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Television Media The Internet

Internet Televison Content Coming of Age 141

Posted by michael from the moving-pictures dept.
Thomas Hawk writes "The Washington Post has an article out this morning on the assortment of internet based TV choices that are popping up providing additional and competing content to the major studios. Most of these providers are operating more as content collectors or aggregators than actual content producers."
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Internet Televison Content Coming of Age More

Internet Televison Content Coming of Age

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  • Hooray!! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'll be able to watch all my favorite shows in 320x240

    • Re:Hooray!! (Score:4, Funny)

      by greechneb ( 574646 ) on Thursday October 28, 2004 @12:18PM (#10655400) Journal
      Yeah, and with my dialup connection at home, I'll be able to watch the entire season of a show about the same time the DVD release comes out!
    • Honestly, depending upon cost, I wouldn't have much problem with that. A lot of the things I watch on tv don't need to be highly detailed. Granted it would be nice to see it at 640x480, but either way I'd do it if it was a buck a month per channel or something
    • There are times when that's all you can get, though, and I'm alright with that.

      I'm a big fan of my old college football team, and this year they've begun offering video streaming of their saturday football games. It costs something like 9 bucks a month, but the quality isn't bad and it means I can watch games that normally I wouldn't be able to. So - they're tapping a market that thus far hasn't been available.

      Now if I could just pay a little more so they'd win each week, that'd be even better!
    • That's funny, but trashes the intellectual commons with a Jack-in-the-Box bag, complete with drink cup and plastic straw.

      Akimbo et al provide downloads to a set top box. Playing is from that box to your TV. Quality is not 320x240, but more like what cable or dish provide.
  • I think DaveTV will have the advantage, mainly because of the lack of additional hardware needed.

    • Re:Between DaveTV and Akimbo (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      First I have to buy a PC, I own a Mac outside of my servers. But assume I build a PC, I have to buy Windows, and I can't just use my old copy of Win98 I have to have WinXP.

      Forget that, why can't they just make it web based with open standards video files that I can either download or stream inside my browser?

  • CSPAN.org (Score:5, Interesting)

    by turnstyle ( 588788 ) on Thursday October 28, 2004 @12:13PM (#10655339) Homepage
    I watched all 4 US presidential debates (1 vice presidential) live on CSPAN.org. It worked great.

    • Re:CSPAN.org (Score:3, Interesting)

      by elid ( 672471 )
      But that's low res. Actually, I was having fun seeing how many different video feeds (cspan, yahoo, etc.) of one debate open on my desktop at the same time.
    • i have watched college sports through the internet media solution and to tell you the truth it isnt too bad. the resolution is only 640X480 but its still 'ok' considering. so far no glitches or hiccups, let's hope they can continue to offer such great service and eventually make it even better. if you get ESPN GAMEPLAN that have the most offerings for internet sports games if you are into that.

    • Re:CSPAN.org (Score:3, Informative)

      by paulthomas ( 685756 )
      They also show real debates when they happen... like the Green/Libertarian debate. This was also online, albeit in Real format. -Paul
    • I caught a few baseball games on MLB.com and the resolution looked pretty good, even in full screen mode.

  • Its been done. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Pxtl ( 151020 ) on Thursday October 28, 2004 @12:14PM (#10655340) Homepage
    Red vs. blue and Homestar are all the TV the internet needs.
    • Homestar jumped the shark so long ago it's not even remotely funny to me now.
      • I know the shark reference...
        but what did homestar do to make you say this?

        • I agree. If you are going to say something "jumped the shark" I believe the precedent is to specify the episode and action that you believe caused said jumping. In my opinion, I haven't found it funny recently but I do not think the "mass" agree with me so I do not feel it has jumped-the-shark officially.
    • Please dont call me an idiot haha. I'm curious what Red vs. Blue is. I am aware of Homestarrunner, but I've never heard of Red v. Blue, If someone could let me know what it is, how I can check it out, I'd appreciate it.
    • "Red vs. blue and Homestar are all the TV the internet needs."

      Why would you be a proponent of only 2 shows? If the president's on, you're screwed!!
    • I'm convinced that the consoles are the future of TV, interactive TV that is. Passive TV will not be going away, but the next gen consoles with the help of the internet based gaming networks will I believe usher in the interactive era of TV. There are a number of things being done in the gaming community that hint at what is to come, Red vs. Blue and machinima for example, also shoutcasting and Epileptic Gaming by the ITG people.

