Dish and Starz?

[JSheridan]

I do agree with that, and it seems that many others do too. I feel like real-time broadcast TV will go away eventually. The question is how soon. I feel like it is still 20 years or more away. Maybe streaming options will be better by then.

Hell, by then we'll probably have holographic images that can mind meld.

 

[mwdxer1]

I'll make a guess at this, and say that Dish will probably be mostly streaming through Wally, Hopper, and/or whatever other new boxes Dish comes up with in the meantime.

Probably more hybrid much is what is happened, as many do not have a good internet speed in rural areas. But maybe a Dish/Roku type box. That does both. No more satellites to deal with in time will save Dish/Direct millions.

 

[mwdxer1]

The question is, can the people trying to disrupt the traditional business make enough of an impact that the established players start exiting the business before the disrupters either run out of money or have to raise prices to the point that they aren't nearly as attractive as they once were?

We had that to a certain point with Direct, then Dish entering the DBS market when everything was cable. No, Direct/Dish did not take over the cable business, but they did take a chunk out of it. But cable is moving towards phone/internet, so they will survive.

 

[JSheridan]

Probably more hybrid much is what is happened, as many do not have a good internet speed in rural areas. But maybe a Dish/Roku type box. That does both. No more satellites to deal with in time will save Dish/Direct millions.

The servers and other infrastructure necessary to stream to tens of millions of users at the same time will probably cost more than the satellites.

 

[ncted]

The servers and other infrastructure necessary to stream to tens of millions of users at the same time will probably cost more than the satellites.

The servers are pretty inexpensive, but the bandwidth costs [every single months] will eat them alive, even with the best CDN and high-volume bandwidth contracts.

 

[mwdxer1]

I have read there are moves to be able to add more material to what the bandwidth is. Like with 3.0, there is always some new way to cram more into what is there. If there is money in it, they will find a way.

 

[ncted]

I have read there are moves to be able to add more material to what the bandwidth is. Like with 3.0, there is always some new way to cram more into what is there. If there is money in it, they will find a way.

Sure, with things like HEVC, you can fit more data into less bandwidth, and they will continue to improve that over time, but there are roadblocks in the way to slow things down as well. Things like UHD and HDR will require more bandwidth, effectively cancelling out any bandwidth savings and then some. Also, better compression needs faster CPUs, and we've essentially hit the wall with Moore's Law. I work in High Performance Computing, and the reality is CPU cores aren't really getting any faster these days at the high end. They are just adding more cores, so parallel jobs are faster. The upshot is, compression methods will be limited by the CPUs available and what is economically reasonable. Are you really going to run a 44-core, 205W CPU just to get an extra 5% of bandwidth compression?

I try not to say "never," but I have a hard time imagining unicast streaming ever being as cost effective as Satellite or OTA broadcast, especially with launch costs declining.

 

[Juan]

Sure, with things like HEVC, you can fit more data into less bandwidth, and they will continue to improve that over time, but there are roadblocks in the way to slow things down as well. Things like UHD and HDR will require more bandwidth, effectively cancelling out any bandwidth savings and then some. Also, better compression needs faster CPUs, and we've essentially hit the wall with Moore's Law. I work in High Performance Computing, and the reality is CPU cores aren't really getting any faster these days at the high end. They are just adding more cores, so parallel jobs are faster. The upshot is, compression methods will be limited by the CPUs available and what is economically reasonable. Are you really going to run a 44-core, 205W CPU just to get an extra 5% of bandwidth compression?

I try not to say "never," but I have a hard time imagining unicast streaming ever being as cost effective as Satellite or OTA broadcast, especially with launch costs declining.

Its not the unicast streaming thats important..its the habits they collect from the streaming that get packaged and sold to advertiser. .who then personalize ads to a specific person...just like google makes billions with a search engine and android phone...that's why broadcast and traditional cable are being deemphasized and everybody is being pushed to on demand tv....its more convenient but also and more importantly more profitable

Sent from my SM-G950U using the SatelliteGuys app!

 

[ncted]

Its not the unicast streaming thats important..its the habits they collect from the streaming that get packaged and sold to advertiser. .who then personalize ads to a specific person...just like google makes billions with a search engine and android phone...that's why broadcast and traditional cable are being deemphasized and everybody is being pushed to on demand tv....its more convenient but also and more importantly more profitable

Sent from my SM-G950U using the SatelliteGuys app!

Well, it is pretty clear a lot of people prefer on demand viewing, and a lot of those same people are willing to watch ads to avoid paying for the content or at least reduce the cost of the content. That said, ad targeting continues to be fraught with horrible inaccuracies. Advertisers are paying for things that the algorithms just can't provide. I wonder if the algorithms will ever catch up before the advertisers get wise to what is going on.

Either way, the cost of delivery won't favor streaming any time soon, even if companies can manage to make a profit on it.

 

[pattykay]

Well, it is pretty clear a lot of people prefer on demand viewing, and a lot of those same people are willing to watch ads to avoid paying for the content or at least reduce the cost of the content. That said, ad targeting continues to be fraught with horrible inaccuracies. Advertisers are paying for things that the algorithms just can't provide. I wonder if the algorithms will ever catch up before the advertisers get wise to what is going on.

Either way, the cost of delivery won't favor streaming any time soon, even if companies can manage to make a profit on it.

I really don't like being marketed to, especially with "personalized" advertising. So, if I am going to be forced to sit through commercial breaks, I actually prefer that the commercials be for products and/or services that I have absolutely no interest in, so I can just tune them out without worrying about being convinced to actually buy anything. So I say, keep up the good work, algorithms!

 

[ncted]

I really don't like being marketed to

Me neither

 

[ncted]

Sure, with things like HEVC, you can fit more data into less bandwidth, and they will continue to improve that over time, but there are roadblocks in the way to slow things down as well. Things like UHD and HDR will require more bandwidth, effectively cancelling out any bandwidth savings and then some. Also, better compression needs faster CPUs, and we've essentially hit the wall with Moore's Law. I work in High Performance Computing, and the reality is CPU cores aren't really getting any faster these days at the high end. They are just adding more cores, so parallel jobs are faster. The upshot is, compression methods will be limited by the CPUs available and what is economically reasonable. Are you really going to run a 44-core, 205W CPU just to get an extra 5% of bandwidth compression?

I try not to say "never," but I have a hard time imagining unicast streaming ever being as cost effective as Satellite or OTA broadcast, especially with launch costs declining.

Interesting video concerning my earlier post: