[Discuss] open protocols for IP-TV

[dsr at tao.merseine.nu (Dan Ritter)]

On Sun, Oct 09, 2011 at 09:52:28PM -0400, Tom Metro wrote:
> 
> I've been surprised to see the open source communities and projects tied
> to television sitting on the sidelines in this area. The glaring obvious
> absence here is an open protocol for IP-TV. One ought to be able to
> create a single generic IP-TV client and have access to thousands of
> diverse video sources.

Yeah, we have that. It's called DVB-IPTV. A few cable systems
implement it; you can easily do it yourself inside your house.

In France, it's the delivery method of choice for their largest ISP and
TV company, free.fr.

US TV providers have no incentive to use it, when they can charge
you for permanent rental on set-top boxes, enforce weird
(profitable) channel blocks, and otherwise maintain their
monopolies. 

> By analogy, the model we have now would be like if the web in 1995
> required every web site to develop and provide their own web browser.

They tried that, too. "Download our client!" Only one of those
is left (Shockwave/Flash) and that's going away, too.


-dsr-

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