job.
Perhaps that mod was British? Either way, I haven't been laid off from posting on Slashdot.
Redundant -- Redundant posts are ones which add no new information, but instead take up space with repeating information either in the Slashdot post, the attached links, or lots of previous comments. For instance, some posters cut and paste otherwise legitimate comments in multiple places in the same discussion; the pasted versions are Redundant.
Vista was not mentioned in the summary as running hardware into the ground, nobody checks the attached links (not that they mention Vista running hardware into the ground, anyway) and there were no previous comments to this post stating that Vista runs hardware into the ground. Alas, the only reason parent could have legitimately been moderated as redundant would be... copypasta.
I assure you, I typed it with my own two hands, after giving considerable thought to whether or not it had any humor value.
Oh, come on. It was PERFECT on the original release date; they took those extra years to add all the bugs they could think of! OF COURSE we want the next version early!
I had this same idea, actually, only I thought to have 4 sets of heads, rather than just two.
I also thought of arranging what would essentially be two 2.5" disks in a 3.5" enclosure. These could either act as a stripe for faster, higher capacity data storage, or as mirrors of each other, providing redundancy at the cost of speed and capacity. If the drives in your RAID stripe are mirroring themselves, you needn't worry about mirroring your RAID stripe, no?
My Linux laptop, on the other hand, I'm constantly diddling with. Then again, that's just what I do with it.
My Vista desktop, now there's a sore on my ass if I ever saw one. I stay out of the office, save for picking up printouts, because that thing's in there.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, it does. Now we only have until October to organize and take back our country.
Time to stock up on ammo, my friends. :)
And if the agreement (read: license) allowing them to stream the media disallows caching of the media on client units, it, uh, let's see here, would pretty much rule out your system.
I vaguely remember being told some line about licensing when I asked my very knowledgeable friend at Cox (essentially, the regional VP for the Cleveland area) why there was a record button in the VOD screen on my DVR, though it refused to record any VOD programming. He assured me that, while he could keep my account from being disconnected a month longer than normal were I to find myself unable to pay my bill, he lacked the power to enable that record button, at the peril of a multi-million dollar lawsuit and possible loss of content licensing from multiple networks. He did manage to put my account on the new promo rates when the old ones expired (I know, any sales rep can do that, whatever) but he wasn't willing to risk costing the company that much money and headache.
The people who provide the service may very well provide the hardware and software, but if the people who provide the content don't want it cached to disk, your system falls apart.
Further, I'd be less than amazed if some part of the agreements that even allow VOD to exist disallows such caching. It may be even more of a moot point than I've already stated it to be.
VOD users are already unaffected by P2P traffic. VOD and cable internet are separate services, provided on separate channels, on separate network equipment and do not affect each other whatsoever.
While implimentation would be prohibitively expensive, it would solve only the problem of the 1-3sec delay between pressing a button and seeing the action take place on the screen. Actually, it probably wouldn't solve that, either, as it is most likely a processing limitation of the VOD box rather than network latency on a dedicated network.
So because something is legacy, it should lose functionality? This is precisely (one of) the problem(s) with DRM and is unacceptable here for the same reasons that DRM is unacceptable.
Forced obsolescence is a major part of the reason I'm primarily an open-source kinda guy, though I'll support proprietary vendors when they have a proven track record of dealing honestly.
A hard drive in a non-DVR box is added expense and complexity; one more thing I have to pay for even if I don't plan to make use of VOD services with your scheme and one more thing that can^H^H^Hwill break if I do.
Beyond that, what you described is basically BitTorrent with a tendency toward grabbing earlier pieces of the file. BitTorrent streaming is already being worked on and, honestly, wouldn't be a half-bad idea given a GB or two of RAM in the box for cache, in lieu of a hard disk for non-DRV boxes.
Either way, still irrelevant to the topic at hand, cable internet throttling.
Mods. Please. Research. Video. On. Demand.