      Several years from now:

      -You pop in your Halo3 disc into your XBOX2 and lo

  • Finally (Score:4, Funny)

    by deathcloset ( 626704 ) on Thursday October 28, 2004 @12:14PM (#10655341) Journal
    A good use for my WebTv ;)

  • About time (Score:2, Insightful)

    by qurve ( 689356 )
    Sometimes you just want to see the show you want, when you want to. I'm actually surprised it took so long for it to come about. But now that on-demand television is getting popular, on-demand TV from your computer is the next logical step.
  • 1) Create radio station
    2) Distribute content over internet or via CD-ROM
    3) Take advantage of LPFM [howstuffworks.com] by running the station from hundreds/thousands of different nodes - all broadcasting under low power rules, yet dense enough to provide good coverage.

    Could be something cool to do with all that old hardware, no? You'd have to come up with some pretty good synchronization software but this would be ClearChannel's worst nightmare...

    • Re:FM from Internet Radio Recipe (Score:4, Informative)

      by telemonster ( 605238 ) on Thursday October 28, 2004 @12:18PM (#10655389) Homepage
      This has been disproven millions of times. The true legal broadcast power limits are measured in microvolts at a distance from the antenna. So Mr. Microphone is about the legal limit.

      Also, if you start running over the legal limit, you get multipath reception issues as a receiver hears multiple transmitters on the same frequency (from adjacent cells).

      Computer in car retrieves content from house via 802.11b, then content is played from cache during commute. Easy enough.

    • 4) ???
      5) Profit!
    • Interesting idea...except you have to pay (as a broadcaster) for each and every "listener" you're reaching. It was some tax, or some such... it was a big hullabaloo months ago because it was shutting down Internet Radio "broadcasters." (I have no links, so... take it with a grain of salt).

      Methinks *that* would be the barrier.

  • tv as we know it (Score:4, Interesting)

    by to be a troll ( 807210 ) on Thursday October 28, 2004 @12:15PM (#10655360)
    I believe we are experiencing the last dying gasps of the final generation of TV as we know it... personally i have found myself watching all my TV on my computer, from downloaded Simpsons episodes to streaming CNN newscasts. I havent owned a TV in years. Most the younger people i know (18-25) are pretty much headed towards the same direction.

    • Re:tv as we know it (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I tend to agree. While I still own TVs, about the only thing I do with them is play DVDs or Video from a computer on them. I also download the occasional TV show, usually a divx file in HDTV quality- which is better than the TV quality in my area by far, and has all the commercials edited right out. God bless these people who put their hard work into the Torrents I get every day!
    • While I do believe that we are heading that way, it is a far stretch to say we are seeing the last dying gasps right now. Some 95% of americans still have television sets and a good portion of my aquaintances (under 25 included) are simply not ready to go this route.

      I would say we are just see that initial skin discoloration that will eventually turn into the cancer that kills it.
    • I'm going to buy a TV in a few months . . .

      . . . because it's a lot cheaper than a comparatively-sized TV screen, and I can hook all my game consoles into it.

      I suppose I might plug an antenna into it someday.

      Maybe.

      I've got precisely one friend in the area with a TV. He got it for his PS2. Now he's got a wall projector for his PS2 also, so the TV's turned into a monitor for a computer of his with a TV-out port. It's surprising how good UT2k4 looks on a TV, as long as you don't need to read text.

      Who need
      • Argh. Preview doesn't work because I reflexively hit submit.

        It's a lot cheaper than a comparatively-sized COMPUTER screen.

        There.

        Who needs spellcheck, I'd rather have coherency-check.

  • Don't forget Bittorrent! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by exhilaration ( 587191 ) on Thursday October 28, 2004 @12:16PM (#10655375)
    You can get most popular shows via BitTorrent [bittorrent.com]. Check out this great site [btefnet.org] for a listing. And check out Azureus [sourceforge.net] if you're looking for a great client!

    • Re:Don't forget Bittorrent! (Score:4, Informative)

      by garcia ( 6573 ) * on Thursday October 28, 2004 @12:31PM (#10655535)
      Yeah and Suprnova [suprnova.org] has a ton too but that doesn't mean it's legal (at least here in the States).

