個人檔案J. Daniel Smith相片部落格清單更多  |  工具 說明 |
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Why doesn't the Big 10 Network stream live video?The Big Ten Network recent launched. But it's not widely available because they can't come to an agreement with the cable companies over pricing.
Here's a novel idea: stream the live broadcast video over the internet; this is 2007 (coming up on 2008) after all. The Free Press article above states that the network wants $1.10 per subscriber. Fine; let them charge $60/year ($5/mo) for live streaming video. Heck, since there likely aren't that many "live" events during any 24-hour period (mostly football and basketball games), much of the content could be served up from video archives.
This would really let the Big Ten Network be on the leading edge of technology. Of course, they would still be available through the traditional means (assuming they come to an agreement with the cable companies). The cable companies wouldn't be completely out of the picture either as they are a major provider of broadband internet.
Assuming the any technology issues could be worked out (thousands of people around the world wanting to watch the Michigan/Michigan State game), I suspect the real reason is control. The Big Ten Network thinks they're holding all the cards because consumers will complain loudly to the cable companies; they don't want to provide an alternative because that takes away their barganing power.
Talking about The Clicker: The part of Blue that has me seeing Red. - EngadgetQuote
Interesting thoughts about why there isn't "HD on red" agreement. The fact is that by using very compresesed encodings such as WMV and MPEG-4 (instead of MPEG-2) we can have high-def DVDs today; no blue laser needed. Microsoft was trying to push this a few years ago with HighMAT, but some three years later there are still no widely available (i.e., on the shelf at BestBuy or Circuit City) stand-alone DVD players with WMV (HighMAT/video) playback. Can video iPod lead to DMCA reform?Quote
Making it easier (i.e., possible, for the average consumer) to transfer a legally purchased DVD to the video iPod might finally result in some long overdue changes to the DCMA. Bill Gates fights backQuote
My thoughts exactly! I almost always have my cell phone with me; that's where I want my portable music, calendar, contacts, etc. I don't want a "utility belt" of gizmos for everyday use. A 2MP camera and 4GB of storage on a cell phone should do that job. Talking about The Death of Television - Will the Internet replace the b**b tube? By Adam L. Penenberg[ Stupid MSN language checker...it's not my title... ] Quote
Let's crunch a few numbers: 8 hours of TV/day is about 250 hours/month. For a $50/month cable bill, that's 20¢/hour for TV. So I'm already paying for TV (my hourly cost is actually a lot higher as I'm nowhere near 8 hours/day). But I'm fairly limited in my choices: I can only watch what's showing. While 20¢/hour is still a lot less than $1.99/show from iTunes, it's "only" a factor of 10x (and $1.79 in actual dollars). There should be room for both "sides" (TV, etc. and the consumer) to "give" a bit. The TV time could also be sold in pre-paid blocks, similar to way cell phone plans work. Watching downloaded (TiVo'd TV) could also be cheaper than live events because the bandwidth requirements are less (the show is downloaded slowly at night). Watching first-run shows might cost a little more than re-runs. What happened to HighMAT?There are no press releases from CES2005 at http://highmat.com/press, the most recent is over a year old. lame WMV support in Digital Media CenterIf WMV is so great, why does MCE still record shows in a DVR-MS format (which is more-or-less MPEG-2). I can understand the problem with no hardware encoders two years ago with the first release, but we're now at V3 and still no WMV recording. It just seems that Microsoft needs to get a little more consistent in their story. Why should anybody else use WMV if they don't themselves?
build a MP3 player into the new SmartDeckI don't own an iPod, but the new SmartDeck (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/11/griffin_smartdeck/) looks like a prety neat gizmo. I've been frusterated at my inability to easily play MP3 files in my vehicle. The easiest thing would be a CD player with MP3 playback, but I guess it's not possible to get rid of the factory radio - and I don't really want to as it looks like it "belongs" like no third-party radio could. I wonder if enough power could be generated from spinning the cassette spinning to power the device - that way I wouldn't need batteries or a cigarette lighter adapter. I'm sure a 20GB hard drive could be put in the package. Add a USB port and I can put all my music on a portable device that I can use in just about any car.
is WMA dead?Now that WMP10 rips MP3, why should I bother with WMA? While some new devices support both WMA and MP3, there are still many that are MP3-only. I was reluctant to use MP3 before (WMP9 days), because I didn't want to install yet another applicaiton when WMP was fine. Here's two in particular: I recently bought a Sharp DVD recorder/VCR which only supports MP3 playback. And the Chevy Equinox has a MP3 option for the factory radio. Perhaps the only advantage that WMA has is the "WMA lossless" encoding? Otherwise, if I rip all my CDs to MP3, I can be quite certain I can use those MP3s anywhere. It's beginning to look like "Windows Media" will be just WMV. 2004 Vaporwarehttp://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,66195,00.html The #1 item on my list has to be DVD players supporting HighMAT/WMV (not WMA) playback. The http://highmat.com website has a press release from CES 2004 touting the new DVD players, but until I get walk into BestBuy and get one, they don't really exist. My guess is that Microsoft is pretty much giving up on the current DVD format, focusing its efforts instead on HD-DVD and Blu-Ray -- both of which I think have WMV in the spec. |
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