A Look at IPTV 155
Q-Tip writes "Ars Technica has posted an introduction to IPTV, which is the TV programming technology AT&T (and formerly BellSouth) will be using to provide TV service over its next-gen optical network. The article covers how IPTV works and how AT&T and other providers will be able to provide more interactive services once their networks are up and running."
Interactive services? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Interactive services? (Score:1)
Re:Interactive services? (Score:5, Insightful)
more accurate than Diabold Presidential Votes..... (Score:2)
voting system to vote in a 'illegal' presidente' that is part of a secret cult and CIA family.
Re:Interactive services? (Score:2, Interesting)
While I may not be one to care for interactive TV, I must say that event notification is a pretty nifty feature. When I'm watching a DVD on my Xbox 360, and a friend comes online, a small bubble appears to notify me of the fact. It's unobtrusive and useful, though it isn't the best idea when I'm in the middle of a movie.
However, if this was television, and I was channel surfing, the i
Re:Interactive services? (Score:2)
MythTV [mythtv.org] already does this (and has better PVR features than the telcos/cablecos).
Re:Interactive services? (Score:3, Informative)
A single operator serves over half of the ITV enabled set tops in the US. Echostar (Dish Network) is the only operator in the position to have significant interactive penetration as the market stands today.
Echostar held their ITV summit Friday. CNN just launched their Enhanced TV service on Echostar. The representative from CNN was very clear that launching on Echostar was the obvious choice because they had the set tops deployed to make it worthwhile.
The
Re:Interactive services? (Score:3, Insightful)
Video on Demand is really the crown jewel of that. The parts that haven't yet made it including being able to
vote on American Idol WITHOUT getting off your ass.
The rest, as we always say waits for a "killer app." Who know what that will be, a few suggestions:
1) being able to turn OFF the text Scroll at the bottom of
news stations like CNN or control what does scroll.
2) On a sports broadcast controlling what stats are displayed, picking camera angles, etc.
3) Be
Re:Interactive services? (Score:2)
picking camera angles
Videotron in Montreal used to have this (1990) for hockey games with Videoway [cordis.lu].
Re:Interactive services? (Score:2)
Check out who the sponsors are
Making TV interactive a "a bit" harder than making web sites do the same thing because so much of TV watching happens in synchrony; with millions of viewers watching at the same time. Even when web sites experience heavy loads, you can expect that everyone one isn't doing at the same time. Of course with interactive TV user initialed features will happen more sporadically and more distributed. But watch one when 100 million homes need to have th
Re:Interactive services? (Score:2, Interesting)
As an example I offer up the multi-screen view that many satellite providers are offering- a screen for 3 games, with live scores/tickers for the other games around the league in an easy to read format. This made for an incredible Sunday experience at my buddy Chris' this past football season. We used the big screen to watch the best game at the time (last 10 minutes of a close game, etc.) and pulled the 32" screen out of the bedroom to
Re:Interactive services? (Score:2)
Re:Interactive services? (Score:2)
Re:Interactive services? (Score:2)
What I do want is a higher upstream bandwidth. Right now I have 512K up, but even 2-3 megs would be really nice. They're building a Project Lightspeed box righ
Re:Interactive services? (Score:2)
This OnDemand model is hugely more valuable than scheduled programming. I don't even have to Tivo an episode of sopranos, I just goto the HBO-OnDemand list and choose whichever episode I want to see.
It is though, a bit slow, as every key I press must be sent to the provider, and a vi
Yes, but when? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Yes, but when? (Score:1)
Re:Yes, but when? (Score:2)
Of course, I'm in Europe (Paris)...
SDTV in MPEG2TS is available.
I'm guessing most western european capitals and korea, japan have it too...
Re:Yes, but when? (Score:5, Interesting)
Or course once they got the money they decided DSL would be much cheaper to build out and they could still charge customers a lot for it (even though its only a fraction of the speed promised). So this little "bait and switch" is why the US is still sitting at our measily DSL speeds while Japan, Korea, and much of Europe are now in the 45-100 Mbps ranges.
