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Despite the increasing penetration of broadband Net connections, there's simply not a lot of useful streaming video content and what little there is still doesn't perform that well.

So what went wrong and is there an alternative?

Firstly, I think that everyone was just to overly optimistic. There's no way you're going to get good, reliable, broadcast-like TV quality over the Net -- there are simply too many points where the traffic can get held up or lost.

Then there's the bandwidth problem.

In order to get good quality TV-like images you need megabits of bandwidth, not just hundreds of kilobits. Your average DSL connection just isn't going to do the job.

The other mistake made early on was that people would be content to watch highly pixelated images just a few centimetres in size on their computer monitor. In most cases a picture that small and fuzzy simply can't convey enough information to be either useful or entertaining.

Readers Say (updated irregularly) Yes, I'd download... - Allister Yes this is already... - Craig 300MB via Telecom?... - David dnl movies tv shows... - bede downloading programmes... - TomV Have Your Say

So is video-over-the-Net dead until such time as we all have 10Mb/S connections and all the bumps in the information superhighway are paved over?

Well no.

Video on the Net is actually alive and well; very well in fact. However, I'm not talking about streaming video, I'm talking about what amounts to a low-tech video on demand.

Right now, millions of people are illegally sharing video files of their favourite TV programmes and movies over the Net through various P2P networks and usenet newsgroups.

Modern compression software allows a full 45-minute TV programme to be compressed down to as little as 350MB at near-broadcast quality levels in full stereo sound.

Even with your lowly JetStream Starter connection chugging along at a humble 100Kbps, downloading a file this size will take just over nine hours.

"But 9 hours is a long time to wait for a 45 minute programme" I hear you say.

Yes, perhaps it is -- but don't forget that computers are happy to carry out such tasks while you're asleep or at work. Go to bed at 10pm and by the time you're ready to leave for work in the morning the latest episode of your favourite TV series is already on your hard drive ready to watch when you get home.

Now let me make it quite clear that I'm not advocating piracy here. What I am trying to do is point out that there's a huge potential for valid commerce to be based around this overnight download video model.

Given that it costs between $29.95 and $39.95 to buy episodes of many popular TV series on videotape at Whitcouls and the like, why not make that same content available over the Net for a slightly lower price?

I've seen a few of these series on videotape advertised on TV recently and if I weren't so lazy I'd probably get of my fat bum and buy some. Certainly if I had a broadband connection I would have already broken out the credit card and downloaded them if they were available online.

And budding young TV producers -- why not create your own content and make it available for download in this way? There must be a myriad of NZ short films and documentaries that are presently languishing in filing cabinets somewhere. Why doesn't someone round them up and stick them on a server -- perhaps offering the first few minutes for free and the rest on a per-download or subscription basis?

UPDATE: An anonymous reader has advised that there is local site offering short film downloads at www.lessfilm.co.nz to which I say *GREAT* - but why oh why did they have to choose the cumbersome and comparitively poor quality QuickTime format???. What's wrong with offering MPEG, DivX or (shudder) Windows Media as an option?

Perhaps our Arts-loving PM will see fit to throw some money at anyone who decides to create such a service as an aid to the Arts community?

Even the yet to get going Maori Television Service might like to give us a taste of what's to come by throwing some of what must by now be its huge inventory of programmes onto the Net for download.

Now that most home PCs can burn video to CDR in a format compatible with their DVD players (VCD or SVCD), the two biggest hurdles facing video on the Net (quality and how it's viewed) are instantly overcome.

Right now there are probably a few people saying "but people will steal our programmes -- there must be copy protection", to which I say phooey!

Believe it or not, most people already have VCRs and they can tape whatever is broadcast into their homes via VHF, UHF or satellite transmissions. So why should the Net be treated differently?

Sure, digital media can be copied easily and without loss of quality -- but it's now trivial for anyone to convert a broadcast TV programme into a digital format anyway so I think fears of piracy are unfounded.

What do you think?

Would you like a legal way to download locally produced and selected overseas TV programming from a locally-based server so that no international traffic charges were involved?

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