[opendtv] Re: Spectrum is too valuable

  • From: Craig Birkmaier <brewmastercraig@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2015 08:51:28 -0500

On Nov 23, 2015, at 9:50 PM, Manfredi, Albert E <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:


Yes, and people are bailing out. The slow pace at which these changes are
occurring is in large measure caused by consumers who are slow to change -
fearful of what might lie beyond. It's true. There's real anxiety there. But
since the younger crowd don't seem to share in this paralyzing dread, it's
only a matter of time.

Yes there is real fear and anxiety out there, but it is being driven from the
city you live next to, and the media that supports the fundamental
transformation we are experiencing. The younger crowd is a REAL cause for
anxiety - a generation raised to believe that capitalism is our biggest
problem, and that they need protection from the freedoms that helped build this
country to the level where we can afford to spend hundreds of billions on
entertainment.

I think I see a fleet of black SUVs outside the house now...

;-)

Sometimes it is really hard to take you seriously...

When a better mousetrap becomes available, it gets used because consumers
demand it, and the new replaces what came before. Finding myself having to
belabor the obvious again.

You are completely ignoring the obvious. What is being replaced is the means by
which we consume the vast libraries of content that came before...

I have explained this too many times, but you cannot grasp the reality of it.

VOD is replacing packaged media - just ask the guys who made a good living
putting Movie and TV content on DVDs. I still subscribe to an e-mail list for
that industry, and they are filled with fear and anxiety. And they put the guys
who put content on VHS tapes out of business.

So people now subscribe to Netflix, download content from Amazon and iTunes,
and watch some of their shows via Hulu or an App.

As I pointed out yesterday, the cabled MVPDs built the infrastructure to make
this possible and now are enjoying the profits of crony capitalism.

Meanwhile people watch more TV than ever, and the popular linear networks are
thriving. Together with the content owners, they are controlling the
fundamental transformation of how we pay for our entertainment fixes and how
the drugs are administered.

But they got there. And so will the cable companies' transition to IP.
Kicking and screaming couldn't matter less.

The cable companies are not kicking and screaming - they are feasting on this
transition. And they are meeting the demand for broadband as it develops.

I still do not understand why you are still limping along with DSL...

Fear and Anxiety?

Later on, Craig. You must have been sound asleep all those years. H.263 was
initially developed for ISDN, fixed rate 64 Kb/s lines, but it also got used
over IP. H.264 came later, originally called H.26L while in development.
There was plenty of media streaming going on already, in those years,
although the quality was not that good. Going to full screen always returned
a soft image.

Tell me something I don't know Bert.

h.263 was never used to stream entertainment via the Internet. It was designed
for low latency applications - specifically teleconferencing.

In case you don't understand what low latency means, it is related to the delay
introduced by encoders during the video compression process. Long encoding
delays are problematic for video conferencing.

MPEG-2 is a high latency codec, which is fine for non real time applications,
and for broadcasts where the only real issue is delaying the associated audio
to maintain lip sync.

h.264 was designed to accommodate both low and high latency applications with
profiles that are optimized for a range of applications. The standard was
released in May of 2003, and was fully commercialized by 2005.

Apple started selling h.264 encoded video content via iTunes in the fall of
2005: the service was optimized for downloads, not streaming, due to the
limitations of broadband at that time. The DBS systems started deploying h.264
in 2006, first for local TV channels, then later for all new HD channels.

Prior to the commercializations of h.264, everybody and their brother was
trying to create the codec that would make on demand streaming via the Internet
a viable reality. I worked on MPEG standards, with Apple and Adobe, and with
many of the private companies developing these codecs. I worked with Duck
Corporation, that developed the True-motion codecs, that begat ON2 and the VP
series of codecs used in FLASH; that was purchased by Google in 2010 to form
the basis for their WebM open source codec.

Tell me something I don't know Bert.

I was watching full length TV episodes before H.264 was deployed, which is
why I noticed when suddenly the PC couldn't keep up with the H.264 streams.

It was certainly possible if you could tolerate the long pre-load times to
handle the necessary buffering. I did it too. Anything live was pathetic.

