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."

Re:What are "Euros"?!

[Anonymous Coward]

The EU would appear to disagree [europa.eu] with you.

Re:How does this compare?

[KublaiKhan]

Server --> Users --> Users in the 'bittorrent' model will stress the infrastructure far less. BT selects closer sources preferentially, so fewer long distance connections will be required, indicating less traffic on the backbone routes. There will be spikes in local routes, of course, but those will be transient and less likely to cause major impacts to the overall infrastructure, given that the routes will be tied up for a far shorter time than the traditional server --> client method would use.

Also, there will be less of a bottleneck on the server side, so the infrastructure will have to handle far fewer 'busy' connection attempts--lowering overhead is important.

I would note that those who are kvetching the loudest about not having enough bandwidth seem to be those who wish to offer 'traditional'-style server --> client streaming as a premium service. Everyone has a motive--so look for why the squeaky wheel is squeaking before you apply the grease.

Re:P2P?

[Constantine XVI]

The biggest cable TV company in the US, known for horrible treatment of their customers and un-friendliness twoards P2P technology

Re:Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

"biggest TV streaming project out there with the BBC iPlayer, which uses P2P technology."
Actually that's not quite right.
There are two iPlayers - one is a non-streaming Windows only content downloading job and has a Kontiki P2P service hiding inside it that users aren't told about until they've used up all their monthly allowence (ahh, the UK, where 'unlimited' means 50 gig...).
The other is streaming Flash video, right in the browser, using Adobe's Player.

Re:P2P?

[ghyd]

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."

The world's most successful IPTV carrier is European, and until now "has built its profitable business by developing its own technology (IPTV middleware, DSL equipment)".

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=142594&page_number=11 [lightreading.com]
http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2006/prod_120306f.html [cisco.com]

Re:P2P?

[Beretta Vexe]

Comcast should already have an heart attack when It discover than DSL TV becoming more and more popular ( in Europe). Like it wrote in the article this technology is focus on set-top boxes. If you take the example of France all the major ISP already offer a set-top boxes and triple play ( internet TV phone ) to their 8 millions subscribers. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freebox [wikipedia.org] , http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_(internet) [wikipedia.org] ) For many European content providers the question is how to be sure their contents will be available to all those set-top box, when digital and terrestrial television slowly lost audience.

Re:How does this compare?

[chill]

I'm not too sure about this. In reality, BT only works because not a lot of people use it. That is, not a lot on your local segment. And by a "lot" I mean as a percentage of users on your local segment.

ISPs oversubscribe bandwidth. The reason Comcast is squirming is because the average bitrate being used is higher than when they set their infrastructure up. They set up for, say, 8:1 oversubscription rates. Before BT and video downloads, this was fine and only affected geeks downloading .iso images. Now, however, people are actually USING that bandwidth they were sold -- surprise, surprise. Comcast needs to stall as long as it can until it upgrades infrastructure.

But it isn't there. We're rapidly approaching needing a 1:1 rate and the infrastructure isn't there.

In short, once a popular TV show hits, the available bandwidth will be used and it won't seem so fast. Packets will be lost and retransmission delays will occur.