My guess is all this talk is because its been a decade and they see a president who LOVES giving away hundreds of billions of dollars away to huge corporations via tax cuts so it might be a good time to hit up the tax payers for another few hundred billion on more empty promises.
I find it just amazing the congress never even tried to hold the telecos to thier promises. I guess they had some pretty good lobbiests or congress just really is that inept (or both).
Re:Yes, but when? (Score:1)
Something here doesn't click
Re:Yes, but when? (Score:2)
Re:Yes, but when? (Score:1)
Having publicly funded infrastructure for the citizen doesn't seem all that bad all of a sudden.
Re:Yes, but when? (Score:2)
Unfortunately for socialists, the free market is usually the most successful method for maximizing "best" interests among all parties involved. Of course, there's no moral quotient to the expression, so occasionally the free market appears cruel and heartless.
Re:Yes, but when? (Score:1)
Re:Yes, but when? (Score:2)
It seems there are a few people in congress that are actually making tiny changes to this problem, with new regulations and harsher penalties for those that accept bribes. But I don't know how much change is possible, as the Constition clearly specifies that these people have the right to Lobby to congress, and no number of laws can stop AT&T from "donating" a few million to congressman x's l
Re:Yes, but when? (Score:2)
Of course since I'm not Korean, don't speak the language, and none of them are really geeks or have much interest in high speed data comms, or indeed speak good English, I haven't been able to spend a lot of time chatting with them about this.
As for much of Eu
Re:Yes, but when? (Score:2)
Re:Yes, but when? (Score:2)
Well, the congress critters got paid, right? They don't get paid for holding promises (I can't believe I just wrote that!)
Anywhoo, can someone fill me in here?
Why does "streaming" suck?
By that I mean that I can get HDTV shows on my TV via cable that are 1080i (1920x1080) resolution with quality audio (don't know the details h
Re:Yes, but when? (Score:2)
If it is that difficult to put it underground...why not just string it on the poles alongside the cable and phone lines?
Hmm HDTV Still Cripled... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hmm HDTV Still Cripled... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hmm HDTV Still Cripled... (Score:4, Interesting)
FTFA: That leaves you 0-2MB for anything else per subscriber based on the 20MB next gen ADSL estimates. So an HD customer is going to get degraded quality which defeats the purpose of HD signals or you'll get only one stream which eliminates the ability to use PVR. Am I wrong here and just not seeing something?
Xserv
Re:Hmm HDTV Still Cripled... (Score:2)
So it could be argue
Re:Hmm HDTV Still Cripled... (Score:2)
Re:Hmm HDTV Still Cripled... (Score:2)
Might not work like that (Score:2)
Re:Hmm HDTV Still Cripled... (Score:2)
The site is somewhat geared to testing your connection for video confercing, but it is still pretty useful.
-ben
next-gen optical network. (Score:4, Funny)
Nice! I was waiting for them to find something faster than slow old......light
Re:next-gen optical network. (Score:2)
Re:next-gen optical network. (Score:1)
Re:next-gen optical network. (Score:2)
Television is changing (Score:5, Interesting)
Not wanting to throw the usual Slashdot cynicism about here, but 'TV is DEAD!!'
Even the dullest couch potatoes I know are turning off their TVs and finding more interesting things to do with life.
I must have heard it 20 times a week, "Wow there's nothing but shite on TV isn't there?". Maybe its the war and the depressing Orwellian propaganda? Maybe its the new depths advertising has sunk to blatently insulting the viewers self esteem? Maybe its that cheap reality TV has exhausted everyones patience?
What do kids talk about? Funny video clips they got off Flickr or YouTube, and more and more I hear adults talk about what they heard on the radio. Maybe radio is going to have a revival?
