In this article on TV over the Internet, aka IPTV, Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, "supports [the] hope that consumer demand exists for millions of channels. Mr. Hastings says Netflix ships 35,000 unique DVDs to subscribers in the U.S. every day. He also believes that IPTV will give rise to a tidal wave of new programming. 'The web is a bastion of freedom, and the rate of creation is unbelievable,' he says."
Imagine 35,000 titles being downloaded by 3 million people each day. How much bandwidth would you need?
Imagine 3 million people all downloading a million discs each day. If they were available by download, that number could increase to 3 million downloads per day. Demand would surely increase. Netflix members and visitors already watch more than 90,000 movie trailers per day on the Netflix website.
It is currently possible to watch or download movies legally on the internet at sites such as CinemaNow.com. A feature-length movie at DVD quality can be as large as 5 gigabytes which can tie up a broadband connection for hours, let alone a dial-up connection. You can begin watching a movie over the internet immediately if you are willing to put up with low quality streaming, again a broadband connection would be preferred.
ReplyDeleteAll Netflix subscribers must access the internet from time to time, but that does not mean they have a broadband connection or a computer with the system requirements necessary to play back video. CinemaNow.com requires subscribers to have Windows Media Player 9. Windows Media Player 9 for Mac does not support access to subscription content as far as I know.