What would you use 1Gbps NBN for ?
There’s no doubting it’s election time with the ALP and the Coalition battling it out for votes. I’m happy the last couple of days has focused on a critical issue for Australia’s future – internet infrastructure or the NBN. This is the single biggest election issue that affects me personally. Being a heavy user of all things internet as well as running a technology website and improvement in connection speeds are of great interest.
Following the oppositions announcement of a hacked together last generation solution to the problem, they were basically shot down in flames. To add insult to injury, the futuristic promise of 1Gbps connection over Labor’s fibre NBN has arrived years ahead of schedule.
The NBN was supposed to make connections of 100Mbps available to 93% of Australians. The promise was that at some stage in the future (5-10 years) equipment in the home and exchanges could be upgraded to get even higher speeds. Well after “extensive testing” that technology is here already !
Senator Stephen Conroy made a slight miss-step today when asked if the price of 1Gbps connection would cost more, he said no. While it may not impact on the total $43 billion budget of the project, it will likely be more expensive to end users for the cost of the router, Conroy really should have admitted this, its similar to how 802.11N routers are currently prices higher than B/G routers.
This leads many people questioning what on earth you could do with all those internets. Practically speaking the 1 gig connection will likely attract a steep premium, but it’s still a great thing for those that can afford it.
Multiple HD video streams
Video quality on services like YouTube has steadily been increasing since its introduction around 5 years ago. First SD, then competitors forced them to offer 720, then 1080p videos. YouTube have taken it even further and added support for 4k video. That’s double the height and double the width of 1080, much higher than most displays today are capable of displaying.
At CES in January we’ve seen the announcement of multiple 4k compliant TV sets, so they are on the horizon, to add to that Japan are already testing broadcasts in 4k. Rather than use traditional TV broadcast to distribute 4k, IPTV may take its place. ‘Catch up’ TV is gaining traction with all the commercial channels and ABC all offering on-demand video content online. Why can’t this content be in HD as it was originally broadcast, rather than a lower quality flash stream.
Fast forward to 5 years from now when 60”+ 4k HDTVs are actually affordable and seriously internet connected. Running multiple 4k streams around the house would certainly use some bandwidth. Also remember that Blu-ray data rates are actually around 28Mpbs rather than the heavily compressed 2Mbps 1080i streams over-the-air broadcast currently offers. This means it may be possible for digital delivery to fully replace optical disc formats.
Video conferencing
It’s long been the promise of science fiction that we’ll one day video conference to another location seamlessly through devices like our HDTV. We’ve seen the very beginning of this actually reaching production with the introduction of skype-enabled TV’s but more could be done. As screens become flatter and larger, at some point they may take part of, or indeed an entire wall. Video conferencing with high quality cameras and displays would enable you to feel as if your wall is actually a doorway into another world.
Website hosting
Depending on the terms and conditions your ISP slaps on your connection, this kind of speed may actually have a massive impact on the web hosting industry. Personally I have redundant storage of my important files, yet I’m forced to pay online hosts to do the same as home connections can’t support large traffic / bandwidth requirements.
With a 1Gbps connection, many small businesses and even home users would have the bandwidth required to support large volumes of traffic while avoiding the hosting fees we’re subjected to now. Imagine if you bought a Windows Home Server, installed the WordPress Add-In and you had your site online with as much storage as you wanted.
There’s obviously a bunch more applications that will only arise in the years to come, but I’d get ready for some very disruptive technologies delivered via the NBN. Also don’t forget the rest of the world is steaming ahead in ultra-fast broadband rollouts. Even Google in the US is rolling out 1Gbps in specific areas, while Hong Kong already has it and for really cheap.
TiVo makes big IPTV play, 12 on-demand channels tomorrow
Tomorrow, July 13th is a big day for TiVo Australia owners with 12 brand new on-demand TV channels. The new channels will be ad-supported or “sponsored” with the first channel announced – Bella TV being sponsored by Cadbury. Bella TV will be a dedicated channel targeted towards women, so the Cadbury sponsorship makes a lot of sense with plenty of chocoholics out there.
As for the content of the other 11 channels, we’ll have to wait and see tomorrow as TiVo has been quiet on what they’ll include.
The new channels will be part of the CASPA section of TiVo and require users to have a CASPA wallet. This effectively means to access the new IPTV channels, you’ll need to hand over your credit card, despite the channels being free. For those TiVo owners who haven’t yet got a wallet, it’s also required to download the Movies, TV Shows or Music content from CASPA.
More info @ TiVo Australia
Download caps hurting VOD, unmetered partnerships needed!
In today’s hyper-connected world, the idea of having to drive to a video store the rent a movie and back the next day to return it seems pretty ridiculous, but in reality it’s often still the best way.
Video-on-demand movies rental services are everywhere these days, but how many people actually use them ? While the promise of having movies streamed instantly, no late fees and no car trips to deal with minimum wage video-store clerks sounds great, it’s often hamstrung by internet download usage caps.
Microsoft has the Zune Video Marketplace on Xbox 360, the Sony have Playstation Movie Store and TiVo has CASPA. Whilst there’s differences of price, resolutions, catalogue and instant-start vs download first, ultimately the only one that’s actually practical to use is CAPSA. Despite being a much smaller company, Hybrid Television Services, licencees of TiVo in Australia, have been able to successfully negotiate deals with key Australian ISPs to allow video downloads to go unmetered.
