HDTV Over IP

gravelpup writes " NASA Watch has this article about a NASA demo of streaming an HDTV feed over a 20Mbps network from D.C. to California. Suddenly, watching NASA TV at home over a dinky DSL connection doesn't seem so cool anymore." For some reason this just makes streaming high quality video over the net seem even further away to me.

What's new?

[zook]

What's new besides the mutlicast aspect? Hasn't this already been done. [washington.edu]

Re:TV over Internet still a fair ways away

[JoeShmoe]

Here in Sacramento, Western Integrated Networks [winfirst.com] is doing just that.

Fiber (well really it's that hybrid coax/fiber system that cable companies already use...just fatter pipes the whole way down and more focus on two-way syncronous connections) to the home with a single connection that does telephone, Internet and digital TV.

According to a couple techs I've talked to, the telephone service is basic VoIP. Since a T1 is 1.5Mbit and that's I think 32 lines then I don't expect this will take up much bandwidth. Supposedly the interface to the "modem" is going to be 10BaseT (it remains to be seen if I will be able to hook my own hardware into the line at its true 100Mb+ speed or I have to use their hardware) so that isn't a lot of traffic. Now each TV channel is apparently a full 5-6MBps MPEG-2 video stream. This I imagine is going to chew up the majority of their system bandwidth, especially if they plan to offer the same channels as AT&T digital cable or DirectTV.

It's kinda amazing to think about how much data that single coax from your cable provider carries. In order to provide the equivalent hundreds channels of video, WIN is having to rollout some pretty high powered stuff.

- JoeShmoe

VDSL in trial: 130 digital channels!

[JM]

Okay, maybe it's not HDTV. (Anyways, I don't own a set, and I don't know anyone who owns one either).

But for the rest of us, there's VDSL, the DSL on steroids (up to 52mbps on copper). There have been some trials in US and Canada, I have seen the equipment and the thing is amazing. No new wiring, no disruption, digital TV, high-speed internet, plus internet telephony.

Here [eurescom.de] are some slides that talk about it.

Ogg Tarkin!

[KjetilK]

Yep, and the loudthinking has started. It has even been given a name Ogg Tarkin [xiph.org], and there are mailing lists for it.

And since open standards is my favorite issue, I support these efforts a lot (though I haven't the knowlegde to participate).