Local Internet TV Takes Off In Austria

Cyrus writes "The BBC reports on an Austrian village that is testing technology which could represent the future of television. The pilot has been so successful that Telekom Austria is now considering setting up other projects elsewhere." From the article: "The hardware and software to turn video footage into edited programmes has been provided by Telekom Austria but this equipment, following training, has been turned over to the villagers. Any video programme created by the villagers is uploaded to a Buntes Fernsehen portal that lets people browse and download what they want to watch. "

It'll never work in the U.S.

[Anonymous Coward]

This will be outlawed in the US faster than you can imagine. The Republicans and the Democrats have already been bought out by the various conglomerates (**COUGH** Disney **COUGH**) for copyright extention, I can't imaging them allowing something like this to flourish. They'll say it smacks of Communism or something.

Hey this could be fun!

[Com2Kid]

Take a valid indie video stream, encode pirated data stream inside of it, hey, instant government sponsered w@rez trading!

granted the large file sizes would make this somewhat problamatic, but hey, the servers are paid for, and I assume the server's bandwidth is too, and over modern broadband (500KB/s to 1MB/s), downloading even a 1gb release for 500 or so MB of data isn't too bad if you save time by not having to crawl all over the internet trying to find the file in the first place!

Did you notice?

[LokieLizzy]

There wasn't a mention of BitTorrent anywhere in the article. Despite the naysayers, it *is* possible to synergize television and the internet (and the subsequent distributions of tv programs) *without* using BT. I found that rather interesting.

So Essentially...

[BuddyJesus]

they've just made Public Access Television: Internet Edition
What good is it? Face it, because it's made by a local village, and unless said village is home to TV broadcast crews, it's essentially PAT on the internet. I don't see why anyone would care.

Re:Been there done that

[LokieLizzy]

" It's called public access television in the US, only we don't put it on the internet."

Err...if we haven't put it on the internet, then I'm not sure how you can declare we've "been there, done that." That would be like making fun of someone who managed to build a car powered by cold-fusion, and stating, "we (America)'ve been there, done that, only our cars run on gas."

Re:Hey this could be fun!

[Anonymous Coward]

What is wrong with you? Here is an example of people working for a little decentralization of their media, perhaps in an effort to lessen their reliance on a bloated, politically and economically motivated old guard, and all you can think of is a trading channel for Warez? Get some perspective, man!

Re:the catch.

[Anonymous Coward]

in austria, alternative providers are only slowly gaining ground.

Not quite true. I've been using chello (in Innsbruck/Austria) for nearly 5 years now, and transmit between 20 and 100 GB per month (don't ask ;)). So, viable alternative providers have been around for a long time, at least in the "bigger" cities.

Re:Been there done that

[sahonen]

How many places can you think of where you can check out a broadcast video camera, use a fully equipped and lit television studio, or edit on an Avid, along with being trained in the operation of each for free? Television is much more than how you receive it, there's an entire process behind it. This operation in Austria is not just about doing television over the internet, it's about empowering the community to create mass media, which public access is already doing in the United States.

Re:Been there done that

[Ohreally_factor]

It's basically the same as Public Access, but with more advanced technology. You seem to be quite taken with the phrase, "on the internet." Would you be interested in providing some mezzanine financing to my start up? We need a new mezzanine. =)

However, dismissing this as "been there, done that" is kind of lame. It's attitudes like that that stunt curiosity, and seem so typical of too many people. You're totally right, we should be interested in how they're doing it.

And about that mezzanine. I was thinking something rococo, but not too overdone.

Re:I can see the benefit... no wait....

[interiot]

Are you trolling, or not?

It seems obvious that there are very direct analogies to the current text/audio portions of the internet. Yes, anybody can put up a crappy site or post inane babble on their blog. However, if you post good stuff all the time, a lot of people will watch you often. If you post good stuff once in a while, then the top-dog people will link to your best stuff, and people will still be interested in what you do.

Also, while there are professional journalists, who write stuff on websites that have millions invested in them, there are still a decent percentage of urban people who realize that this means there's a much smaller pool of talent to draw from, and it's beholden to advertising interests, and so sometimes people even actually PREFER the grass-roots stuff over professional/mainstream journalism.

Re:Been there done that

[sahonen]

The station I work at does. You callin' me a liar?

Like a another poster, you might be confusing public access with public television. Different things, public television is publicly funded and they leave programming up to the professionals. This is where you watch Sesame Street and Nova. Public access is where you get to see such gems as The Psycholuna Network and Wayne's World. Yes, I know Wayne's World is fictional.