BT looking again at TV/VOD

BT is preparing to go head-to-head with BSkyB with plans to offer a
television service over a broadband network.

The project is being led by Pierre Danon, the chief executive of BT Retail.
Aimed at driving the take-up of broadband, it would mark the company's first
big foray into broadcasting.

BT has approached ITV and BBC about providing content for the project,
provisionally called "Sky Plus Plus" - a reference to Sky's personal video
recorder, Sky Plus, which enables viewers to record any programme shown over
the previous eight days on to a set-top box.

BT wants to host a much larger archive of up to three months of programmes.
It would transmit them to customers for viewing using its broadband network.

More at http://news.independent.co.uk/busine...p?story=539970
though I disagree with the "huge stress on the network" statement by the
person from the "technology consultancy" and neither would it requre fibre
in the local loop

Regards
Sunil

This would require a large increase in bandwidth for the home user..

After all, you can't get much video down a 512k pipe! Unless you want a
postage stamp sized TV picture!

The only way would be fibre... 10mbit etc. etc...

Doz



"Sunil Sood" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> BT is preparing to go head-to-head with BSkyB with plans to offer a
> television service over a broadband network.
>
> The project is being led by Pierre Danon, the chief executive of BT
Retail.
> Aimed at driving the take-up of broadband, it would mark the company's
first
> big foray into broadcasting.
>
> BT has approached ITV and BBC about providing content for the project,
> provisionally called "Sky Plus Plus" - a reference to Sky's personal video
> recorder, Sky Plus, which enables viewers to record any programme shown
over
> the previous eight days on to a set-top box.
>
> BT wants to host a much larger archive of up to three months of
programmes.
> It would transmit them to customers for viewing using its broadband
network.
>
> More at http://news.independent.co.uk/busine...p?story=539970
> though I disagree with the "huge stress on the network" statement by the
> person from the "technology consultancy" and neither would it requre fibre
> in the local loop
>
> Regards
> Sunil
>
>

On Mon, 12 Jul 2004 11:32:58 +0100, "Doz"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>This would require a large increase in bandwidth for the home user..

A modest increase.

>After all, you can't get much video down a 512k pipe! Unless you want a
>postage stamp sized TV picture!
>
>The only way would be fibre... 10mbit etc. etc...

Not true. Plenty of operators in Europe are offering TV over DSL.
(Fastweb, HomeChoice, Free, Neuf...)

"Steve" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> On Mon, 12 Jul 2004 11:32:58 +0100, "Doz"
> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
> >This would require a large increase in bandwidth for the home user..
>
> A modest increase.
>
> >After all, you can't get much video down a 512k pipe! Unless you want a
> >postage stamp sized TV picture!
> >
> >The only way would be fibre... 10mbit etc. etc...
>
> Not true. Plenty of operators in Europe are offering TV over DSL.
> (Fastweb, HomeChoice, Free, Neuf...)
>
>
>
>

over half meg DSL? I think not.

The only way half meg would work would be to order something, and wait for
it to download. Not ideal. You're looking at 2mbps ideally before it's
decent quality, and that's with mpeg4 type codecs. They'll no doubt use
mpeg2 and use twice that bandwidth.

On Mon, 12 Jul 2004 14:36:28 +0100, "mrlipring"
<mrlipring@@@@hotmail.com> wrote:

>
>"Steve" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>news:(E-Mail Removed).. .
>> On Mon, 12 Jul 2004 11:32:58 +0100, "Doz"
>> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>>
>> >This would require a large increase in bandwidth for the home user..
>>
>> A modest increase.
>>
>> >After all, you can't get much video down a 512k pipe! Unless you want a
>> >postage stamp sized TV picture!
>> >
>> >The only way would be fibre... 10mbit etc. etc...
>>
>> Not true. Plenty of operators in Europe are offering TV over DSL.
>> (Fastweb, HomeChoice, Free, Neuf...)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>over half meg DSL? I think not.

Indeed. (Did I say half meg?)

>
>The only way half meg would work would be to order something, and wait for
>it to download. Not ideal. You're looking at 2mbps ideally before it's
>decent quality, and that's with mpeg4 type codecs. They'll no doubt use
>mpeg2 and use twice that bandwidth.

Yes something in the region of 2-4Mbits/s gives pretty good results.
That's my "modest increase". I was peturbed to see a claim that
10Mbits/s and fibre being required, when they're not.

With TV I suspect there will increasingly be a VBR service to suit the
content quality and type (e.g. fast for sport, slow for talking
heads), rather like satellite broadcast and many DVDs use now. The
end-user won't really see a fixed rate service except possibly for
Internet access and that will probably be at a lower speed anyway.