Is Web Video the Future of TV?
CNN reports on the merging of the Internet and TV, and concludes that we’re nearing a point where the preferred mode of distribution for video content would be over the Web–it’s nothing like how it was imagined in the early dot-com days of the 1990’s.
From independent producers like Mondo Media to big media companies like MTV, and even kids who post videos on community sites like YouTube.com, the World Wide Web is becoming a sort of worldwide TV network for audiences seeking offbeat entertainment not shown on mainstream television.
… this new wave of Web video is fueled by the rising number of people with high-speed Internet access which makes video watchable on PCs. Moreover, younger audiences are increasingly accustomed to watching video on PCs and laptops.
I’m personally not too optimistic about this all. I just don’t get why some people are so enthusiastic about being able to view videos on the Web. In reality, it’s really crappy and slow, no matter the speed of your broadband connection or your computer’s processor. And then there’s no really interesting content people would want to watch, unless you’re a techie (think DIGGnation, Digital Life TV, TWiT). It’s like that because there is still no standard means by which video content can be delivered via the Web.
There are early attempts at compressing videos good enough for Internet delivery, such as the .H264 MPEG-4 standard. But until these protocols and standards are finalized, and all video-producing websites adopt the standards, then we’ll be stuck with a hodgepodge of different technologies. This means one website will offer different quality and speeds as compared to another. And most sites just offer crappy Flash or Swf versions of videos at very small resolutions with very low refresh/FPS rates.
As for content distribution, the mainstream media people are still, well, for mainstream media. There isn’t much of a business model from Internet video content, anyway, at this point. Consider that not everyone has broadband access, and that not everyone is keen on watching shows online. We still haven’t hit that sweet spot in the convergence between home entertainment and computing. So people would rather watch videos and shows on their television sets, and not on their computer screens. There’s the cool factor of video-on-demand, of course, but showing crappy 5-minute imagery on your computer would prove to be very uncomfortable. I’m a geek, and I love tech podcasts, but I seldom have the patience to download high-quality video versions (takes half a day in my speeds). What more if I were just your everyday, ordinary person?
To me, the point when the Web has turned into a world-wide TV network is when most of the civilized world already has IPTV set-top-boxes or IPTV-ready television sets, and could just surf for shows or subscribe to shows on their television sets, right in the comfort of their living rooms. Otherwise, we would just be fooling ourselves with overhyped video-on-Web systems that are likely to be unsustainable.
1 Comment »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a comment
|
[…] Of course, this is still a step behind IPTV–as this is more aptly considered under “Web video.” But it’s a good step towards eventually showing everything via the Internet. […]
Pingback by ABC to offer shows online - Televisions Blog — April 11, 2006 @ 11:14 pm