Then, comment to undo the poor moderation you have done to the parent comment. It will haunt you in metamod if you do not.
VOD = Video On Demand
How, exactly, do you multicast an interactive service?
Digital cable is multicast. That multicast broadcast can be recorded to a DVR and timeshifted. This is not the same as VOD.
VOD allows you to decide when the show starts and stops being broadcast. Further, this can be (and often is) accomplished without the use of a DVR.
Please, explain to me exactly how you would accomplish this with multicast?
Let's completely ignore the fact that digital cable television and VOD are related to cable internet only in that they share the same cable. They use entirely different parts of the spectrum and are completely unrelated services. Use of one does not affect the others, namely in that the use of VOD streaming does not affect cable internet bandwidth, caps or throttling.
But seriously, the right solution is to make VOD use multicast
How do you multicast when each household can decide to start, pause, stop, fast-forward and rewind the video whenever they want?
The only interesting part is that iPhone users can drive the software update process without it being forced upon them by the carrier, and/or users can upgrade it without having to buy a rarely-available cable.
As can BlackBerry users. With a standard mini-USB cable. And the software included on the CD that comes with the device.
Informative, more than Funny?
Well, I suppose it counteracts the Redundant and Flamebait mods another comment of mine received elsewhere in this thread.
P.S. -- I'll accept the flamebait mod. I was aiming for Funny (or Fucking Hillarious, but the joke wasn't original enough for that). Redundant? Smoke crack much?
I haven't seen this idea expressed yet in this thread.
Such a comment is certainly usual and natural here.
Again, Vista jokes have become a usual feature of Slashdot.
Superabundant on Slashdot, yes. Please read on to see why this simply does not matter.
We're not engineers, here. Ok, some of us are. I'm not. The comment was not engineered, nor did it need to be.
Predictable, perhaps. Again, read on to see why that simply does not matter.
Nope, while appearing on the screen of a computer, a post is not, itself, a computer.
Perhaps that mod was British? Either way, I haven't been laid off from posting on Slashdot.
Vista was not mentioned in the summary as running hardware into the ground, nobody checks the attached links (not that they mention Vista running hardware into the ground, anyway) and there were no previous comments to this post stating that Vista runs hardware into the ground. Alas, the only reason parent could have legitimately been moderated as redundant would be... copypasta.
I assure you, I typed it with my own two hands, after giving considerable thought to whether or not it had any humor value.
As long as I'm not doing anything that's running the hardware into the ground...
Like running Vista?
Oh, come on. It was PERFECT on the original release date; they took those extra years to add all the bugs they could think of! OF COURSE we want the next version early!
No, New Here already posted...
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=649601&cid=24653097
I had this same idea, actually, only I thought to have 4 sets of heads, rather than just two.
I also thought of arranging what would essentially be two 2.5" disks in a 3.5" enclosure. These could either act as a stripe for faster, higher capacity data storage, or as mirrors of each other, providing redundancy at the cost of speed and capacity. If the drives in your RAID stripe are mirroring themselves, you needn't worry about mirroring your RAID stripe, no?
IN! Anyone else?
I'll probably be putting up a page soon to set some of these events up.
I'll release the "I have a giant dick" app. It'll sell for 1c more than Apple's commission.
Really, someone should, because your penis can't!
Mod parent +5 LYRICS
From what I understand, from keeping up with numerous ISP customer forums, it's not just lately.
there is no dupe.
There is new dope? Where?!
You think they use core 2 duos in toasters?
Why not?
My Hinux HTPC just works.
My fiance's Linux laptop just works.
My Linux laptop, on the other hand, I'm constantly diddling with. Then again, that's just what I do with it.
My Vista desktop, now there's a sore on my ass if I ever saw one. I stay out of the office, save for picking up printouts, because that thing's in there.
Wait a minute... and Apple fangirl that's rooting for linux?
I think I'm in love... too bad I'm already engaged.