acceleration in the metaverse
Internet TV is a mature technology in 2008, with many options for hobbyists, advanced semi-professional operators, professionals and small to large companies, and becoming an important part of popular culture (that’s why I decorated this article with CC-licensed graffiti TV pictures). This is very important and a step toward realizing the potential of a worldwide P2P network of prosumers.
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Everyone knows Youtube. Blip.tv is based on a similar concept, free membership (with a paid premium membership option available), and all members can upload their videos and build a channel. Blip.tv can be defined as a more professional version of Youtube with more options (for example viewers can download videos and the original format version is also available for download), and is used by many advanced videobloggers to distribute their own show. Both Youtube and Blip.tv convert videos uploaded by users to Flash video format (.flv) for streaming. The Blip.tv platform powers I-Reports, a CNN site where citizen journalists can upload their own video news. vpod.tv is another innovative Video Publishing On Demand service, based in Spain, enabling customers and corporations to very easily create their own private Internet and mobile TV channels. Besides video sharing platforms for end users, there are popular daily or weekly videoblogs like Roketboom (top news stories to quirky internet culture), the multilingual Mobuzz.tv (English, Spanish and French), and the new initiative Balzac.tv, based in Spain. I am becoming used to getting my morning news from videoblogs.
There are several managed Internet TV stations that distribute a mix of professional and user generated content. One of the most interesting is Al Gore’s Current, a fully integrated web and TV platform where users can participate in shaping an ongoing stream of news and information, with a model of interactive viewer created content (VC2). Comprising roughly one-third of Current’s on-air broadcast -Current is now viewed in the U.S. and U.K. in more than 51 million households through several distribution partners-, this content is submitted via short-form, non-fiction video “pods”. Current is a mainstream mix of “standard TV” and participatory Internet TV. There are also more experimental and underground examples of alternative TV, user generated or by small independent producers, often with a social objective like EngageMedia, and local Internet TVs like Indianapolis’ recent Indytube.
Miro is a free and open source video search engine, downloader and player from the nonprofit Participatory Culture Foundation. At this moment Miro does not integrate streaming or a publishing system, but it is packed with other very interesting features and it is probably the best Internet video appliance for end users. Miro claims to be “better than Joost”, but actually the two platforms are quite different - Joost distributes streaming content from from well-known TV brands to end users, who cannot upload their material. Miro’s Make Internet TV guide is one of the most useful starting points for online video.
From Boing Boing: Miro 1.1: faster torrenting for better net TV—Miro—the free and open Internet TV program that lets everyone participate in making and watching video—has just posted a fantastic update. Version 1.1 includes a new BitTorrent engine that delivers dramatic improvements in download speeds. Miro combines BitTorrent (a downloading system that gets faster as more people download the same file) with the open VLC video player (which lets you watch every video format without worrying about which program you’re using) and RSS technology, so that you can subscribe to any of thousands of channels and get the new videos when they’re published.
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There are several Internet TV platforms for those who wish to launch their own branded channel. The simplest and cheapest option is creating a channel on blip.tv or a similar service and embedding all videos and streams in a branded website. Of course there are many available standalone platforms (for example Flumotion), from very expensive to cheap or even free. In particular, there are two free, open source leading software platforms, available for installation on a dedicated server with high bandwidth: the Darwin Streaming Server, the open source version of Apple’s QuickTime Streaming Server technology that allows you to send streaming media to clients across the Internet using the industry standard RTP and RTSP protocols, and Red5, an Open Source Flash Server written in Java, with features similar to the Adobe Flash Media Server, that supports Streaming Audio/Video (FLV and MP3), Recording Client Streams (FLV only), Shared Objects, Live Stream Publishing and Remoting. The popular Facebook Video application is powered by Red5. We are running both servers and designing a platform.
Posted by G.P. on 01/13/08
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