Comments on: Google: Web is OK for TV (despite what you may have read)

By: ¿Está el mundo listo para la WebTV? | estotal.com · : ·

¿Está el mundo listo para la WebTV? | estotal.com · : · — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 08:36:44 +0000

[...] tal punto que pocos días después de decir que Internet no está pensada para la TV, se retractaron con meridiana claridad para evitar reacciones adversas de sus inversores tras la compra de YouTube. Yo desde luego estoy [...]

By: scouta blog » Blog Archive » Google Ready For TV

scouta blog » Blog Archive » Google Ready For TV — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 22:01:48 +0000

[...] at Giga Om, has dug into the article a lot more and discovered the quote is out of context. “Some remarks [...]

By: Robert Stone

Robert Stone — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 19:37:00 +0000

Google brings up a good point. However, it is more appplicable to mobile video and mobile multimedia. MobiTV, Verizon and CNN all had big news this week regarding their mobile television rollouts.

However, the big pink elephant in the room that no one is talking about is the inability of the WIRELESS networks to scale and met this issue. Today’s wireless and cellular networks are not able to even meet the demands of voice and data. What happens when billions of new users start doing real time video and real time multimedia?

How pissed off are you going to be when the video breaks up or you drop the connection just as the winning goal gets scored? There are a bunch of companies working to fix this problem - to ensure scalability of the next generation wireless architecture. Check out companies like Kontron, Artesyn and Enea (link) .

By: Jesse Kopelman

Jesse Kopelman — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 23:17:35 +0000

MnZ, that is a good point and I find it perfectly reasonable to be against specific “Net Neutrality” legislation. What I have a problem with is being against the true concept of Net Neutrality.

By: MnZ

MnZ — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 15:24:16 +0000

There is a big difference between IPTV as proposed by major telecoms and TV-Over-Internet — the former having nothing to do with the Internet at all. Trying to conflate the two to make an anti-Net Neutrality case is laughable.

Jesse, I have read the proposed Net Neutrality bills, and most do tend to conflate the two issues.

By: Jesse Kopelman

Jesse Kopelman — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 22:01:08 +0000

Some of you anti-Net Neutrality guys are so full of crap. Why would you want to do broadcast over the Internet? Most people already have a choice of three broadcast providers: free over-the-air, cable, and satellite. There’s hardly a business case for new entrants that involves the Internet. The point of TV-over-Internet is not so that we can all tune in at 9 pm on Thursday to watch CSI from a different service provider but so that we can watch programs on demand. The idea is to have a different business model than broadcast. There is a big difference between IPTV as proposed by major telecoms and TV-Over-Internet — the former having nothing to do with the Internet at all. Trying to conflate the two to make an anti-Net Neutrality case is laughable. Net Neutrality is about how a network handles Internet packets, period.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 04:32:45 +0000

when this story broke, I couldn’t help but think about all Google’s datacenters and fiber backhaul and exactly what their plans are - PBS’s Robert Cringely has one idea, which is that Google knows that the web’s infrastructure is headed for a bandwidth-crunch and is positioning itself as a caching gatekeeper - (link) 20070119001510.html

in that case, certainly their position on net neutrality hasn’t reversed - it just looks like a smart business play - tie ISPs’ hands and then cash in on the infrastructure they’ve amassed

By: Paul M

Paul M — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 11:47:38 +0000

Dureau was right first time - ask any network engineer - he just got slapped for telling the truth.

The PR tried to change the discussion from “the net is broken for TV” to “our TV infrastructure is k3wl!” It may be, but that’s not what Dureau was talking about. It’s sad to see GigaOM buying the spin, and shilling for Google.

By: Omar Javaid

Omar Javaid — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 20:41:39 +0000

Vincent Dureau, the executive quoted, was just hired from OpenTV. He was the CTO there. I don’t think he was quoted out of context.