      Most of those TV episodes don't include commercials or originally aired on extended cable channels like HBO. Those original providers cannot be terribly thrilled about it.

      • Re:Don't forget Bittorrent! (Score:4, Informative)

        by ticklemeozmo ( 595926 ) <justin,j,novack&acm,org> on Thursday October 28, 2004 @01:58PM (#10656400) Homepage Journal
        Most of those TV episodes don't include commercials or originally aired on extended cable channels like HBO. Those original providers cannot be terribly thrilled about it.

        Due to the Sony v Universal case in 1984 (also known as the Betamax decision), it is LEGAL for someone to own one copy of an episode that was on the public airwaves (CBS, ABC, NBC, etc) for the purposes of "timeshifting" (what its called now). You are also allowed to give out a copy of your copy to someone who missed the show. This makes www.tvtorrents.net COMPLETELY LEGAL, even without commercials. (as they only have local channel shows).

        Now, of course, shows on HBO or Discovery Channel are not as legal.
      • Might not be legal, but it's the reality of an internet that can't be controlled without global police state measures.

        Pick the "crime":

        1. stealing someone's ipod
        2. j-walking
        3. anal sex
        4. viewing BattleStar Galactica 3 months early by xfering bits from the UK to the US.

        --

    • Re:Don't forget Bittorrent! (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yeah, if stealing from TV producers is something you want to do. Get a clue, scumbag. People who don't pay for their content are theives. (That also goes for all you pirates who think you can escape guilt by watching DVDs "lended" to you by a friend, or think it's OK to just "check out" a magazine from one of those illegal book swapping locations known as "libraries") Thieves everywhere.

      • Re:Don't forget Bittorrent! (Score:4, Interesting)

        by FictionPimp ( 712802 ) on Thursday October 28, 2004 @12:58PM (#10655832) Homepage
        Yea, I feel so guilty sending that check to the cable company every month while I'm downloading those episodes of the daily show I missed. I'm such a horrible person :-p

        *Yes I know your comment was sarcastic*

      • Re:Don't forget Bittorrent! (Score:4, Interesting)

        by marcop ( 205587 ) <{marcop} {at} {slashdot.org}> on Thursday October 28, 2004 @01:47PM (#10656325) Homepage
        I know the parent is meant for sarcasm, however is it still stealing if I download shows from the Internet for archival purposes when I have:

        - am a TW digital cable subscriber - only downloading shows I actaully receive.
        - Tivo my shows
        - Have a VCR to archive.
        - Have a analog TV to firewire device bridge that I can use to cap my analog feeds.

        Since the US Supreme court has upheld that time shifting is OK, I can legally archive programs that I pay for and receive in my home. However, I find it more convenient to simply download shows instead of doing the work myself. Am I still a pirate?

        This questions seems more a rhetorical question whose answer varies depending on who you ask. Anyone have any legal backing?
        • Television is an advertisement delivery mechanism. Content is merely a means of isolating a span of consistent attention, long enough to expose consumers to advertisers. By downloading off the net, you circumvent the advertisement delivery mechanism that pays for the shows, so whether or not it's illegal or immoral to download off the net, you can be sure that it will be heavily opposed by the advertisers and the media delivery corporations. That's all that seems to count these days, so if it's not illegal

  • ya right (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Ill believe it when I start hearing more about it and not from some guys personal belief that its coming of age. Not newsworthy IMO
    • Microsoft's MCE2005 launch this month is what's fueling all of the new press. I'm currently involved in bringing the adult market to this device, but I wasn't sure the bandwidth was there to be really effective until the other day when I saw the slashdot article about Verizon's FTTP at 15Mbps.

      I can stream 3 movies at full HDTV quality at that bitrate! I wasn't quite sold on the idea for the immediate future (was designing the system for thinking couple years ahead) but now it looks like anyone that's wil

  • Sounds more line on-demand TV... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sp00 ( 639381 ) on Thursday October 28, 2004 @12:17PM (#10655385)
    After skimming the article it seems like these are more like on demand content services rather than other "Internet TV" providers. [useit.com]

  • Vonage for TV (Score:4, Interesting)

    by telemonster ( 605238 ) on Thursday October 28, 2004 @12:20PM (#10655416) Homepage
    It is just a matter of time before Vonage style services for television start appearing. TV over IP.

