On Demand Video Streaming Comming to the PS3. £5.99 / month (Think Netflix)

Pug said:
Yeah, certainly. I find though that my net connection drops off terribly in the evening, or at random times or days so that is a theoretical maximum. I tried watching spooks on iplayer last week and whilst i get those speeds from usenet iplayer needed to stream for a good 5-10mins for a 1h show to play without pauses. Up the quality, and double the length and it would have to be buffering for 30mins or more, something i wouldnt be willing to wait for. I am on the phone to O2 about my bband though.
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Yeah, definitely depends on the quality of your supplier as well as the theoretical raw speed. BT seems to do heavy traffic shaping on my infinity connection, during the day/peak times I still get like 3 MB/s, i.e more than enough to stream 720p, but if I use my bittorent client at peak time I struggle to get more than 15 KB/s... It's very annoying really, as there are plenty of legitimate uses for bittorent, with the added bonus that it gets round the centralised supply so there is no issue with the upload of the host site.

I definitely think 720p stream films is the future though, why would anyone want to go to blockbuster when they can just connect a PC to the TV for it, once people get decent connections. Should eventually bring down rental prices too if physical stores are not needed (as much).

Leading companies seem to agree with me.
 
Hi,

I'd far rather book a film online, wait a small while for some to buffer and watch away. Creature comforts like pausing it, going to the loo and coming back would all make me very happy! :)
 
Zodar said:
I definitely think 720p stream films is the future though, why would anyone want to go to blockbuster when they can just connect a PC to the TV for it, once people get decent connections. Should eventually bring down rental prices too if physical stores are not needed (as much).
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I'm not so sure, maybe for people like us that have media streamers or htpc's but i don't see a lot of people being bothered getting their laptop and crawling around plugging a HDMI cable into it, and thats for people with HDMI laptops. Many people have a pc in a seperate room from the tv altogether.

I think sometimes people on here forget that we are a minority in the way the world works and its a lot simpler for most people to just pop to blockbuster and get a dvd to put in the player which they already own and is already set up.
 
Hey,

Modern tvs all have the capability for internet tv though or at least a lot of them do. How long until they have their own cinema section where you can just book a film and watch away streamed direct to your tv?
 
Marvt74 said:
I'm not so sure, maybe for people like us that have media streamers or htpc's but i don't see a lot of people being bothered getting their laptop and crawling around plugging a HDMI cable into it, and thats for people with HDMI laptops. Many people have a pc in a seperate room from the tv altogether.

I think sometimes people on here forget that we are a minority in the way the world works and its a lot simpler for most people to just pop to blockbuster and get a dvd to put in the player which they already own and is already set up.
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Read my link? We're already getting boxes for the common man for online tv with no hassle of using hdmi cables + laptops etc, surely someone will do the same for films soon enough, which could be much more profitable.
 
I use Iplayer for my son to watch kids TV repeats. Great service, but certainly doesn't look as good as say SD-DVD.
I really don't see how offering a service for £9.99 makes sense when the quality if sub SD-DVD, especially when it's possible to get BD rental from lovefilm/Tesco for 2 films at at time for only £3/month more.
 
I'm not registered for the FT so not really sure what it says but i imagine that even if companies start pushing the existing tvs that have them it'll probably be years by the time enough of the population have them to make streaming movies commercially worthwhile.

I'm pretty sure my tv has the facility or at least some capabilities but it's never been anything my girlfriend or kids have ever been interested in.

Plus by the time the bandwidth is available nationally to make streaming a real option there'll probably be every on here moaning that the bandwidth isn't good enough to stream 3d or trueHD (or whatever the next things that comes along thats the must have thing)
 
Marvt74 said:
I'm not registered for the FT so not really sure what it says but i imagine that even if companies start pushing the existing tvs that have them it'll probably be years by the time enough of the population have them to make streaming movies commercially worthwhile.

I'm pretty sure my tv has the facility or at least some capabilities but it's never been anything my girlfriend or kids have ever been interested in.

Plus by the time the bandwidth is available nationally to make streaming a real option there'll probably be every on here moaning that the bandwidth isn't good enough to stream 3d or trueHD (or whatever the next things that comes along thats the must have thing)
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YouView, it's like a freeview box for internet tv. It should NOT be hard to apply the same business concept to movies, sell a box for people to have with wifi/cable connection to the router, pretty much automatic setup. Pay a monthly fee, box would probably be offered free with contracts as is customary in many cases today with phones/skyboxes etc.

Virgin and Sky tried to get Ofcom not to approve the Internet TV box, citing "competition" concerns. In my opinion they probably do have concerns, but not about lack of competition but the opposite. Imagine a world where internet tv becomes the norm, and imagine the potential number of entrants. Also imagine how decentralised the whole supply could potentially become, and how new tv channels could pop up daily. It would be, with the futile hope for lack of regulation, a perfect market for tv. Imagine the gains for the consumers possible here.

Internet as the medium of transmission for TV and films seems inevitable to me.
 
Don't get me wrong i accept and believe that someone like this is the future.

However i see it as being quite a few years 5+ off before it becomes remotely mainstream. I wouldnt even need one hand to count up the number of people i know that subscribe to love film or a similar type product. So that something like this would be mainstream will a subscription fee seems unlikely as far as i could be aware. Especially with the caps that would be imposed at lower price levels
 
Marvt74 said:
Don't get me wrong i accept and believe that someone like this is the future.

However i see it as being quite a few years 5+ off before it becomes remotely mainstream. I wouldnt even need one hand to count up the number of people i know that subscribe to love film or a similar type product. So that something like this would be mainstream will a subscription fee seems unlikely as far as i could be aware. Especially with the caps that would be imposed at lower price levels
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Not really. Sky movie channels are £16 a month, the lovefilm package for UNLIMITED streaming (albeit low quality at the moment) is £9.99, where you actually get to choose films yourself. Sure, sky have some newer releases, but upping the subscription price to £16 ish for this might give similar product range, with the obvious advantage of streaming films...

All that's needed is a box for the common moron similar to the YouView box that is being produced for internet TV. That's the reason products like lovefilm etc have not penetrated as much as they could... The average person does not trust dealing with the internet directly. Give them a normal monthly direct debit and a box to plug into the TV and voila, you got yourself a seller. I mean seriously, some people pay up £50 a month for sky.
 
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Netflix is already doing HD streaming in the US, and it's not as though the US is particularly renowned for fast home connections. They stream at 3800kbps so I imagine a lot of people in the UK would be able to receive it.
 
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