Sure CASPA only offer SD quality movies (at the moment), but wether its 2-3GB or 6-7GB your downloading, if it counts towards your monthly download cap, it will restrict your ability to use the service. By having an unmetered solution, the real cost of renting a movie is the rental price.
I’m a big fan of the 1080p instant-on streaming (when it works) that Zune offers, but realistically it means I have to then spend $5-$10 for additional data blocks. This means the real price for renting a movie wasn’t $5 or $6 but rather closer to $15. So the inconvenience of going to the video store may be a pain, but its still more economical that paying the real cost of convenience, plus you can rent the highest quality blu-ray version.
Given broadband data caps are a fact of live for most consumers, the real question here is how two of the largest tech companies, Microsoft and Sony, have been unable to achieve the same unmetered deals for all customers. Even ISPs like Westnet that have been able to negotiate unmetered Xbox demo’s, trailers, arcade games and updates have an exception that excludes Zune video.
If your hoping this madness will end with the introduction of the NBN, you’ll be sadly mistaken. The deals announced for the first rollout areas like Tasmania still maintain data caps. So the dream of instant on high definition video from the the comfort of your couch is still about as close as that magical unicorn with a money tree strapped to its back.
Leave a comment and let us know about your experience with VOD services and if you use them or still visit the video store.
Flumotion first to implement Google’s WebM video
Last week, one of Google’s big announcements at the Google I/O conference, was the new VP8 codec as part of the WebM Project. In an effort to show just how agile they are, video streaming software company Flumotion turned around a demo site using exactly that codec in just 48 hours. Flumotion say is the worlds first live HTTP streaming in the WebM media file format based on the VP8 video codec.
A WebM/VP8 live stream is now available via the Flumotion Demo Site. You need to install a browser that already supports the WebM format, such as a Nightly Build of Mozilla to view the WebM stream in the Demo Site.
I tested the WebM stream with the Mozilla developer preview with varying results. Sometimes the stream would play fine, while other times it suffered from choppy playback. Whilst the demo site doesn’t specifically list it, I tried the latest build of Chromium which is supposed to support the new format. The video image appeared, but did not playback.
It’s very, very early days, so it’s important to remember that this is more proof of concept rather than an actual service you’d visit each day. That said it’s a good start, something keep an eye on.
You can try it yourself at Flumotion’s demo site. For more info check out Flumotion’s blog.
CASPA to require TiVo users to register to browse (updated)
Update
I’ve had confirmation from Hybrid TV PR, makers of TiVo in Australia, that TiVo users will still be able to browse CASPA content without a wallet (registering), but won’t be able to download. This is the current situation, which begs the question, why the email if nothing has changed?
TiVo owners will be familiar with the CASPA menu item that provides access to video on-demand content. This is currently open to browse, but requires signup before downloading even free content, this is about to change.
In an email message to TiVo owners users yesterday, TiVo is now requiring users to create a CASPA wallet (i.e. hand over your credit card) to even browse the store. If users can’t preview the content before signing up, I’m not sure how they are expected to know why they’d want CASPA in the first place.
Thanks TiVo, but I’ll pass. Now I have a dead menu item, not the best user experience. Just let me hide CASPA and I’ll be happy.
More @ TiVo
YouTube Audio Transcription broken, hates Australians
Announced on the 5th of March, YouTube had added audio transcription to videos in an effort to increase accessibility. Just hover over the CC button in the player, then select the ‘Transcribe Audio’ option. Available in 50 different languages, it’s an ambitious venture from Google. One that could potentially open up videos to truly world-wide viewing.
The Transcribe audio feature is currently in beta and they’ve certainly got some work to do. I tested it on one of my videos (obviously have an Australian accent), it got this sentence completely wrong.
In the example below, I actually say the words:
“Hi this is Jason from Wodonga Australia and I think the story of the decade has..”
YouTube Translate interprets what I said as:
”but is this just in from would over a stray a and I think the story of the day Kennedy has”.
Clearly it’s not even close, naturally I wasn’t expecting 100% accuracy here, but this translation is so far off, it’s completely unusable. Have you experienced the same results ?
More @ YouTube and the YouTube Blog
TiVo: Blockbuster I don’t love you anymore
Well only a few days after Valentines Day, we’ve got a breakup on our hands. This morning TiVo announced it will be discontinuing it’s Blockbuster movie rental service.
“Blockbuster Movie Service on TiVo will be permanently closing on Friday 5th March 2010”
There is some important information about the closure of the service.
- Existing customers will have the balance of their accounts refunded automatically.
- Blockbuster movie rentals will disappear from the TiVo interface.
- Movies will continue to be released up until the shutdown date.
The IPTV battle is a tough one that TiVo and CASPA On-Demand will really need to step it up, to have any chance at all. First of all there’s iTunes, with a massive library of content. But more importantly is the newest entrant..
Through the Zune Video Marketplace on Xbox 360 consoles, users can rent and buy movies in both SD and HD quality either by downloading first, but also streaming. The difference here is that Microsoft offers 1080p quality, 5.1 surround sound movies that start streaming instantly using their Smooth Streaming technology.
With the rapid adoption of large HDTVs, high definitely content is becoming a must for consumers. Neither CASPA or Blockbuster offers / offered a HD version. Also in Australia, the number of Xbox 360 owners, is many magnitudes the size of TiVo owners.
If you had to choose, what IPTV service would you use ?
