Re: Triple Play [was: CAUTION: Potentially Dumb Question...]

[Christian Kuhtz <kuhtzch () corp earthlink net>]

On Feb 6, 2006, at 11:17 PM, Sean Donelan wrote:
> On Mon, 6 Feb 2006, Bora Akyol wrote:
> > > He hasn't taken broadcast TV delivery into account in the
> > > Triple Play scenario.  You gotta plumb them packets good for that...
> >
> > I don't watch anything live anymore, all via Tivo. If Tivo could
> > do bittorrent and download the content, then would I need
> > broadcast?
>
> Broadcast remains an extremely efficient method for bulk  
> distribution of
> content to those TiVo's even if you watch everything on a delay.  Some
> grad student can probably write a thesis what the cross-over point  
> is for
> different use conditions.  FedEx vs. P2P vs. Unicast vs. Broadcast  
> vs. ???

If you're near real time, you have lots of options actually. And I  
would contend that p2p can be efficient for broadcast distribution  
actually.  There already are several startups doing exactly that for  
large scalability.

> I think BitTorrent is successfull because that's where the content
> people want is.  I don't think users actually care much about the
> protocols.  We've seen how fickle users can be, quickly migrating
> to different protocols/applications depending on where the content
> they want is.  Are there any Gopher servers left?

No actual end user (other than the geek crowd) will ever care that  
it's BitTorrent or whatever.  Agreed.  But that doesn't mean a  
bastardization of the idea won't run underneath.

Best regards,
Christian