Om asks whether we really need the speed of broadband?

Look Inside To Discover How To Butea Superba

I got an easy answer to that one:DVD
Or whatever they will call this (holographic) disc that will contain 900GB+ of data.

...iptv boxes that require ... a 30mbps line is certainly just what iptv should/will NOT be since obvioulsy it doesn't make any sense to roll out a mass market product that requires a bandwidth that masses can't afford and mostly because iptv will in a near future get rid of any (setup) box ! and be just pure sw for standard devices !

I suspect IPTV is a little further off than people expect. Not because of last-mile bandwidth limitations (though we still need a bit more juice!) but because multicast traffic deployment is still immature within the provider networks.

And without multicast switching it's too expensive a propostion.

4 on one screen is an application problem, not a bandwidth problem. 4 receivers, 4 decoders - these are boxes, not bandwidth.

Jeremy, you're pitching 4 - whats's the magic about 4?

Antoin, the last mile is the issue and probably what Om was talking about.

As one who knows all about VoIP, I have no problem with IP or bandwidth requests (though VoIP takes less bandwidth than some people believe), but IP adds overhead to Voice. So, I would guess that the IP in IPTV would add overhead to Video. And modern cable systems today are capable of broadcasting over a dozen HD channels simultaneously.

As we've seen over the last year, the broadcast HD seems to work well. It gets picked up, encoded with DivX and put on the Torrents in no time. That's where we need the bandwidth.

I work for a Telco that is currently deploying IPTV. We are deploying MPEG4 and plan to deliver upto 4 simultaneous HD channels. This is going to be over ADSL and FTTH links of upto 20Mbs.

VOD isn't anymore bandwidth intensive than HD to the last mile. The bandwidth requirement is on the transport of the provider to the service delivery network. The customer doesn't see an increase in need for bandwidth. The service provider, however, does need an increased amount of bandwidth for each unicast vod session.

Brandon: you should see it. Watch the video when I have that up. Speaking of which, gotta get some videos through the system. Seeya!

Robert, Antoin and Jake are correct.

If you had 2 digital cable boxes on different TVs, they could watch different HD channels no problem.

But there are several issues:

1) What if you wanted to watch on-Demand channels (which most cable companies offer). Can they do it in HD? Can it do more than 1 at once? This is where IPTV and big pipes come in.

2) What resolution an encoding are they using? I'm not sure if Comcast is using MPEG2 like most or some WMV variant (since they're using the Microsoft-powered Motorola boxes and I think Microsoft TV Foundation software). But I'm betting that it's not perfect.

the way cable works is as a broadcast, not as a unicast or multicast like the Internet. The only reason you can't see four channels at once is because of the limitations of the hardware you have. Unless the architecture of your cable system is very sophisticated, if you had four cable boxes, you'd certainly be able to watch four channels at once.

On the other side of the argument, if you were prepared to put up with time-lagged television in return for being able to watch what you wanted when you wanted, and you had the broadcast-style cable network to deliver business-time-critical stuff like sports results, then you wouldn't necessarily need that much more bandwidth than we have today.

The thing about bandwidth is that it is now so cheap and plentiful, you might as well have loads of it. Fiber technology vastly reduces the operating cost of a high-speed network, and that saving is only beginning to come through to consumers now.

The only exception is in the last mile, where for various dumb business and technical reasons we don't have that much fiber, and we don't have much bandwidth either.

Jake: my Comcast box (the latest available) only gets one HDTV channel at a time. Can you have four channels on the same screen at the same time? If so, what area do you live in?

Really? Those different HDTV sets with cable boxes on YESHD, HBOHD and FOXHD are not being broadcast at the same time?

What is Cablevision doing? Are they interlacing the broadcast to my home so it only appears that I'm receiving multiple HD channels?

i've always been disturbed by the 'need' idea when it comes to many things. for one, we don't live a subsistence existence. for another, the more transparent a utility such as communications is, the better. i'm sure he gets far more electricity and water to his house than he actually needs.

Yep, and I've got the perfect first Media Center show for high def. Channel 9.

that's an easy one, we wont EVER need more than 64K, that's ridiculous

Jake: your cable company doesn't deliver them all at the same time. Sorry. Watch the video when I put it up. The ability to watch four channels of video AT THE SAME TIME is stunning.

My cable network delivers a dozen HDTV channels without broadband today.

Valve and Steam have been delivering the half life games over "regular" pipes for a couple of years now.

Has OM been on the christmas juice early? Homechoice is a UK company that is delivering IPTV today in London.

It requires an 8mb pipe in order to deliver 30fps TV and this is simply MPEG4 encoding and not HDTV. Sweden already offers 8mb+ as standard as they do in Korea.

Vod, VoIP, IPTV Wifi, UWB and Mesh Networks are all examples of services that will require fat pipes to and in the home and they are just the ones I can list today. Sorry OM we do need faster and fatter bandwidth.

Sam

Another usage:

Imagine the Xbox Live Arcade - for full games (ie. several GB and growing).

Sure, it makes GameStop and Hollywood Video cringe - but I think it's inevitable.

I think the future of the PC will be in services, a fully world wide distrbuted computing grid. Essentially we are all using the processing power of our machines collectivly.

This will require A LOT of bandwidth, and this whole concept of the operating system as we know it, will be completly ancient in less than two decades.

hdtv will push the need for broadband yes, but in the end i think distrbuted computing will make it a necessisty to have such fat pipes.