From: Tony Williams 

Glenn Meadows wrote:
> Sounds like a competitor to the "On Demand" that Comcast
(and probably other
> cable systems) are rolling out now.

Yes that seems to be the idea, only it runs over IP and uses other clients
to help with the streaming.

> I was over the C.O.O.'s home a month ago, and he has the Comcast Digital
> cable box, with the HDTV connected, and the full "On Demand"
> HBO/Show/Cinemax package, and he could pick from over 150 different movies
> to watch at anytime he wanted, all for a flat fee per month.  He picked one
> to demonstrate the sound system he just put in, and it started about 10
> seconds later, and then he was able to FF 8 minutes into the movie to get to
> the part he wanted to use for the demo.  Worked about as effectively and
> fast as direct FF on a DVD.  The bandwidth is there to do all of this.

I was pretty impressed with the demo. The only comprimise they had to make
was to drop the audio to mp3 quality stereo. They reckon it'll be possible
to increase the audio quality given a bit more programming work. The video
quality on the other hand was true hi-def.

I didn't ask much about the business model, but it's all supposed to be
legal and above board wrt the movie companies' rights. Can't give you the
name because they're not ready to go public yet (and to be honest I'm
sceptical of a tiny startup's chances in this market). Still, the
technology's there so it's all about whether the media companies work with
it or against it.

> I believe that Comcast has virtually finished their upgrade to all fiber
> backbone in our area.  Don't know how close it gets to the home drops, but I
> do know that their downstream speeds for cable modems is now pushing
> 8mb/sec.
>

Makes my DSL look a bit puny in comparison. Sigh. Upgrade time again.

--
Tony

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