The only legit response from the people you interviewed was the suggestion that upstream bandwidth is limited, so no one user can commandeer enough bandwidth. Right now that is true for residential accounts. (not for commercial accounts). That will change in the future as users are getting and demanding more upstream bandwidth for personal applications.

Still, even with limited upstream, it doesnt take much demand beyond existing prime time usage to negatively impact ongoing throughput. If I had known you were going to turn the interview into a hatchet piece, rather than creating a simple analogy, I could have made it even simpler. Rather than using a local connection for an upstream broadcast, it would have picked downloading the same high bit rate stream from a hosted server. No amount of network management is going to fix multiple adjacent users attempting to receive a 100mbs stream from a single host.

But given you just stuck a microphone in my face and i was nice enough to respond, i didnt ask the questions required to find out what an ass you would turn out to be.

If any of your interviewees actually used a network and were honest, they would have to admit that their current internet throughput slows down. That it is difficult to sustain throughput in the current network environment. That the introduction of bandwidth intensive applications, such as live streaming, on top of existing network implementations will only serve to slowdown the last mile of internet connectivity further. That bandwidth applications and consumption are increasing faster than actual throughput (as opposed to published numbers) in the last mile connections to the home.

If your interviewees were honest, they would admit that no amount of network management (particularly in an environment where there can be no discriminatory practices) will prevent high bit rate apps from negatively impacting real throughput to the last mile. Even in a fiber world.

And all this is before we get to the problems of in home networks, which of course are a necessity for anyone trying to replace their cable or satellite with the internet.

That is what this is all about remember ? That the benefit to the cable companies comes from the inability of video over the internet to reach the levels of quality for live streams that TV consumers require. Talk about a Heidi moment. You missed the end of the game because of rebuffering.

Or more likely, you turned off the game because of continuous rebuffering. Unlike streaming movies, with live events you cant advance fill a buffer to reduce the problems with streaming . Football fans dont want to be 5 minutes or more behind the action.

Its a nice try to jump on me, but you #fail

the point of the campaign is that if you are already an MMA fan and you know who josh barnett or Fedor are, then HDNet is the place to go.

we arent trying to create MMA fans, we are trying to let them know where to watch the sport

and it has worked. Verizon, Direct, Dish have seen great results from it.

and of course there are so many visitors to NY, that there is carry over to other parts of the country as well

Which makes us very, very happy.

Wait till you see the ads for NY Confessions..

marcel
email me your info and i will send you a dvd to watch !

mark@hd.net

Im blushing.
thx

m

to answer Jason. The last time was our game against Philly. Sat in the top row. one side of the arena, top row behind our basket the 1st half.
2nd half, top row behind the other basket

do it as much as i can

Gee Jeremy, Broadcast.com was doing user uploaded 300k video in 1999. But you didnt know that did you ?

Now what is it that you are an expert on Big Jeremy ?

The point of the blog post was that Video over the internet is not going to REPLACE traditional tv delivery any time soon. Not even for Jeremy.

Yep , you can get tons of great videos on Youtube, revver, etc, but why waste the time connecting your PC to your TV to get them ? 100mbs of FLV isnt worth the effort. Watch them on your PC. It looks and sounds better and it saves you a lot of time and some money.

HDTVs are mainstream. More flat panel tvs will be sold than non. Understand that point jeremy ? That people will want HD quality on their HDTVs. PC quality on their PCs. Since the net cant deliver HD reliably, without taking 20 hours , or without compressing the hell out of the content, its a lot easier and cheaper 5.95 to 9.95 per month more for hd, then it would be to upgrade your bandwidth to the 25mbs or above you really need to stream a single live hd stream, connect your PC, make sure you have a router that works, maybe connect a media center w/remote streaming.

the 360 had a chance to be the media server that changes this, but microsoft created a walled garden for content, and that makes them the gatekeeper, which means it aint going to work , even if they can start delivering reliable downloads in HD. It remiains to be seen what happens with the PS3 and HD from alternative sources

what do you think jeremy ?

