Flash TV -- the broadcasters'' nightmare

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Flash TV -- the broadcasters'' nightmare
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 2006 13:04:50 -0500
From: Bob Frankston <Bob19-0501 () bobf frankston com>
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>

Following up on the idea of "Open Source Telecom" we can think about open
source TV. I saw a piece in the NYT today about a new show "Kappa Mikey"
(http://www.animationcollective.com/news/news02062006.htm) from The
Animation Collective. What makes it interesting is that it is done in
Flash. Doing animation in Flash is nothing new nor is the idea of
simplified production (as with South Park or even Clutch Cargo nearly half
a century ago).



Flash content doesn't take much network capacity because it is coded mostly
as objects. It avoids the whole the need to compress - it is a compressed
format. What is strange is rendering it as video at the head end and then
recompressing it as MPEG2 (or MPEG4) for transmission and then doing an
analog decompression. This destroys the integrity of the content (AKA
signal).



This is not just about bypass, this is about simply getting the real signal
through. It's a scenario that is far worse for the broadcasters than bypass
because it is changing the rules in a way that makes the paths they control
a liability not an asset.



Bob Frankston

http://www.frankston.com <http://www.frankston.com/>




-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as lists-ip () insecure org
To manage your subscription, go to
  http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/