    Now is the time for Multicast...

    I think it would be cool to have an opensource set top box that pulls content from something like bittorrent. Each box could serve and play, as an appliance. Let people publish content on the network and wala, true television revolution.

    Could make them out of Tivo units, after replacing Linux with NetBSD.

    • Multicast is not a good option for the internet.

      Yep you read that right. Despite all the research and money multicast fails to follow one of the tenents of the net, intelligence at the edge.

      This is such a great oversight that is dooms multicast from ever taking off.

      The future of TV is something akin to bittorrent. Intelligence at the edges that scales as audience size increases.
    • And for crying out loud, it's VOILA, not wala!

  • RSS + Divx = No More TV (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tobes ( 302057 ) <tobypadilla@gmail.cTEAom minus caffeine> on Thursday October 28, 2004 @12:20PM (#10655419) Homepage
    For me, the joy (if you can call it that) of tv has always been that it's a somewhat passive experience. Sometimes you just want to sit back and not "search" for content. Of course, lately tv has been failing to provide this experience. The lack of quality programming means that I spend more time channel surfing than I would like.

    Anyway, I think there's a big potential for tcp/ip video to replace the current distribution methods. The only hurdle is replicating that passive viewing experience. I think things like RSS go a long way towards achieving this. Instead of surfing/searching for video, by tying it to RSS you could just subscribe to "channels" and have the content pulled down to your machine (or links to it) almost immediately after it's published. Tie this in with some sort of search engine or recommendation system and you have a pretty powerful product.
  • But how long until I can watch TV on my cell phone? Ipods and PVPs are great, but I'd love to be able to catch up on sports news or watch a show or two during my morning commute. Can u feel me?
  • A similar service has been available in London (not sure about the rest of the uk) for several years http://www.homechoice.co.uk/ [homechoice.co.uk] homechoice offers TV, movies etc on demand as well as 512 or 1mb broadband for about £20-30/month - us$30-45 month. It also offers movies and sport from the UKs biggest satellite tv network Sky.

    • Re:Homechoice in the UK (Score:2, Informative)

      by Nos. ( 179609 )
      Similar here in Saskatchewan (Canada). I have SaskTel's MAX service which is basically TV over DSL. Along with that I have high speed internet and basic phone service which amounts to about $50CDN. However, since this is a telco, I bundle in my long distance and cell phone and wind up getting TV, Interenet, Cell, Phone and long distance for ~ $100/month.
    • Very Poor availability though, isnt it jsut london who recieves this? I live just outside london and cant get myself

  • Use of new technology for old technology (Score:5, Insightful)

    by binaryDigit ( 557647 ) on Thursday October 28, 2004 @12:28PM (#10655505)
    I find it highly amusing that old technology is used to support new technology which is then used to supply the features of old technologies. Case 1, telephones. POTS lines are used to carry modem traffic which is now used to carry voip (i.e. telephone) traffic. Cable lines are used to carry ip traffic which is now being utilized to receive tv. Gotta luv it.

  • VoD is better (Score:3, Interesting)

    by alatesystems ( 51331 ) <chris&chrisbenard,net> on Thursday October 28, 2004 @12:33PM (#10655556) Homepage Journal
    I don't see internet tv replacing regular tv, because you'd have to have all these micro-subscriptions to keep the sites afloat. Advertising just doesn't do that (Think late 90's).

    I really like the Video On Demand that I get from Time Warner. I can pull up episodes from just about any popular tv show. I like the G4TechTV on demand channel a lot, as well as the comedy central one. Since I have HBO and Cinemax, I can pull up any recent movies on demand from it. The cable company already has a massive fiber and copper network, and they're finally leveraging it to provide entertainment to me!

    I even have a channel (999) that let's me play GAMES on the DVR/cable box with my remote like solitaire and keeps real time stats with other people playing as well.

    Digital cable and VoD is the future, not internet tv, as in streaming real media or wmv or something like that. I'd rather have my relatively uncompressed(mpeg2) content from my cable company.
    • If you're playing solitaire with other people, you should seriously consider getting some psychiatric help.
    • Comcast in my area provides a medicore on demand service... i'd like yours instead.

      If this were done over the net then i could just cancel my comcast tv subscription and sign onto time warner. But today time warner would have to invest tens of thousands to bring that service to my tv and they probably wouldn't do it.

