"unused" portion of their DSL lines to broadcast video signals.

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob Frankston <Bob19-0501 () bobf frankston com>
Date: June 11, 2005 3:22:18 PM EDT
To: "'Damien V. Del Porto'" <damien () delporto org>, 'Brad Templeton'  
<btm () templetons com>
Cc: 'Bob Frankston' <Bob2-19-0501 () bobf frankston com>,  
dave () farber net, 'Ip ip' <ip () v2 listbox com>, "'David P. Reed'"  
<dpreed () reed com>
Subject: RE: [IP] "unused" portion of their DSL lines to broadcast  
video signals.


Interesting that it's UDP based though the stream is designated NTSC  
or PAL.
Now that we're starting to see DIVX and XVID DVD players starting to  
appear
how long before these IP-based streams liberate themselves from the  
preset
parameters of TV and simply become streams.

That would allow a far more rapid evolution of protocols than HDTV or  
MPEG4.
Instead of discussing what Congress should be legislating the  
marketplace
will work -- just like it is in Spain and the US in increasing the  
bit rates
even if not as fast as I would like for now.

You should try to find out if you can get that 4mbps for yourself  
instead of
just using it as a video stream. Since it really is UDP it's a more
transparent story than today's cable modems and worth pursuing as an
opportunity to explore the policy and business issues.

-----Original Message-----
From: Damien V. Del Porto [mailto:damien () delporto org]
Sent: Saturday, June 11, 2005 15:08
To: Brad Templeton
Cc: Bob Frankston; dave () farber net; 'Ip ip'; David P. Reed
Subject: Re: [IP] "unused" portion of their DSL lines to broadcast video
signals.

The channels are broadcast one at a time.  The box they install requests
the channel from the central office.  The signal travels from the
decoder box to the router (which is assigned two IPs on different
subnets, one for the internet and one for the tvs) and onto the CO,
which then beams back the required information.  I have taken a look at
it and the way it actually works is that each channel is assigned an IP
and a unique port (8208).  It uses UDP.  I have managed to hack my
router so that I can divert the signal to my PC.  Im working on getting
the PC to act like a TIVO.

An interesting anecdote, as far as the bandwidth is concerned, is that I
was originally setup with the decoder box set to NTSC instead of PAL.
The technician didn't catch the problem because I have a multisystem
TV.  The signal was stuttering every 5 seconds or so until I figured out
that I had to switch it to PAL.  I was told on a forum that the reason
was that the NTSC data was slightly bigger because the resolution was
higher.  Which goes to show that what they've managed only barely fits
in the assigned bandwidth.  -d

Brad Templeton wrote:


> On Sat, Jun 11, 2005 at 01:07:12PM -0400, Bob Frankston wrote:
>
>
>
> > using the "unused" portion of their DSL lines to broadcast video
> > signals. There are some 40 channels (there are only 5-7 channels
> > available over the air and w/o satellite). The DSL line charges,
> > ...
> > the service is using 4 Mbits or so of the total 6-8 available. The
> > base subscriber package is 512/128 (which will be doubled for free
> > next month to 1M/320), and can scale up to 2.
>
> I have to admit, 40 channels of quality TV in 4 megabits is not  
> something
> I would have believed possible.  That's just 100 kbits per channel.
>
> Are you sure about these numbers?  I would venture the need for  
> more like
> a megabit.    MP2 transmission in the usa uses between 9 and 15  
> megabits
> for HDTV and 3.5 megabits for SDTV, digital cable and satellite use  
> less
> and with MP4 you can drop much lower, but nowhere close to 100kbits.
>
> On the other hand, you could do a bittorrent style cable channel to  
> DSL
> customers with today's bandwidth.




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