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Along with the compression and transport technology, Matrixstream has written subscription, billing, and digital rights management software that any content provider could use to set up and manage its own broadband HDTV network. The PC player program -- which can also run inside a simple set-top box, eliminating the need for a computer -- includes controls that allow users to pause, rewind, or fast-forward an Internet HDTV program just as they would a DVD. Says Chung: "The experience is exactly like satellite or cable TV or better."
Matrixstream is in negotiations with Internet service providers, mainly telephone companies, to get the company's set-top boxes out to broadband subscribers. It is also partnering with Movie99.tv, a Blaine, WA-based company that's building a library of high-definition movies and other programming for streaming to Matrixstream's PC player. "Right now most of [the content] is still niche channels and movies, because the big content companies don't understand our technology yet," says Chung. But he predicts that broadcast TV networks will be providing high-definition feeds to Matrixstream customers within two years.
IPTV's first commercial application has already revolutionized how video production and distribution work. IP-based networks are far more economical to build and operate than microwave or satellite transmission systems, and major news organizations are adopting systems from companies like Seattle-based Streambox to extend their reach around the world. "All they need is a reporter, a photographer, a camera, a microphone, a satellite phone, and one of our encoders, and they can get video back to headquarters live from anywhere in the world," says Jeff Woiton, technical sales manager at Streambox.
Telephone companies such as Verizon and AT&T are also investing heavily in IP networks, since they can handle video, voice, and data simultaneously. The phone companies hope this "triple play" will help them compete with cable companies like Cox Communications, which already provides TV, digital telephone, and high-speed Internet service to its customers through the same coaxial cables.
One of the companies helping the telcos realize this vision is Cambridge, England-based Vidanti, which supplies software and equipment for delivering high-definition video to set-top boxes over telephone companies' private networks -- and for returning data from the home, enabling applications like video conferencing.
Vidanti CEO Paul Walsh says IP networks are a great way to transmit HDTV signals, but only if they're guaranteed not to be jammed with other traffic. "In the industry we work with, we're talking about sending broadcast-quality, state-of-the-art HD -- the full pay-TV experience," Walsh says. "You can't rely on best-effort transmission for that. I'm quite fond of YouTube -- but it isn't what I'd rely on for my evening TV."
The challenge for Matrixstream and other companies sure to explore Internet-based HDTV may be finding an audience that doesn't mind the occasional network hiccup, and that values a large variety of quirky, niche content over mainstream TV shows. As it happens, that's exactly the group Matrixstream is going after first: independent content producers who could use high-definition Internet IPTV to reach niche audiences with premium programming that makes today's streaming video look primitive. "We're talking about the real long tail," says Chung. "Instead of 500 channels, you'll have a million. Or, to put it another way, you'll have just one channel -- yours."
That could give pause to big media companies and further upset the chaotic ecosystem of digital entertainment, where cable, satellite, broadcast, telephone, software, hardware, and Internet companies are all competing to sell content and services to the same consumers. "The telephone companies are trying to move into the entertainment space, and the cable companies are trying to move into the voice space, and they're both earning very skinny margins," notes Walsh. "The only place you can think of to look not just for revenue but for profit is the interactive space. That's what makes IPTV a big 'gotcha' for them."
Gadgets that operate over television frequencies promise to transform the wireless landscape.
A new product makes any digital TV capable of displaying high-definition Internet video.
SaskTel, a telco in Saskatchewan, Canada has had IPTV available to subscribers for 3 years. As long as the house is less than 1km from an exchange connected with fibre-optics, their ADSL service has a bandwith of about 8Mbaud. Each TV set-top box takes 3Mbaud (you can have up to 2 set-top boxes per phone line, so you can watch 2 different TV shows at the same time), leaving at least 1.5MBaud for a conventional high speed internet connection.
The service is pretty good, basically equivalent to standard digital cable service, with artifacts from the MPEG compression showing up a couple of times an hour (or maybe the software fills in the blanks when there is a hiccup in data packets, I can't say for sure)
Although we have the required protocols (MPEG4/H264) to minimise the bandwidth required for HDTV and we have suitable content servers and high end PCs to view it; the bit in the middle
(the Internet) is not yet capable of supporting this.
If it was done as multicast i.e. everyone views it at the same time when it's transmitted then those people who's ISP supported multicast (not many of these at present) would have a chance of viewing such content. If it was done on an 'on demand' basis so that you could watch what you wanted
when you chose to i.e. as unicast transmissions, then most ISP networks would just crumple under the strain.
I think that TV over the Internet is coming but most ISPs have a lot of of worrk to do, particularly in reducing the contention ratios that they use. These contention ratios, some as high as 50:1 were designed on the basis that all people were doing was browsing the web.
I would say, let's see SDTV work over the Internet first then look towards HD content.
What about all of the caching of content in proxy servers at the edges of the Internet "cloud" that Comcast, AOL, Yahoo, MSN, et al, have been doing for years, to handle just the problem you're talking about? All of that is done via fiber optics over the Internet backbone, which is hardly running anywhere near capacity? There are tens of terabytes/second of capacity available per optical channel today, and it's going exponentially higher every year as multiple channels are added via spectrum multiplexing (each channel is transmitted by a laser of a different "color")? Now, if every single user on a given street is downloading something different every second of the day, that would cause increased contention, but that's not how most people behave, especially for scheduled programming (i.e., TV network style, where there is a regular production process that's fairly predictable). The contention issue really goes away if excess overnight capacity is used to download stuff that people already are expecting to watch the next day (especially the one-offs desired by the fringe viewers with eclectic tastes). The only content that doesn't fit that mold is breaking news and if it's of broad interest, by its very nature it's going to be cached at the edges, ready to be served as soon as it's desired to all comers, who tend to come in batches at canonical times (e.g., every half-hour) as they arrive at work, at lunchtime, coming home from work, after dinner, etc.
All the Best,
Joe Blow
Guest (Michael)
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Although not quite HD, Hulu is streaming up to 480p.
It's easy and affordable to connect the Internet to your HDTV. Just use your PC. No expensive box required.
http://pctvcables.com
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Robert
1 Comment
HDTV over internet
I agree with the article! We at Earthflix.com have been posting HD online since February in what we think is the first online HD series, California P.I.. This goofy, campy comedy is offered in
half 1080 size, 960 X 540 using H.264. We have a full screen size 1440 X 810 we're testing. Every Tuesday we've been posting our show (we're on episode 29 now) along with a smaller 480 X 270 and ipod versions. We have a few other short HD videos on our HD page. We believe in HD over the internet is the way to go. Your computer screen is already HD capable!
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brunascle
65 Comments
Re: HDTV over internet
nifty.
what are the file sizes?
edit: rock. i checked out your site, and doing the math, given a high speed 600KB/s download rate (which is usually where i max out at home), the download time is the same as the play length for the 960x540 version, so there wouldnt be much buffer-time at all.
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