Personally I havent watched TV in over 4 months, not even casually, by accident. I haven't owned a TV in more than 6 years.
Re:Television is changing (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, you meant american TV.
Re:Television is changing (Score:2, Funny)
Yeah right. Someone else's TV. The detector van will be there shortly!
Re:Television is changing (Score:2)
I refuse to pay the overpriced monopoly tithe. I do not watch television and anybody that tells me that tithing the government prevents advertizing is lying (there are advertisments on UK).
Anyway, I have changed my TV with www.ess.tv they have everything I like to see, they have no advertising and it is cheap ($5 us a month). I've got 45 channels full of great programs (great for me anyway) like
simpsons, family guy, southpark, futurama, that 70 show, xfiles, smallvile, arrested develop
WOW, there is nothing but shite on TV isn't there. (Score:4, Insightful)
There is never anything on TV to watch but many will still watch something anyway. Face it, people like to complain but do nothing about it. They will still turn the same old shite on and just be content to bitch about it.
With hundreds of channels there is bound to be something on that is appealing enough to prevent most from turning the set off. With video on demand services and TIVO devices there are even more opportunities for TV to be part of people's lives.
The only way TV is going away is when we manage to convince people to call it something else. It will still have nothing for us to watch or do that we "want" to watch or do but we still will.
go figure
Re:WOW, there is nothing but shite on TV isn't the (Score:2)
Green Eggs and Ham TV (Score:2)
Not all of us want to live under rocks. There are many good productions on TV; the issues revolve around their delivery.
I see TV becoming more akin to books, that is any place, any time delivery systems of information. What really does that mean:
Re:Green Eggs and Ham TV (Score:1)
Great TV is still out there, but not on the big 3 (Score:2)
While cable networks like Comedy Central, Scifi, HBO, Showtime, et. al. are producing increasingly popular cutting-edge fair, the networks are producing increasingly embarrassing reality TV shows and bland
Re:But wait! There's more! (Score:2)
I agree (Score:2)
google angle (Score:1)
Wait times (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wait times (Score:2)
Instead of channels instantly changing it's going to be *buffering* for a couple of seconds every channel I flip. No thanks.
No.
A good IPTV implementation (eg the one we're doing at work) has channel flipping times that are sub-second, comparable to current digital TV. You don't request a connection, wait, wait, buffer, etc. Your (IGMP) request goes only as far as the DSLAM at the end of your DSL line (for TV over DSL) and from there the dslam sends the multicast stream to you directly. Multicast video does
Re:Wait times (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wait times (Score:2)
If I'm bored now I'll surf the web to read or play a game, not to watch random TV channels. The whole point of IPTV is that the content you are interested will be already downloaded and sitting there waiting for you.
I don't want to watch a broadcast, I want a library. The whole concept of streaming is inane anyway. I don't want to
Re:Wait times -Parent Informative (Score:2)
Digital TV actually does take 2-3 seconds to do this (well, at least Illico does).
IPTV (Score:1)
Hell, MICROSOFT could do a better job than this.
Yup (Score:4, Informative)
I get Video on Demand, Radio, Broadcast TV and Internet over the ADSL with 2Mbps Internet while watching TV and 5Mbp while it's off (8Mbps is possible on the best lines right now)
All this and free off-peak and weekend calls and lower line rental from http://www.homechoice.co.uk/ [homechoice.co.uk]
But it's not that popular yet - the monopolistic Murdoch satellite provider we're stuck with wont flog the channels people want to Homechoice so the channels we can get are fairly limited. The only reason I have it is because I'd have to pay £220 for the first year and £80 a year after that for the priviledge of renting a satellite feed as I'm in a condo and cable haven't gone down our road yet.
IPTV is frightening Sky so they're buying into it big time right now.
Re:Yup (Score:2)
The big TV cos still don't want you accessing content in areas where you're not meant to be accessing them and because of that TVoIP is pretty much limited to those people who can directly get you bandwidth.
