So, as stated in my last post, I managed to go through one of my newsgroups today and found some interesting articles that somewhat pertain to my post about TV I wrote the other night. The first is an Inlet Technologies and Microsoft team up, of sorts. Inlet is a “technology provider” of new media. On their website they proclaim their product can “produce the highest quality video, faster and more efficiently than any other solution.” Now, Inlet has announced its technology will fully support the Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS7) Smooth Streaming Technology. The new Smooth Streaming will broadcast live and VoD over the Internet at true HD (720p+) and “switches seamlessly between multiple streams, depending on the available bandwidth and PC performance at any given moment. The best possible quality video stream is automatically delivered to the end user without stuttering, dropped frames or buffering.” The two will be demonstrating it at the MIX09 conference. I guess we will have to wait for MIX09 to see how well this works. It is great that Microsoft is rolling out potentially awesome new products when Internet Explorer is still one of the worst browsers at interpreting web standards and Vista was beta testing for Windows 7, a very expensive beta test for the user.
Yet I go on, it will make sense in the end, don’t worry. Anyway, I also read an article that is all about watching your favorite television shows on your PC...on your television. It seems to be written by a very un-Internet savvy person, who watched HD quality television shows and movies using his PC and TV, no cable box. The article starts:
Movies, TV shows and other entertaining video are now so plentiful online that "Internet TV" may become mass-media entertainment.
Being generous, that would have been a startling revelation 5 years ago. Now it is commonplace for people to watch TV shows and movies on their computers with only using an Internet connection. It may be a generational gap, but again, refer to my earlier post about TV and take into consideration my boss who is four years older than me and during the debates he hooked up his TV to his computer and watched the debates live with a group of friends over. He said he stopped getting cable a year ago when he realized everything he wants to watch is online.
Regardless, the article is all about the ease this writer had with hooking his TV up to his computer and the great quality that is retained. He even praised S-video as a viable option, quoting his wife describing it as, “pretty good and certainly watchable.” He does bring up a valid point. Though I am used to watching videos on my computer, my coworkers do it, and my friends most certainly do it, not everyone does. I don’t understand why, but some people have a weird disdain and prejudice to it. However, with new technology making streaming clearer and more stable, as we saw above (I can’t believe I am using Microsoft as an example for something good), and the ease of connecting your computer to your TV, there is a strong chance that the computer will become the new family entertainment device. Especially if this man’s article reaches a lot of eyes, teaching a large portion of the population how easy it is and considering the economic downturn. People are looking to cut costs and one way is bills. If people start realizing how easy it is to watch what they want online and how easy it is to make sure their new HD sets don’t go to waste, then one common cost that might start being cut is their cable bill in favor for the Internet. This could happen.
Side Note: Apparently my point about American Idol in my first post is all based on a lie.
Coming up next: Radio revisits the 1950s and why it's going to happen.
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