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Now is the Future: Streaming Online Video

Posted by Kyle James on Sun, Sep 06, 2009
 

A while back I wrote about the differences between living in the country and the city.  I think it’s time to start expanding on some of those changes living in the city represents.  The first change is the availability of FiOS high speed internet.

My apartment is wired with the ability to use FiOS internet, which means lightning quick 20Mbps.  Needless to say it is much faster than anything I’ve had before!  With this extreme speed there are a lot of things I can do with my internet connection.  For example, I have the ability to watch high quality streaming video.  Hulu, MLB.TV, ESPN360 and YouTube have all been great to watch through the internet connection, but the most enjoyable by far has been Netflix! 

Netflix has multiple subscriptions but their basic package is right at $9/month. With this you can have one movie checked out at a time, AND you can stream as many movies through their online servers as you would like.  So basically for $9/month you can watch all the movies you want from Netflix streaming collection of 10,000+ movies and television shows, as well as having new releases shipped to you one at a time.  How can you beat that!?  Of course the catch is you need a high speed internet and you have to watch the movies on your computer.  Wait a minute. Maybe you don’t…

Netflix on Xbox 360

The Xbox 360 with Xbox Live is another one of those exciting entertainment toys.  Besides all the great games, they also have a Netflix add-on for Xbox Live.  So this means that all those great streaming movies from Netflix can be watched through the Xbox on my plasma TV!  Netflix even has some movies and shows that stream in HD.  Double win!

With Netflix through the Xbox 360 and being able to stream the rest of streaming online video through a laptop to the television adapter, who needs cable or satellite?  Ok, so six months after moving to Boston I did finally give in to cable, but it wasn’t by choice.  

Save the money...buy a high speed internet connection and watch streaming online video.  You will thank me in the long run because THIS IS THE FUTURE.

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COMMENTS

I think this an instance where the capacity for consumption is still way ahead of production technology. Prepackaged video streams, such as with Hulu and Netflix, are there, but user-generated video content still lags. I think this is because we haven't yet seen a breakthrough platform. As I learned recently doing a big production via UStream/Watershed, that's not the answer. Whoever does figure out an exceedingly user-friendly and cheap (or free) video streaming app will really make a big name.

posted @ Monday, September 07, 2009 9:23 AM by TimN

Tim, 
I completely agree with you. being able to livestream is still a hurdle that has to be mastered. I guess where my focus was more in this post is about consumer consumed content. I've been doing a little research and their looks like a way through windows media server plugins that I can stream hulu and youtube through the Xbox but I haven't gone that far down that path yet. I'm just more thinking about the fact that satellite and cable are no longer necessary (assuming you have access to a blazing fast FiOS connection). Unless those providers continue to up their internet connections and start serving content through those streams.

posted @ Monday, September 07, 2009 10:03 AM by Kyle James

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