I hear what you’re saying about your wife and iTunes - but even 20 years after the widespread adoption of cable television (in the US) there are people who find the cable box remote control, and how it connects to the TV in the corner, to be challenging. There will always be these kind of transitional problems, and I’m not sure that anything new will be a complete replacement for anything old. Rather that there will continue to be a wider and wider variety of programming available by multiple means.

Thanks for the information on the mobile use of RSS and the VIVAS CMA application.

philip

So what can be done till tech savvy generation X,Y and the world’s internet infrastructure catches up to new content delivery models which are emerging?

The third world has mobiles phones, yet it has poor or non existent internet infrastructure. In the future, it’s here where the biggest audience will ultimately be found for new content and library material. Computer net access will be largely bypassed by the third word. They’ll use mobiles. In Japan and Korea it mobiles that consumers use to largley access content on the net. It’s emerging this way in China too.

Television was the first screen; the net was the second screen. It’s the third screen - mobile phones - which could bridge the content delivery and buying gap whilst RSS finds its feet in the first world. Mobiles may come to be used to preview content or order it for later RSS download by some new whiz bang transparent RSS application. This could overcomes the Ludite’s barrier to using RSS. This was the success of YouTube. It made the technology transparent for the average punter.

By using mobiles phones, increasingly time poor consumers need not be in front of computers to preview content. They can do it anywhere anytime for later net delivery, or for immediate snack viewing. This can be done now using a video enabled phone’s DTMF keyboard functions to delvier video on demand. In fact, it’s already possible using the IVR ‘Dedication’ functions of Dilithium’s VIVAS CMS applications. You can even buy content for others and send it to them. Viral sales. VIVAS was built for the new Dilithium Video Gateways. The gateway forms a bridge between the net and mobile phones, bypassing the Telco’s walled garden approach to content delivery. This mobile model is inclusive as it caters to those who don’t have access to high technology or even understand it. It also provides a consumer contnet preview and revenue collection model for producers’ latest episode or feature productions. This content can be ordered using DMTF and even delivered to you on the net via RSS. An early example and limited use of the tehnology can be seen at http://www.videoconnect.com.au

In the meantime, my wife is still coming to grips with iTunes.

I’ve read no independent authority that thinks bandwidth will go up. Dan Rayburn at Streaming Media Mag/.com seems to think there is a long way further down for delivery costs to go. Amazon’s S3 seems to be a “bottom end” point (just about the same as what you’d pay from an Akamai when you’re up in the hundreds TB of delivery each month. Plus increasingly p2p methodology is being used to reduce the cost of delivery even further (and likely opening up questions of Net Neutrality again if it’s popular).

Cheers

Philip

Your assumptions treat unicasting with the same cost basis as broadcasting.

Cablecasting is similar to broadcasting, meaning that one signal is sent out over a portion of the available frequencies and tuned.

Right now there is a surfeit of bandwidth and the cost is low. That will change. Carriage of internet content will go up as dark fiber gets lit.

Seems like a revolution waiting to happen…

hmmm…(scratches chin deep in thought)

Stand by, it’s in the works.

Philip

As for the “download to own” part. I have to agree that since the days of VHS began, we have had access to watch when we want. The emphasis is shifting towards TV on our own schedule in a major way and hopefully network television will go off in the corner and die. (Since there is hardly a thing worth watching on network tv nowadays…)

The other issue, of limited bandwidth plans in Australia, is a vexatious one and will leave Australia in the dust in the future. I am also from Australia btw, and horrified by the cost of Internet. In LA we have 10 Mbit down, 1 Mbit Up via cable modem (and we get that most of the time) with unlimited bandwith for around $80 US a month - less than $100 Au these days. We don’t pay for cable or satellite, which would add another $55 for what we used to pay for Dish (think Foxtel with 100 channels) or around $93 for the average US household.

But there’s a reason for no unlimited plans - the cost that Australian ISPs have to pay American companies for access to the content (at least that’s what I understand is the issue) because more comes from the US to Australia than the other way around and peering isn’t practical.

Philip

Coming from Australia, where we don’t have unlimited plans, if we had to download all our TV shows, we would have to increase our Internet plans to compensate. In saying that, we don’t even have the option to buy TV shows from iTunes.

Watching TV on my own schedule is not a “benefit” it *is* the future of television. In much the same way that a phone in a motel room, or color TV was advertised on the big billboard out front. Now they’re just expected. Same with Appointment TV: it’s in the process of dying. The only viable future is TV on everyone’s own schedule.

So, I haven’t drawn any distinction between “download to own” and “viewing” because for at least the last 15 years I’ve owned anything I wanted to that was broadcast.

Philip