Just for fun, and as a follow up to justins post, had to take another trip down memory lane.

http://news.com.com/2100-1023-218041.html?legacy=cnet

and

This article originally appeared in the Videomaker Magazine November, 1999 issue.
For this and other articles visit us at www.videomaker.com
©2006 Videomaker Magazine. Reproduction of this article for any use other than personal is prohibited.


Videomaker Homepage Free Issue!


Six Streaming Video Questions with Mark Cuban of Broadcast.com
by Larry Lemm

This last Spring, Yahoo!, the Internet portal, paid about $5 billion worth of stock to acquire Broadcast.com, a streaming video company. This transaction solidified streaming video as a technology not only to watch in the future, but as a technology to use today. Mark Cuban, a founder of Internet video portal Broadcast.com, is very hopeful about the opportunities this technology opens.

Videomaker: What is Broadcast.com and what do you offer fledgling video distributors?

Cuban: Broadcast.com's mission is to turn the Internet into a broadcast medium. We are much like the DirecTV of the Internet. We have put together the technology, infrastructure and software, and have aggregated content in order to aggregate audience. With this base, we offer content creators the ability to put their products of all kinds in front of an audience at a minimal cost.

Videomaker: Recently, I believe you made the statement "eventually most of the streaming video that people will see on the Internet will be home videos." Why do you think that is true?

Cuban: Only because of sheer numbers. It will be so easy to present video to small audiences. Instead of the summer vacation or wedding video sitting on the shelf, we will post them on our family web sites so that grandma and grandpa can watch whenever they want. We will do the same with high schools posting their games, debates and school plays.

It will be far more convenient than corralling everyone into the family room or making copies of the tape to send everywhere. When you add up the numbers, a couple of hours from a lot of families dwarf the total amount of content created by traditional producers.

Videomaker: When do you think we'll see this shift in focus from commercial video to personal video on the net?

Cuban: Over the next two years, as people get cable modems and DSL lines, they will start to put pictures, then videos up. All you have to do is look at the new Sony PCs with IEEE 1394 i.LINK interfaces to see how easy it will be. Soon all PCs will have these interfaces and the floodgates will open.

Videomaker: What opportunities do you think this will present to videographers, Webmasters and advertisers?

Cuban: There are two elements here, true businesses and labors of love. The labors of love that are non-commercial, will thrive. People will create their own El Mariachi-type productions for the ego gratification and some will get discovered and go on to bigger and better things.

For businesses, there will always be a place for quality production. The quantity of home video will almost be equaled by the quantity of corporate video. These businesses will need top-notch production services for Internet and Intranet video. Every new product, shareholders meeting, new building and maybe even new employee will have some video component that will be hosted by the company. Webmasters will have to know how video on the Internet works and have partnerships in place to host and promote content that will reach outside the corporation.

For advertisers, the realization should set in very quickly that the Internet world is no longer flat. That banners to catch people's attention will diminish in effectiveness and video and other multidimensional elements, from animation to future media types will take their place. The agencies and advertisers that learn to harness this ability, particularly in a broadband world, will get far better results

Videomaker: What will Broadcast.com do to support this trend?

Cuban: We will continue to build our infrastructure to support the largest possible audience. We currently are pushing out broadband video at 700k, 30 frames per second. We will continue to push the envelope of technology, working with advertisers to introduce broadband video ads on our site, Media Asset Management partners such as ISLIP technology and with digital distribution opportunities as well.

Videomaker: Do you think that streaming video will begin to rival television as the video delivery medium of choice?

Cuban: I think that in the next five to ten years you won't be able distinguish between the two. Think of it this way: ordinary cable TV is just a video monitor attached to a dumb computer (a set-top box), connected to a cable that goes to a network. The problem is that it's mostly analog and doesn't scale or do anything else. My personal thought is that a Pentium computer will replace the set-top box. It will have a DVD player, HDTV decoder, wireless keyboard, analog TV tuner, IEEE 1394 and USB connectivity. It will have a hard drive for a personal TV recorder and high-speed Internet access via an Ethernet connection out to a cable modem or ADSL line. And it will connect to a TV or PC monitor or both. Most importantly it will look like a DVD player instead of an ugly beige PC so we won't be afraid to put it on top of the TV in the living room. All of this will become available for under $1500, starting by Christmas in small quantities, quickly dropping to under $1k next year. With one of these in the bedroom and living room, you won't care if what you are watching comes from a traditional TV station over cable or from Broadcast.com over your Internet connection. You will just hit a button on the remote and go back to eating popcorn.

