said by espaeth:Unicast-based streaming video actually creates a whole new set of distribution problems.
Existing broadcast TV options are a single feed with many viewers, so your efficiency improves with every additional viewer.
Unicast IP-based streaming video (ala ATT's U-Verse solution) has infrastructure that needs to grow with each and every viewer, and comes with significantly limitations.
If you make your LAN Network IPv6 (as opposed to the current IPv4 with Network10 addressing used for the STB <--> Headend communication) you can use IPv6 Multicast for the Broadcast Channels and get the same single feed result that you get now. This also gives you the SDV capability that you get for those Broadcast Channels that you only want to send as needed as opposed to the 24/7 availability of the more popular channels. The only time you would need to use Unicast is for VOD type usage (where each STB gets its own private copy of the stream) since the content, unlike Broadcast, is not a synchronized stream.
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