I know that for many TV over the Internet sounds like a great idea but I get about one glitch per day with Homechoice - watching the same bandwidth TV streams over the internet would be far worse. Buffering, dropping down
More competition is good, lag is bad (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds like if you change the 'channel' you will have to wait for it to load a few packets to get it started first, I don't see how it could be instantaneous or even quicker than a few seconds. But if most things were 'on-demand' it may not matter that much.
More competition will hopefully mean that our cable bills will go down. Wait and see...
Re:More competition is good, lag is bad (Score:1)
Begin to worry now.... (Score:1)
...Said the guy in 1979 (Score:3, Insightful)
Not Quite Consumer Friendly (Score:1)
I've had this for a few years (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I've had this for a few years (Score:2)
Sort of. Suscribing to a channel takes time and then, as the channel is MPEG2/TS here (France), you need to wait the next I-Frame.
Overall I need to wait 2,5 to 3 seconds, if loading channel data isn't involved.
The only thing that is annoying is that the menus load kind of like a website.
And it's because menus are HTTP stream. I know that because I'm working on that right now, with ADSL TV decoders from two providers.
Re:I've had this for a few years (Score:2)
Re:I've had this for a few years (Score:2)
'course, it should be noted that this is a problem for any MPEG2-based video solution, including those provided by cable and satellite operators.
Re:I've had this for a few years (Score:2, Funny)
Coming at ya like a (slow) freight train ... (Score:5, Interesting)
The confluence of technology development, trends in the entertainment industry (all kinds of trends: economic, demographic, etc.), government & regulatory evolution, and other forces are (admittedly) slowly but surely creating a vacuum that can only be filled by a "fourth provider" of television service. (In addition to OTA (over-the-air), DBS (direct-broadcast satellite), and cable.)
The cable television industry shares a good portion of the blame (or credit) for this situation, which will ultimately dig the grave for much of their own profits. Their stranglehold on most "in-home" entertainment - including the WWW - coupled with their buccaneer behavior trying to eat the telco's lunch (with IP phone service) have brought competitors out of the woodwork. And some of these competitors (like SBC/AT&T) come to play. Add to the mix the upward-spiraling cost of cable TV, and you have what business-people like to call "low-hanging fruit."
Before y'all get started
And of course, this is all "A Good Thing" (TM) because it will mean a good ol' fashioned PRICE WAR. How long since we've seen *that* happen in TV? Ever? When AT&T (or some other player with deep pockets) steps up to offer a viable TV service for $19.95 a month (a permanent, not a "promotional" price)
One more prediction: Watch for a la carte TV to become a reality in the next 2-3 years. The reason being that as all of this competition heats up, networks (think Turner or Discovery) will start to wake-up to the fact that there is a niche of viewers out there who would like to pay them directly for delivery of a reasonable-quality stream over the broadband connection they already have
Okay
Re:Coming at ya like a (slow) freight train ... (Score:2, Interesting)
I most certainly hope so. Currently, sat and cable packages are a waste of money and channel space.
Many of us would like to customise conten
Re:Coming at ya like a (slow) freight train ... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Coming at ya like a (slow) freight train ... (Score:1)
This is only going to get worse.
I wouldn't mind paying a fee for content I want. I do that now. But I'm not happy with the conditions I forsee that all of us will have to put up with in the future.
Re:Coming at ya like a (slow) freight train ... (Score:1)
The point I try to make here is that we're becoming professional complainers that prefer to pay and have the right to complain to have something done instead
Re:Coming at ya like a (slow) freight train ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunat
a la carte TV (Score:2)
Videotron has this now (of course, a certain minimum of the chosen channels have to be Canadian):
You can customize your package by picking and choosing from a wide range of specialty channels, including channels dedicated entirely to movies, sports, international programs and music. And if you change your mind, you can change your channel lineup as you please
http://www.videotron.com/services/en/television/5 _ 2_1_1.jsp [videotron.com]
Is there nowhere in the US that has this yet?