Videomaker: What is the most important thing a home videographer can do to get ready to stream video?

Cuban: Play with it. The more you know, the more you can try. You can go to real.com or microsoft.com/windowsmedia and find out what you need to digitize your creations. Once you have learned to digitize, you can get low-cost hosting space on sites like simplenet.com and upload.

Videomaker: Where do you think the future of Internet video is headed?

Cuban: All media used to be defined by its spectrum or physical form. You had a TV channel. You had a tape. Now all media is going digital. In a digital world, media can be stored on any digital platform, from a hard drive to a personal digital recorder. Or it can be transported on any digital medium from digital cable to DTV, to dialup over AOL. Because digital transport, like the Internet is becoming more available and less expensive, I think we will see digital video content becoming far more available where we want it, how we want it. This is both good news and bad news for the video business. It means there will always be an outlet for your work and that there will always be production demand. But because everyone has access, there will be far more competition to be seen.

Videomaker: What do you think will be the biggest innovation for streaming video in the next year?

Cuban: Falling bandwidth prices. More bandwidth to the office and home means more choice and opportunity.

HDNet is available on Satellite and Cable. www.hd.net for more info. We are showing Jake, we just started tonight Starship Enterprise, last week Arrested Development and also air Dead Like Me and Joan of Arcadia.

We have tons of original content as well, from sports (NHL/MLS) to some great music shows and concerts (U2, eminem, Gorillaz, many more). check out the website or call your cable or sat company