      Once we have interoperable online television then we'll be able to subscribe to channels anywhere in the world and providers will have to compete to find the best balance between ads and subsc

  • text/html vs video (Score:3, Interesting)

    by RealProgrammer ( 723725 ) on Thursday October 28, 2004 @12:37PM (#10655607) Homepage Journal
    We're still in the infancy of the Network Age. It's fairly easy right now for programs to operate on text (including html/xml/et al), but operating on audio or video streams isn't done much yet. Gooogle News, for instance, uses algorithmic control to 'watch' the web for interesting stories. I suppose there are certain segments of the web that do that for video, but most video editing and selection is done by people.

    It won't be long (a few years, maybe) before good audio is generated in real time from scripts. You'll feed in the text of a script, select good voices and such, and stream realistic audio programs.

    How to do video is something else. Animations currently take a lot of work to develop. Someday maybe they can be script-generated on the fly too.

    In 15 years (following Moore's Law) everything will be 1024 times faster than it is now, 1024 times more powerful. What will that bring? It'll be fun to watch.
    • Web pages, even big ones, load in under 2 seconds over my 3meg cable connection.

      So you're saying that they'll load in 1/500th of a second in 15 years. Which, since we can't 'see' anything shorter than 1/30th of a second or so, will be instantaneous.

      And I bet Realplayer will still buffer.

  • I know there are some more night owls in here (Score:3, Funny)

    by xThinkx ( 680615 ) on Thursday October 28, 2004 @12:38PM (#10655610) Homepage

    I personally welcome the idea of "TV Over IP" type providers. I'd love it if I could watch the shows I want WHEN I want, streamed or downloadable.

    I'd like to think the geek crowd is also tired of having nothing but info-mercials to watch while finding the latest logic error in $openSourceProject.

  • Free providers (Score:5, Informative)

    by bigjnsa500 ( 575392 ) <[moc.oohay] [ta] [005asnjgib]> on Thursday October 28, 2004 @12:41PM (#10655657) Homepage Journal
    There are many free providers of TV over Internet. Its getting to the point of asking yourself WHY you watch broadcast TV anymore.

    For a list of worldwide stations - Smart Digital Network [smartstreams.com]
    America Free TV [americafree.tv]

    • this sort of reminds me of the argument people make for replacing RIAA affiliated artists with indie bands. You can't simply replace something like an artist or TV show. People watch broadcast TV because they like the shows. The same goes for music. People listen to band X becasue band X is the type of music they like. You can't simply say here this indie band sounds like band X listen to it instead. While replacing windows software with linux software works sometimes, people aren't like that especially whe
      • I am just saying that a person doesn't need a TV if they don't want one. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of Internet TV stations from which to choose from.
      • The reason a particular band or singer or tv show gets a chance at stardom, or gets some exposure, has more to do with other things than just talent. For every Spice Girls or Madonna or "Friends", there are 100 people or bands or writers just as talented, who tried for success, but never made, because they did not have the connections, the luck, the good looks, or some other quality, other than talent.

        The entertainment industry, thus, manufactures success by choosing one of these hundreds of wannabes, and
    • I don't really watch TV anymore. But even so, I still subscribe to basic cable. Here's why: Comcast charges $57/month for internet if you don't already have their cable TV. But, if you buy their basic cable TV package (60 channels or so) for $10/month, they'll reduce their charge for internet from $57/month to $42/month (total of $52/month for cable TV and internet). So even though I don't watch the cable TV, I still pay for it because it's $5 cheaper per month to get TV and internet than it is for internet
    • Its getting to the point of asking yourself WHY you watch broadcast TV anymore.

      Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but you opt for the programming of those 2 links you provided over broadcast TV?

      Huh?

      Everything that's in English on those lists is either public access, some random college station, or music videos. Sure that's cool to check out every once in awhile, and I agree this is the future of TV - but THAT's your replacement for network TV?

      Horray for free information.. but you gotta be kidding
  • my new Internet based TV choices. Right now, I'm able to download only one internet with my ub3r AOL connection.

    With my new choices, I will be downl0ad lots of different internets and chann3ls.