I remember arguing with other industry analysts about the quality of live
streaming for coverage of Apple and Microsoft product launch events. And I
remember waiting and waiting and waiting to watch short video clips.

Yes some folks tried to stream TV content with technology that was not ready
for prime time. The content conglomerates were not among them, as the article
you cited later in your post proves. Besides, they were still fighting the DRM
wars, and did not release anything of value until the platforms were secure.

Anything of decent quality required downloading, as I explained; I started
downloading movies to my laptop to view when traveling in 2006.

Netflix launched their streaming service with h.264 in 2007.

You claim to have been an early adopter, then tell us you did not have a PC
capable of reliable decoding of h.264 streams until 2010. Then again, you
championed FLASH until it "disappeared."

In fact, in some cases in those early days, some of the codecs wouldn't allow
full screen viewing. But I was already watching full length episodes for
catch-up purposes. In those days, very much presented on the web sites
associated with the day of the week when the program aired "live."

Not in the time frame you claim.

This article is from March of 2006. Which means it is describing what was
going on in 2005. There was already plenty of TV streaming going on then,
although I don't see explicit mention of full length episodes from the major
TV networks. But the mid-2000s sounds about right.

That's because the networks did not start streaming full length episodes in
2005, or 2006 for that matter.

And this is why it sounds so absurd to me when the trade scribes attribute TV
over the Internet to AppleTV or similar, limited, johnny-come-lately boxes.
And also your insistence that this all started ca. 2010.

I've never heard anyone claim that Apple was responsible for video over the
Internet. They did start working on the problem in the early '90s when we were
working on the DTV standard. And they did play a significant role in the
development of h.264.

Apple TV was a "hobby" for years. That's about to change. But it will compete
with all the other devices that pull TV content from the Internet.

And I never claimed that streaming full length programs started in 2010. I have
told you several times that Netflix and Hulu starts doing this in 2007. I DID
tell you that significant growth of online streaming started in 2010. Here is a
chart that illustrates this point:

JPEG image




To be fair, Netflix took off in 2009, but they were ahead of the curve. This
chart reflect all connected TV homes:

PNG image



IMMEDIATELY is not happening.

Immediately can happen. You were claiming that this would take decades, but
it could happen anytime. The only technical issue may be in distributing the
needed edge server capacity. But that does not require digging up
neighborhoods or making house calls.

At least you are consistent on this point. But wanting and getting are not the
same thing.

Edge servers are not the problem. They are being deployed as needed.

And broadband upgrades are being deployed as needed.

But the total switchover you desire will require more PONs, and other
infrastructure upgrades. 1.788 GHz cable systems are still several years out.

This should tell you something Bert. The MVPDs are not controlling
this transition.

The MVPDs are controlling their end of it.

Only with respect to the infrastructure and some of the devices that connect to
it. The reality is that the MVPDs are enabling the transition you desire, and
if the Title II decision survives the court tests, they will have another
entrenched oligopoly.

And the congloms have been and continue to migrate to Internet delivery all
by themselves. No conglom is insisting that cable companies MUST continue to
use broadcast MPEG-2 TS streams, Craig. AT&T has had an IPTV network for
years and years.

What part about "controlling the migration to the Internet" do you not
understand?

Obviously they are migrating, and the business models are evolving to take
advantage of the ability to offer TV Everywhere, not just at the end of an
umbilical cord (or an antenna).

The congloms do not care much about the underlying delivery technology. Yes
some MVPDs have been using h.264 for years. That decision was driven by their
business models and the time the investments were made.

DBS started deploying h.264 capable STBs in 2006 because they are bandwidth
constrained. AT&T U-verse and Verizon FIOS deployed h.264 STBs because there
was no reason to use the legacy (and expensive) MPEG-2 standard, when h.264 was
available as they started to overbuild cable systems.

Cable is not bandwidth constrained Bert. They are having no problem keeping up
with demand for MULTIPLE services. The longer they can keep generating profits
from legacy investments, the more they make.

Waiting is worth money too. The technology is still evolving rapidly, and each
new generation gets cheaper, and/or leverages earlier investments.

Regards
Craig

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