If we're becoming a VOD world, does multicast play any practical role in

video distribution?

Frank

-----Original Message-----

From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of

Michal Krsek

Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 2:28 AM

To: Marshall Eubanks

Cc: [email protected]

Subject: Re: Network end users to pull down 2 gigabytes a day, continuously?

Hi Marshall,

- the largest channel has 1.8% of the audience

- 50% of the audience is in the largest 2700 channels

- the least watched channel has ~ 10 simultaneous viewers

- the multicast bandwidth usage would be 3% of the unicast.

I'm a bit skeptic for future of channels. For making money from the long 

tail, you have to have to adapt your distribution to user's needs. It is not

only format, codec ... but also time frame. You can organise your programs 

in channels, but they will not run simultaneously for all the users. I want 

to control my TV, I don't want to my TV jockey my life.

For the distribution, you as content owner have to help the ISP find the 

right way to distribute your content. In example: having distribution center

in Tier1 ISP network will make money from Tier2 ISP connected directly to 

Tier1. Probably, having CDN (your own or pay for service) will be the only 

one way for large scale non synchronous programing.

            Regards

                    Michal