  • Quality? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tji ( 74570 ) on Thursday October 28, 2004 @12:57PM (#10655813)
    These attempts are coming at a bit of a tough time.. HDTV services are growing pretty quickly, raising the bar for quality expectations from TV viewers.

    Most of the downloadable / streamable TV content I have seen is pretty much garbage quality-wise.

    I don't think they need to do full 720p or 1080i to be competitive, but they certainly need to do better than the smudgey thumbnail videos I have seen.

    Maybe taking an HDTV source (where available) then scaling it down to DVD resolutions (720x480) and using MPEG-4 compression could offer a good compromise between quality and size.

    • Re:Quality? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by hrbrmstr ( 324215 ) * on Thursday October 28, 2004 @01:15PM (#10656021) Homepage Journal
      I am amazed to see the words "quality" and "TV" used in the same sentence.

      HDTV presentation of crap is still crap.
    • You and I must have different quality thresholds. There is lots of approx. 640x352 resolution downsampled HDTV out there in bittorrents. I find this stuff a perfectly acceptable alternative to my crappy analog cable TV feed.
    • You are confoosed. Downloads are not streams. Sure, stream smuck. Downloads, on the other hand, maintain the quality of MPEG-whatever, since the download must be complete before viewing starts.

      Downloads play on your living room TV and the main quality restraint is your set.

  • Videos for music (Score:3, Funny)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Thursday October 28, 2004 @01:06PM (#10655926) Homepage
    How about something that recognizes what you're listening to, finds the matching music video, and displays it?

    It could be called "Music TV".

  • TV on Demand...Not for me! (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I personally dont want TV on Demand. Part of what made Sunday night alias was the anticipation of the next episode. With TV on demand, I could (probably would) rush through the whole season in a day or two. I dont think that would generate near as much excitement from a fan base, and the Producer proabably wouldnt get as much money either.

    I would be interested in seeing sports whenever I wanted, but that can already be done with TiVo.

    On demand TV would make good content seem less. Every program th

  • Mainstream programs? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by tji ( 74570 ) on Thursday October 28, 2004 @01:14PM (#10655998)
    After looking through the WWW sites for Akimbo and DaveTV, I see a distinct lack of mainstream TV.

    Since buying an HDTV tuner, and hooking a small antenna to it, I can get all my local stations for free - in a quality leaps and bounds better than what cable or satellite provides. So, there are only a few things keeping me paying those high monthly fees.

    - The Daily Show with John Stewart. This could be easily done via Internet TV. I would gladly pay a few bucks a week/month to just get this and not all the other garbage on cable.

    - Occasionally, I like to be able to get CNN. But, for the most part I use online news sources, so this is not crucial.

    - Sports Programming. ESPN carries a lot of college basketball, sunday night NFL, etc. This would not necessarily transfer over to Internet TV well, because I don't want to request download & see it after the fact.. I want to see it live. Also, when you consider their push into HDTV services.. this is very hard to replicate via Internet. I don't know if this is enough to keep me paying $60++ per month. But, I would be very tempted when my college was being carried on an ESPN-HD game.

    - HD movie channels. These are nice to have.. but, DVD's are an acceptable substitute. In a few years, we will have HD-DVD's, decreasing the appeal of HD movie channels.

    At this point, I think that if I had the ability to access the few mainstream cable programs I want at a reasonable cost, I would dump cable TV.

    • I figure piracy is the greatest concern from networks providing content online... otherwise, I imagine PBS and community broadcasters would be happy to sell their content to whomever wanted to pay for it.

      But for small commercial networks like HGTV, the Food Network and stuff, would cable companies refuse to carry them if they sold their content online? I mean, this could be the death of cable providers who aren't savvy enough to realize that more fat Internet content means more fat Internet cable users :

  • I am probably being really dense, but can someone please explain to me why the major broadcast networks are not streaming their broadcasts on the Internet?

    I can kind of understand why cable only networks might not (not really), but why in the world broadcast networks are not doing it is a mystery to me.

    I would think it would only improve the competive position against the cable networks, and the increase their viewership, and thereby increasing their value to their advertisers.

    • Because they don't want to offend their local affiliate stations by bypassing them. The local affiliates argue they shouldn't be bypassed because they add valuable local content such as local news. Of course they also add local advertising which is where the local affiliates make their money.

