Internet Founding Father Predicts End Of Tv

[LaoPo]

Internet founding father predicts end of TV

Vint Cerf, one of the founding fathers of the internet, is now the vice-president of the world's leading search engine Google

Vint Cerf, one of the founding fathers of the internet, has predicted the end of traditional television, saying that television was approaching its "iPod moment".

Viewers would soon be downloading most of favourite TV programmes onto their computers in the same way that they now download music onto their iPod, the Daily Telegraph reported on Monday.

"85% of all video we watch is pre-recorded, so you can set your system to download it all the time," Cerf was quoted by the Daily Telegraph as saying.

"You're still going to need live television for certain things - like news, sporting events and emergencies - but increasingly it is going to be almost like the iPod, where you download content to look at later."

Cerf, who helped build the internet while working as a researcher at Stanford University in California in 1970s, is now the vice-president of the world's leading search engine Google.com.

Talking at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival, he told the audience that the developments of internet TV would continue, and that people would soon be watching the majority of our television through the internet.

However, some critics, including a number of internet service providers, have warned that the increasing number of people downloading video would lead to the collapse of the internet.

Cerf rejected the warning as "scare tactics". Some pundits had predicted 20 years ago that the net would collapse when people started using it en masse, he said.

"It's an understandable worry when they see huge amounts of information being moved around online," he said. "In the intervening 30 years it's increased a million times over ... We're far from exhausting the capacity."

From: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2007-08...ent_6062225.htm

LaoPo

[Gary A]

I'd have to say the TV is quite safe here in the Kingdom for the foreseeable future. My high speed satellite broadband is not even capable of listening to the radio.

By the way, Al Gore invented the Internet.

[chinthee]

Yah, I agree. TV's safe here as long as the undersea cable capacity remains limited, and the internet core backbones are so poor, not to mention the local access problems we see complained about by so many members. Add to this the confusion at the regulatory body, NTC, and we will be in for several more years of the same, thank you very much...not.

[Carmine6]

"people would soon be watching the majority of our television through the internet."

I predict that people will soon be driving flying cars. Ask me in 20 years how many "people" I meant and how "soon" I was talking about.

Edited August 28, 2007 by Carmine6

[bkk_mike]

I already watch several TV series on my computer.

(not streaming - downloaded, and ran from the hard disk)

Admittedly - I do have Joost, it's just that the internet here doesn't make it an enjoyable experience, whereas it works well in other parts of the world.

[LivinLOS]

Even with Thai internet speeds a lot of what I watch is either timeshifted (consider that downloaded from the TV broadcasts) or downloaded.. Then add in series's you will pick up entire seasons on DVD's, or DL the Hidef for archiving.. All adds into media and TV becoming less something sent to you on thier schedules.

So put me in the camp that agrees in theory and probably in the parts of the world that have enough infrastructure.

[nikster]

Totally agree. Some factors:

- Most TV programming has better alternatives online and/or on DVD. For anything not live, I'd much rather watch at my convenience, whenever and wherever I want. TiVo is a crutch to tide us over until all is available on-line and in good quality. DVDs are a crutch for us here in LOS where DVDs are cheap and good quality and internet is slow.

- It's only a matter of time until all non-live TV content is available on-line. The iTunes store is a good example of how to do that, I hope others will follow. It's a better business model for both consumers and content creators so it will win in the end. The growth of this model is curbed by incumbent cable / SAT companies and rights issues but it can't be stopped.

- The internet will get faster fast, even in LOS. Well - at least after the next elections, not with the geriatric government we have at the moment.

Live TV is the only thing where TV really makes any sense, and that's going to be covered by Joost and others which already provide a lot more channels and options than the cable/Sat monopolies in different countries. Internet TV can offer much better deals. For example, I had to subscribe to the Gold package just to see some PL matches. In the future, I will buy Premiership access from the Premiership league and watch only that, and good riddance to the Hallmark channel and all the other crap on UBC. Whoops, sorry for ranting

This will take a much longer time though because live TV will be HD and that ups the ante considerably as far as required bandwidth is concerned. Most places in the world do not have this kind of bandwidth widely available.

The age of TV is nearing its end. Slowly

Edited August 29, 2007 by nikster

[Phil Conners]

It's already there. Only thing we watch on TV is news, everything else is downloaded from the Internet (Bittorrent), including movies, sitcoms, series, documentaries. It will not be possible to watch Internet content in real-time but popular content is downloaded reasonably quickly and we don't have a problem waiting until the next day to watch something when the benefits are so many: much better video and sound quality, choice, option to watch when it suits us, no ads,.. the list goes on.

[Plus]

You are talking about content, not the experience.

People just drop in front of the TV, pickup the remote and say "Entertain me!".

Internet can't provide that any time soon. Flicking through the channels to see what else is on is technically years away. Centuries in case of Thailand.

TV will be obsolete when Internet speeds of getting content on the screen, including buffering, approach those or radio transmissions.

[LivinLOS]

Have you tried joost ??

Its exactly what you say but with the 'entertain me' question having a search box asking what you wish to be entertained by.. In the west you hit a channel and it loads and plays.. In Thailand its a bit low rez and jerky of course. IMO joost is playing chicken and egg with content, its interesting but not enough to get me 100%.. Now if they allowed user content, and the piracy that would entail, then it would be the new TV.

So technically its certainly not years away..

[Plus]

When I say techinically years away I mean instant buffering of High Def streams. Thailand speeds don't allow High Def streaming at all, the quality of streaming content here is worse than that of regular TV.

Still it takes about a minute minimum to tune to a different channel and it takes about a second to decide that it's crap.

Also the "remote" problem - people want to slouch on their sofas, computers need remote controls, too, and no fussying with on-creen menus - choices are confusing.

>>>>

So far joost refused to work on office network and I doubt it will work on WiFi either - it doesn't do proxies. I'll try at home.

[LivinLOS]

Well I have much of my HTPC system button press.. Where that falls down tho is searching.. You need text input. But look at some of the slicker MCE keyboards, or consider a simplistic alphanumeric remote system (2 way touchscreen device like a tablet PC remote) that would be fairly tricial to implement. Joost is a very couch friendly interface tho, big buttons etc.

Agreed for HiDef that its not quite here yet (tho I dont think its years and centuries away myself).. Not exactly got much HiDef competition here in the Thai market tho have we ?? I love going to large stores with 30 - 50 plasma and LCD TV's many with the 'full 1080' stickers and asking them what to use to play anything 1080.. Not one store I went in so far has had a HD-DVD or Blu Ray player yet.