iChat idea
Hi,
I just read an article from wired.com about people using iChat for different purposes besides chatting and it gave me an idea that I would like to get some opinions about.
My idea is that you could use iChat to watch tv feeds. An example would be going to MTV.com, clicking the "watch live" button and then iChat opening automatically to watch the feed. I could see this happening with espn.com, cnn.com, the weather channel, and etc. One thing though, they would have the same commercials that they play on TV. This way we wouldn't have to pay extra for it. Even local channels should be available. I've got a cousin that moved to Naples, FL a couple years ago from Milwaukee & I'm sure he would like to watch the local news.
Later on they could add pay channels like HBO, Cinemax, Playboy, etc. at the same prices that they charge for cable or satellite subscribers. Or even better, If you are already paying for it now, you should be able to access it online at no additional costs. All they would need are a couple of xserves to shoot out a live feed so I don't think it would cost those companies alot for new infrastucture.
The iChat interface could be updated to have another address book for your favorite channels that you could access directly instead of going to the websites. The video quality would be fine at normal size, I don't think fullscreen mode is good enough currently for tv shows.
Further down the line, Apple could incorporate Tivo like functionality for those that want to save their favorite shows or movies on their hardrives. This would probably save some battery power on your laptop instead of having your dvd drive running constantly. Also you wouldn't have to drag along your dvd's on a flight or roadtrip.
Well, that's all that I could think of to add. If anybody has any other ideas that might be cool, just add away.
I just read an article from wired.com about people using iChat for different purposes besides chatting and it gave me an idea that I would like to get some opinions about.
My idea is that you could use iChat to watch tv feeds. An example would be going to MTV.com, clicking the "watch live" button and then iChat opening automatically to watch the feed. I could see this happening with espn.com, cnn.com, the weather channel, and etc. One thing though, they would have the same commercials that they play on TV. This way we wouldn't have to pay extra for it. Even local channels should be available. I've got a cousin that moved to Naples, FL a couple years ago from Milwaukee & I'm sure he would like to watch the local news.
Later on they could add pay channels like HBO, Cinemax, Playboy, etc. at the same prices that they charge for cable or satellite subscribers. Or even better, If you are already paying for it now, you should be able to access it online at no additional costs. All they would need are a couple of xserves to shoot out a live feed so I don't think it would cost those companies alot for new infrastucture.
The iChat interface could be updated to have another address book for your favorite channels that you could access directly instead of going to the websites. The video quality would be fine at normal size, I don't think fullscreen mode is good enough currently for tv shows.
Further down the line, Apple could incorporate Tivo like functionality for those that want to save their favorite shows or movies on their hardrives. This would probably save some battery power on your laptop instead of having your dvd drive running constantly. Also you wouldn't have to drag along your dvd's on a flight or roadtrip.
Well, that's all that I could think of to add. If anybody has any other ideas that might be cool, just add away.
Comments
So basically, you would need to have that 1 CNN peer or whatever connecting to you, if it went down, there is really no way (at least now) to have that carry over to another peer.
BRussell is 100% right, this is why Quicktime Brodcaster is available. You can see a feed and it allows for much better bandwith and fail proof management. I would assume the perfect thing would be to combine the two, and that may not be such a far fetched idea.
Originally posted by mello
I was thinking about quicktime also, but I think iChat's compression codec may be different from the one that Apple uses for streaming. When I've watched streams from previous Macworld keynotes, the quality was nowhere near to what I've seen from an iChat. This could be from everyone & their mother's trying to watch the keynotes at the same time though.
I think the difference you're noticing in quality is due to the intended use of a codec rather than one being better than the other.
The codec being used in iChat is designed for use when both parties involved are actively using their bandwidth for that particular stream and nearly nothing else. Video chat devours a users attention so it is unlikely that they are using more than one stream at once.
The codec used for streaming content like stevenotes, is designed for use on server farms with thousands of simultaneous viewers. It?s simply not feasible to stream any wider without cutting the number of viewers.