By: Guy Inkorea

Guy Inkorea — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 19:07:42 +0000

I live in Korea and we have just had what the company told us is internet TV installed. I gotta tell you, it ain’t no picnic! Our 100MB rated service was great until the installation. 2.8 MB/s p2p downloads - uploads not far behind.
The problem is the Hanaro supplied router is killing our speed and quality! Bad configuration? Then someone ought to teach the Hanaro team how because at this time, they are still scratching their heads.
It seems as though Hanaro has decided volume is better than quality of service, pumping as much info through as it can and eventually the right info will arrive intact.
Picture quality is fine but the ads they run while waiting for the show to download kind drive me nuts!

By: Jim D

Jim D — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 16:21:27 +0000

Google rolled out the damage control team to put the best spin on Dureau’s quote.

By: tomo

tomo — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 04:40:41 +0000

I just visited Surewest today in Sacramento and they are offering HDTV over IP today. Surewest is the company formerly known as Roseville Telecom and offers it in areas where they have fiber to the home. Since they are a combo CLEC, MSO, ISP and have fiber to the homes it is just a matter of transporting the HDTV IP packets over their LOCAL infrastructure of a couple head ends, where the content is converted to IP, tied into their fiber network. For VoIP, HDTV over IP, inet and all the ancillary stuff like hosted mail, etc it costs $300 a month which I didn’t think was too bad of a deal considering they supply the CPE, which connects to the fiber and then distributes in the homes via a switch of some sort, and manage/upgrade it as they need to.

By: spinchange

spinchange — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 03:53:50 +0000

I agree with Mr. Bennett in that, Google’s comments make perfect sense if Google’s real intention isn’t to confront IPTV, but to sidestep it altogether:

“So Google proposes to build direct links from their massive server complexes to the cable systems that bypass the Internet and conform to the more efficient broadcast model.”

Cable Television indexed and monetized by Google, baby!

My only question is how is jumping into bed with the Cable Companies and bypassing the Internet to deliver advanced video content - not just drinking another, different kind of “faith-based network engineering kool-aid?”

Even in this “Goo-Tube” future, The lines between the Cable Network and the Internet would invariably erode and we should remember that cable companies have virtually no oversight and are anything but “net-neutral” and “open” networks.

Ideally, wouldn’t it be better to Innovate with IPTV than to Placate to CATV?

By: Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 02:11:08 +0000

Google can still have a video business where they sell directly to Cablecos, just as ESPN does with its ESPN 360 super-custom IPTV service. Google’s head of TV technology understands the issues just fine, it’s the PR department that’s falling down on the job.

By: Richard Giles

Richard Giles — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 01:47:06 +0000

It didn’t pass the logic test for me, because Google’s head of TV technology would have made himself obsolete with the meaning that’s been construed.

By: Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 00:53:27 +0000

Vincent Dureau was quoted accurately, he was addressing a real problem, and Reuters put the remarks in context: Google instead offered to work together with cable operators to combine its technology for searching for video and TV footage and its tailored advertising with the cable networks' high-quality delivery of shows.

The issue is that OTA TV, cable, and satellite use a broadcast model - one stream per program - while Internet TV tends to use a unicast model, which is one stream per consumer. The unicast model is fine as long as Internet TV is limited to 100,000 people watching five-minute, low-def clips on YouTube, but if 20 million people want to watch Survivor on the Internet at the same time, it would collapse. That's a mathematical fact.

So Google proposes to build direct links from their massive server complexes to the cable systems that bypass the Internet and conform to the more efficient broadcast model. AT&T is running into problems with its U-Verse system that indicate this is a real problem, not something drummed up by the enemies of freedom who want to censor Daily Kos in order to keep the Republican hegemon in power (or whatever the cheerleaders for net neutrality regulations are claiming today.)

Net neutrality is faith-based network engineering, and it's encouraging to know that at least some of the engineers at Google haven't drunk that particular Kool-Aid.