Full-Screen Video Over 28.8k: The Claims Continue

gwernol writes "Over at Screen Daily they are claiming that an Australian company has demonstrated a high quality, full-screen video-on-demand service that is delivered over a 28.8k modem. They claim this will 'eliminate the need for broadband.' If this is true, then they'll change the world. Of course, the basic technology has been around for a while, see this article from 1998 or this one from earlier this year. I remain extremely sceptical. If this is real, why won't they allow proper independent testing? But it is interesting that they're getting funding. Could this be the last great Internet scam?"

Several readers also pointed out this brief report at imdb.com as well. We've mentioned this before, but the news here is the reportedly successful demo. It would be a lot easier to swallow if he'd let people test it independently, but video-over-28.8 sure is tantalizing.

Last great Internet scam?!?!

[Ledge]

Is the Internet going away and nobody told me? Somehow I doubt that anything happening today will be the _last_ great Internet scam.

If you believe that...

[Futurepower(tm)]

Yes, and I am able to compress all of Slashdot down to 10 bytes.

It's all in the buffering

[Trak]

You click on download, the viewer launches, and the status bar reads "Buffering..." for eight hours, then the full-screen video plays in full detail. It's amazing!

easily done

[LocalYokel]

Lossy compression can do wonderful things. =)
http://lzip.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]

I hope this isn't another Pixelon...

What's that?

[pogofish]

Yes sir, full screen video over a 28k connection.

So what am I seeing? It looks rather blank.

Well sir, that's a white cow in a snow field. It just scared out some snow hares.

Over 28k you say? Where do I sign?

Sound good

[bomek]

As long as i can put The Matrix at dvd quality on a floppy disk.

Re:Smoke and Mirrors

[Nick Number]

For all we know the machine had a 802.11b wireless card and was receiving multiple transmissions of the datastream. (Assuming any level of auditing was actualy done to verify that any data was over the 28.8 connection.)

Perhaps a GPS beacon as well.

Re:It's all in the buffering

[Unknown Bovine Group]

No, it's a video of screenshots of 'Pong': Compresses over 28.8 reeal nice. "Your results may vary".

Fractal compression

[drsoran]

Remember the DOS trojan that was floating around about 8 or 9 years ago that claimed to be fractal compression program with amazing results? It could compress a 2 megabyte file down to a few hundred bytes. How did it achieve these amazing results? Deleting the file and filling the rest with junk. :-)

Re:End of Broadband?

[garcia]

umm, how is this any different than having a 24/7 dialup connection (or at least close). PPP on demand would do just about the same thing as well.

Broadband is great b/c I don't have to wait 5 mins while my porn comes up, I don't have to wait 15 hours for my whatever.tar.gz to download, and I certainly don't have to worry about my roommate stealing all the bandwith downloading MP3s.

Even if 28.8kbps can support full motion video you can't do much else while it is downloading.

Re:If you believe that...

[EpsCylonB]

you probably could...

compression is more effecient when thare is lots of predictable duplicate data right ?

Well just think about how many "Linux is great" posts on slashdot there is...

Re:If you believe that...

[BushLad]

hell, it should be pretty easy if you just erase all the Jon Katz articles.

Re:It's all in the buffering

[EvilGwyn]

No silly person, you launch the player and it starts playing instantly. They did forget to mention that the player itself is a 600 Mb download though.

Re:This could work...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, the worst thing about VCD is how the MPEG artifacts obscure genitalia in those Japanese movies.

Re:If you believe that...

[NewtonsLaw]

Hey, I can compress AND encrypt a full-length movie and DVD quality into just 1 byte!

However, the decrypt key is 4.5 GB long :-(

Re:easily done

[Anonymous Coward]

The only kind of compression for a BOFH. "You want your files compressed, eh? Well, OK - whatever you want."

Re:I can watch me

[snilloc]

if money=evil, then I need to get my hands on some more evil. I'd be glad to take a little evil off of your hands.

Re:MP3...

[Carmody]

"I hope they have made the next quantum leap in compression. I doubt it, but I hope."

Recall that a "quantum leap" is by definition the smallest possible leap. The next quantum leap in compression will be just compressing one more bit. Why hope for that?

Re:Too bad...

[Richard_Alston]

Damn right we will..
I'm already leaning towards banning it because it enables faster dissemination of copyright materials. We may have missed the chance to outlaw the internet as a whole, but we will definately get each and every individual new peice as it comes up.

Do you people not understand that we own you.

All your ass are belong to us.

yes, it is running over 28.8

[Anonymous Coward]

...they just didnt say how MANY 28.8 modems it was travelling over ;-)