      • Re:Can someone explain? (Score:2, Interesting)

        by wjeff ( 161644 )
        Ok, so why aren't the local affiliates streaming their broadcasts, all we are talking about is taking the same content they broadcast freely over the airwaves, and making it available over the Internet.

        This should be a no brainer.

        • Uh, because bandwidth is expensive? REALLY expensive when you start streaming video 24x7.
          • Not really, I am not talking about streaming HDTV. Contrary to a lot of the posts I have seen, I don't high quality/resolution is necessary for internet broadcasting. Most people who are going to want to watch the internet streams, will be doing so as a matter of convience (e.g. keeping the news on in window while working on something else, or watching their local stations while traveling).

            I think the standard quality we see in the aready available news clips will be fine. If want to watch a movie or fa
            • I completely agree with you. I don't own a TV, but I do occassionally download TV shows I enjoy. I would even pay to be able to download shows from the actual companies with the commercials, just to have a reliable download. Surely the profits that could be reaped from allowing people to purchase and download shows to their computer would cover any bandwidth problems.

  • Streaming content... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 28, 2004 @01:19PM (#10656062)
    These sites also offer some television content but mostly old stuff (very old). They have streaming movies which does not require you to download onto a set top device and then view on your tv. The sites are http://www.cinemanow.com/ [cinemanow.com] http://www.movieflix.com/ [movieflix.com] and http://www.ifilm.com/ [ifilm.com]. They have free and subscription content.

  • Internet (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Cro Magnon ( 467622 ) on Thursday October 28, 2004 @01:30PM (#10656162) Homepage Journal
    is great for news. But what about action/adventure shows? When can I see Buffy kicking vampire butt on InternetTV? When can I see Jack Bower stopping yet another terrorist plot in 24 hours? Until InternetTV has stuff like that, it can't replace regular TV.
  • I customized my Myth box to play TV streams via mplayer (should be similar with xine).
    I created several text files with .tv extensions containing the various URLs and associated them with: mplayer --playlist -fs (I think that's it, I'm at work right now).

    wwiTV [wwitv.com] is a great site for live TV streams.

  • sitting on the couch i can watch all apple.com movie trailers on my fingertips. Furthermore i have imdb lookup and access to a really big movie archive over ethernet. oh, i have linksbox to surf the net and read my emails, all from the couch. i can listen to internet radio, record it, can make screenshots in movies, make bookmarks and watch (of course) DD5.1 movies with spdif output on the xbox.
    this is the future boys. in fact its the past, but too few people know it ;)

  • Internet TV Comes of Age When (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I can watch NFL Sunday without
    * silly beer commercials
    * GM trying to tell me it's truck will get me laid more often than Ford's
    * vodka being touted as one of the basic food groups
    * all men being depicted as morons who do stupid things
    * all women being portrayed as witty, sensual, and solely interested in the man who ( smokes this, drinks that, drives this, plays that, eats here, or takes this pill)
    * The confusion that sets in when a feminine pad commercial is somehow mistakenly inserted
  • I'd like to see a new feature in bittorrent where you could subscribe to a specific series from a server. Then when the new episode becomes available your bittorrent client would automatically start the download. Kind of a mix between tivo and bittorrent. That way you don't have to keep monitoring suprnova or whatever waiting for whatever it is to appear. How about this for a business model: Content providers make their shows available through bittorrent, but with ads embedded. Since these torrents ar
  • here's on I stream to my GeexBox:

    http://www.maniatv.com/ [maniatv.com]

    I watch it quite a bit actually :)

    good stuff
  • I have found it quite interesting that Apple long ago had video in on many of its machines, but recently none do, while MediaCenters become popular. However a Film/Video major friend, and big Apple advocate quickly corrected me. Firewire is, and with recent cable providers needing to support it, well there is all the video-in you need. We got chatting and a lot started to fit in place. For example the new G5 iMacs and Cinema displays support VESA mounts, and how H.264 is going to be huge. As well as there

  • Home away from home.. (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Nomeko ( 784750 )
    Some of the Norwegean tv cannels have been streaming their shows on the net for a long while now.. Exept for using them to review certain shows I never gave it much attension.. Now however having moved to the other part of the globe it is Oh so refreshing to watch a lokal show again... This doesn't apply to you amarikans anyways, as you litter the world with your.. hmm.. Quality shows :D I happily welcome TVoIP (Does that read like twoip?)

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