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With sites such as www.ess.tv and www.iptelev.com demonstrating how easy it is to setup a video server these days, even if at reduced quaility, but making up for it with very cheap prices and a massive range of cult series, and films, I get the impression that Television, an on demand television over the internet is now a fast approching reality. I highly doubt the legality of either ESS or IPTELEV given their prices, I doubt they are paying royalties at the moment, but bare in mind that napster basically started the same way, as did other "later to become legalized p2p networks".

Freeview in the UK runs at an MPEG-2 stream at a bitrate of between 1.5 - 3Mb/s (this is from memory, feel free to correct me if I am wrong) and with a better compression codec such as DivX or XviD, or even WMV, it's possible to get the same quaility for a lower bitrate or a higher quaility stream at the same requirement. DVD's run at between 2Mb/s to 8Mb/s depending. So with broadband speeds now a standard of 2Mb to 8Mb in the UK, it is now possible to transmit freeview quaility video over the internet, which lets face it, is more than enough for most of us. The advantage of the internet however is that it's not frequency limited, theirs only so much airspace, but there is virtually limited capasity over the internet, meaning anyone can broadcast as much as they like as long as they have the servers to back it up. HD television is a good reason to stick with the humble TV set, but mostly that's just for cable services in the UK and has not become standard yet.

Large name brands such as the discovery channel are already offering such services, you can get it over broadband for £3.50 a month. Channel 4 allow Big Brother to be streamed as well for a price as well as a few episodes of various programs. All in all it looks like the internet might become the next generation Television service, and with windows media center PC's being not unknown, more are more people are getting used to the idea of the humble PC being as good, and in some respects, better then any TV set.

TV, and internet will probably merge one day, but you need HD internet and that is a long way off.

Mainly satellite by the look of it (Sky HD). Think Telewest cable have HD (3 tuners apparently), but is very small minority. NTL will get it at the end of the year. Cable and Satellite pretty much cover everybody in the UK. It's just that most people stick with analogue or freeview because they don't really need anything else. But they could have it straight away if they wanted it.

I don't agree with that. We get pretty good PAL signals in the UK and get something like 600+ lines anyhows. Normal Sky looks great on my 36" CRT, and even on my 104" projector is perfectly fine. If we could get that sort of quality through the net then superb. Hell, I watch everything now on Sky+ (the main PVR in the UK), so am effectively just using a media player for everything.

The only reason why I think it will be a long time before Internet TV takes off in the UK is because of the different stations around the world. Basically an American TV program makes a lot of money in the states, and then sells it for a lot of money around the world. Sometimes a program can be worth a fortune in the UK because we have all heard about it and it did well in the US. Desperate Housewives for example. I bet we could have bought it for peanuts the day before it was first broadcast in the US. A couple of episodes in and it costs one of our channels a fortune to buy it. With internet TV then anyone in the world should be able to buy an episode at the same time it is released.

Personally I think it will be interesting considering MS are very interested in it (IPTV isn't it?). They are big players and could have the power to shift things. It's not as if the tech doesn't exist, but more like the channels wanting to keep hold of things IMHO.

At the end of the day it's not surprising that the UK downloads the most US programs. Ok, there is the language thing, but basically we tend to get a lot of programs a few months later (even after a lot of european countries, even though they have to go to the trouble of dubbing them!). So in a lot of people's eyes we are already paying for the programs (I pay about £80 a month for all satallite and cable setup) so we should get them now. Hopefully this means that UK channels are getting scared as this will mean a successful US show will have lowered viewings in the UK mainly because everyone has already watched it (I know loads of people in work had rips of Lost for ages - although it was almost criminal how long they hung about with Lost in the UK). Then with any luck we may see some sort of online scheme, so at least they get paid a bit rather than nothing.

Although the initial idea of downloading episodes or even music is pretty laughable price wise. I mean one of the first film download sites were basically quoting prices that cost more than DVDs. In the shops. Go online (Play for example or Amazon) and they are even cheaper. Hmmm, less quality and convience without the nice packaging. For more money.....

Cheers

I download Doctor Who in america, because we are an entire season and 1/2 behind.

Fair enough, although is normally the other way round. Rough guess with about a fifth of the population (60 million compared with 280 million) then it will be a 5:1 ratio. Ish. Plus US TV seems to travel better. Dunno why, but if I was to guess then I would say it is size. That is to say any UK TV in the UK is extremely familiar to anyone in the UK. Mainly because there is 60 million of us in a space that takes less than a day to drive from any point to any other point. Most people watch TV (sodding reality TV, Eastenders and Corrie aside) to escape from their lives to somewhere else. In the US you are so diverse because of the sheer size of the place that other states are like other countries to us. Therefore a program in one part of the country would totally appeal to someone on the other side (don't ask for details here, suprisingly we are normally just as ignorant the other way around). So therefore can be extremely successful in your own country too, which sets it up to sell elsewhere. If you see what I mean. Hmmm. Didn't sound so good when I re-read it. Ah sod it, I'm off to Starbucks instead..... Hmmm, think what I was trying to say is that you can get more variety in the whole of the US (sheer number of locations) so is more sellable. Something like that. Sigh, where is that coffee?

Just my 2p.

Cheers

Ps. What the hell are you doing downloading Dr Who? Get Red Dwarf instead.... Or even better, Darkplace. It's worth it because the stupid channel keep mucking around for the last 2 years arguing about releasing a DVD (best program like ever )

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