On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 8:11 PM, Joe Greco <jgreco@ns.sol.net> wrote:
Multicast _is_ useful for filling the millions of DVRs out there with broadcast programs and for live events (eg. sports). A smart VOD = system would have my DVR download the entire program from a local cache--and then play it locally as with anything else I watch. Those caches = could be populated by multicast as well, at least for popular content. The long tail would still require some level of unicast distribution, but that is _by definition_ a tiny fraction of total demand.
One of us has a different dictionary than everyone else.
Assume I have 10 million movies in my library, and 10 million active = users. Further assume there are 10 movies being watched by 100K users = each, and 9,999,990 movies which are being watched by 1 user each.
Which has more total demand, the 10 popular movies or the long tail?
This doesn't mean Netflix or Hulu or iTunes or whatever has the = aforementioned demand curve. But it does mean my "definition" & yours = do not match.
Either way, I challenge you to prove the long tail on one of the serious = streaming services is a "tiny fraction" of total demand.
Think I have to agree with Patrick here, even if the facts were not to support him at this time.
The real question is: how will video evolve?
Good question. I suspect it's going to look a lot like the evolution of audio: Pandora, Grooveshark, Spotify etc. All unicast. CDN. Live sports: how was the Olympics coverage handled? Unicast. CDN. Multicast is dead. Feel free to disagree. :-) Tim:>