I knew i was going to get a response like #6 from Mr Ecthernach, and Im glad I did so i could respond 1. Companies in a finiancial mess won't pay out or they or cancel didvend payments if they are already paying them. MC-Of course they wont. Not every company should. Just because mgmt is rewarded with dividends doesnt mean they have to pay them. No does it mean the board would approve if a CEO was shortsited enough to try to do so when a company was losing money on an ongoing basis. Him: These are the comapnies that often times turn over management that could not get the job done. What does this mean? They have to attract new talent. Under your system the way to attract that talent is to pay a healthy dividend, more than your competitor. Not feasible when you have financial difficulties. Theefore the companies that need the talented execs the most, get the short end of the stick. There goes your turnaround pros that come to fix a company as well. MC>Not true at all. You sound like Silicon Valley did when options were to be expensed. If a company has a future, a good exec can be rewarded in any number of ways. Including the tracking stock, salary, the opportunity to purchase stock on the open market or from treasury stock. The point I make and that you obviously dont grasp, is that if the primary motivation of your management is through the increase in the company's stock price, the probability that a disproportionate amoutn of effort will be put into trying to juice the stock price is very high. Plus, if the exec is worth a damn, then he/she is coming on for the challenge of turning around the company with the upside being not only the results, but also the generation of cash by the company over the LONG haul that can be returned to shareholders, or in the sale of the company. If the execs are coming on with a short term reward horizon, then you just hired the wrong person. Take my word, headhunters have a long list of very, very qualified people who want the challenge of being the CEO of a public company. Its shortsighted boards that think that only the ones that ask for huge lockins are the qualified ones. Him> Side point, BCST had a 98 Q4 loss of $5.18 million. Could you have afforded to pay a dividend? Should you have to worry about your management seeking jobs to your competitors because they could have (assume they could)? Let's say that Real Networks could have paid a dividend. Your top talent just left Broadcast.com. Out the door to RNWK where they will be compansated each quarter. Say what you want about them jumping ship, and all the drama about being a visionary and your ability to retain them. The reality is you coudln't have, and your business would have suffered HUGE. In that competitive of an arena, you might as well have kissed your ass goodbye, if you aren't acquired. MC>Risks abound everywhere. had the stockmarket not gone crazy, most of the employees of broadcast.com would be working there for the salaries they earn, like those people who work for the millions upon millions of private companies who compete for employees every day. Which leads to another point you miss. The 10k public companies are far from being the best companies. they just happen to be public, and nothing more. They attract and retain employees and compete against public companies every single day. So my proposal for a tracking stock may actually help boards weed out the shortsighted, hit and run execs that are creating the executive pay disparities we see today. him >. If you are in the business of innovation, ie GOOG, YHOO,(BCST back in the day) what makes more sense? Pay out sorely needed R&D money, or payout shareholders? MC:Of course not. Just because the reward is in dividends, as I said before doesnt mean you have to pay them. If you can grow the company so that at somepoint in the future you can make a bigger payout, do it. thats good business. Him> Some companies actually do a good job of reinvesting earnings, and turning that into real profit. MC>Yes they do. SOME being the operative word. Most dont. Most run out of things to re invest in that are related to their businesses at some point. When that happens, CEOs being CEOs and wanting that stock price ot increase, start increasing the risk and making acquisitions or worse yet, buying their own stock. I know everyone disagrees, but I assure you that history will look back on stock buybacks as the single most stupid thing corporations did during the 1990s and 2000s. What could more ridiculous than not only rewardnig those who get out of the stock, but taking on the risk of the stock market with corporate funds. That money that was used to buy company stock by Sun, OSTK and others at prices that were significantly higher look real smart right now dont they ? And MSFT makes an announcement of a big buyback at a time when the market is high and the competition is tougher than its been. is it conceivable that MSFT could be 5 or more points lower ina year ? Of course it is. Its conceivable that any stock could go significantly lower. Why would any company introduce that market risk to their corporate investments ? Its the equivalent of having a pension fund with only 1 stock, or a portfolio of 1 stock. Would any prudent advisor suggest that as a smart approach Him > I suggest you read Berkshire Hathaways's owners manual. Here's a quote from Buffet when asked about the policy of dividend payments at Berkshire: "We will either pay large dividends or none at all if we can't obtain more money through re-investment (of those funds). There is no logic to regularly paying out 10% or 20% of earnings as dividends every year." MC> Good for warren. Warren does a good job of running his insurance businesses which require huge amounts of cash. If he can keep growing his business, more power to him. If he can keep buying companies and operating them more efficiently and getting a return. Great. Unfortunately for his shareholders, the stock is around the same range today as it was in early 1999. Warren comes out all the time and says he cant find good places to invest. His shareholders just sit with a 70k to 90k dollar stock that can bounce around a thousand dollars a day. I bet they would love to have a dividend. The good news is that Warren would take the job whether you gave him a tracking stock or options. And my guess is that he doesn load up the CEOs of the companies he buys with BH options either. Do they quit and run off. what i proposed isnt the perfect solution, but it works and is certainly a better than way than stuffing a CEO with options and exit strategies. Him>Not that I don't applaud the thought behind the idea, but I can tell there wasn't much thought (or the right thought) put into it.

To the folks that feel that this is a self correcting problem. Logic does say that if the results decline, then the market for the keywords will adjust along with it. Like the stock market , it doesnt work that way. First, there is the old maxim, I know only half my advertising works, I just dont know which half. True, CPC is far more quantitative from other forms, but its still not pure in qualifying cost per sale. 2nd, this is still relatively new to a great part of the market. So like the stock market, new money is often dumb money. As dumb money continues to come in, clickfraud only escalates because the volume of smalltimers aggregates into huge amounts of money 3rd. There isnt a real time "exchange" if you will that small marketers know how to use. All the SEO tools that high end users know how to use to track pricing dont help the "I need to try this google keyword thing out" buyer. Again, just like the stock market. I have this old saying i try to remind myself of when spending money in something new. You always look for the fool in the deal. If you dont find one, its you. ] People are pouring in money without having a clue. Those people are easy pickings. im sure the market will evolve and mature at some point in the future, but its not now, and its not soon m