Great, now they can see what I watch (Score:3, Insightful)
Own a single DVR (Score:2)
You mean like mythtv [slashdot.org]?
Satellite, anyone? (Score:1)
Commercial Buffering (Score:1)
When do I get IPTV over my cable broad band which has (...estimates...) 10-fold the band width?
I figure I need about 150 Mbps into my home in order for me to satisfy my entire homes phone, tv and inte
US still lagging behind... (Score:1)
Here in France, we've had IPTV over DSL lines for quite some time now. Free (ISP) started upgrading its network to ADSL2+ with 20Mbps access nearly 2 years ago. And in Paris and Pau, you can subscribe to FTTH with 100Mbps symetrical.
Interactive TV is nothing new to us, as we can tap directly into the tiple play modem and a)
Re:US still lagging behind... (Score:1)
I believe the United States is about oh. . . ten times the size of France if I'm not mistaking.
Think about how much infrastructure has to be changed / modified. I hear this quite often about how Germany or Korea is on the bleeding edge of technology when it comes to broadband. What most don't realize is how much equipment has to be changed out in a system connecting an area of 500,000 sq miles vs one that connects 5,000,000 sq miles ?
When your underlying infr
Re:US still lagging behind... (Score:1)
Re:US still lagging behind... (Score:1)
France (total area): 547,030 sq km
Korea, South (total area): 98,480 sq km
United States (total area): 9,631,418 sq km
That puts the US (CIA World Fact Book again) at just under the size of China and about 2.5x size the the *entire* EU.
In the area of deploying area-based consumer technologies small is a big advantage.
Re:US still lagging behind... (Score:1)
Nobody expects a single ISP to give 20Mbps and IPTV to every single nook and cranny of the US. I somehow don't think the cows need IPTV...
The US has a lot of big cities, like New York which is the 5th biggest city in the world with 16,626,000 inhabitants and alone would represent over 1/4 of the french population. Why isn't New York and other major US cities offering highl
I'm only watching (Score:1)
So... (Score:1)
I would be rather depressed to hear that I'm not getting the bandwidth I thought signed up for because they would rather I was watching Real Bachelor-Survivor Idol: Zimbabwe.
Homechoice (Score:2)
The presentation is much like any other cable TV system, but with a few added extras. I get the standard bunch of UK digital TV channels, plus a bunch of extra video on demand channels. There are variable packages - if I were paying for a more expensive package (I'm on the cheapest) I'd be getting their "C1" channel, and could pick to watch any episode from about 2 dozen different series seasons, such
I've had IP TV for almost a year now... (Score:1)
So we (my family and I) got it and we loved it. It was cheaper prices, great quality and easy to use interface. Also the fact that it ran on linux, has weather info and all the shiney bullcrap that makes things "in
There's been IPTV in Europe for some time now (Score:1)
IPTV and Channel Changes (Score:2)
With the newer video codecs, the GOP sizes are large (in the 1-2 second range).
So you might have to wait 2 seconds for a channel's initial IFrame to come in.
This scenario is completely unacceptable to the normal analog TV viewer.
Re:IPTV and Channel Changes (Score:2)
If I'm bored I'll go find something else to do, or I'll hop online and lo
Not just the telcos (Score:2)
The Register has had some recent pieces as well... (Score:2)
IPTV forum in London [theregister.co.uk]
Disclosure: I work for Myrio
Namespace Collision (Score:2)
IPv6? (Score:2)
I don't want a settopbox! (Score:2)
Is there any chance that that will become possible, or will the signal be buried ten feet deep in DRM and smartcards?
Re:The "Maginot" Boundary of Connectivity (Score:2, Funny)
You mean, like Belgians will resell German satellite smartcards to French users, so they can watch their soccer matches without needing an expensive Canal+ subscription ;-) ?