Enron gets into broadband
(old news - 02:23AM Wednesday Nov 08 2000)
Enron, the company that makes those rather odd TV commercials than end in "Why?..Why?" is going to be the backbone behind blockbuster.. When the service is rolled out commercially in the second half of next year, customers will be able to log on to a Blockbuster Web interface, select from 500 movies, pay with a credit card, and download a movie onto a set-top box. All in less than 30 seconds-like renting a movie without going to the store or the late charges, Rice says. Customers can even rewind, but they can't make copies. Rice says customers will buy their DSL (or cable modem) service from the distribution partners or eventually get the service and set-top box from Blockbuster.Techweb has the story.
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AllAlone0
join:2000-10-30
Oakville, ON
clubs: | heh It's gonna be funny watching as people make utilities to save the movies and they try to fight it.
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Now what the hell was I doing before I started slacking off.... | |
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dnoyeB
Ferrous Phallus
join:2000-10-09
Southfield, MI
| Im ready to buy! That is so funny. Just let them provide digital output. People will be making CLEAN copies. Its inevitable. Its happening with CDs, its happening with DVDs, and it happened with DIVx if you can believe (or remember) that 
Not to mention, "set top boxes"? Haven't we been here before? Well err, yea. DIVX. Except this time you can sit on your azzzz, and get the movie. But the trip wasnt the killer of DIVX. It was the fact that you had to pay $200 for a DIVX player, then you had to pay each time to watch a movie...If they would have said with your home computer then maybe. With this PCI card, then maybe.
They need to face the fact that people will not buy electronics just so they can pay them to watch a movie on it. Err, dont we have pay per view with cable already?? I know, I know, everyone doesen't have a computer, so they need this set top box idea so they can reach more people, Ok? Then why the requirement of broadband?
Did they say less than 30 seconds? HA! Man these fools always come out with these impossible claims. I bet somehow thell spinn off this "division" and have an IPO too. So in less than 30 seconds, you will download a WHOLE movie of DVD quality? or even beta quality? What is that like ~600MB. lets see 600MB /30s = 20MB / sec = 1600Mb/s
We can stop right there. My fast ethernet wont even support that. Well to be honest, he did say we can rewind. He didn't say we could fast forward 
I don't know, if they put enough lights on the box, I may be interested.
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dnoyeB
"Corporate fines should be paid with corporate stock." | |
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justin
Australian
join:1999-05-28
Brooklyn, NY
Host:
IPv6
Business Connectiv..
Home/Office setup ..
Console/Handheld g..
Console Tech
| Re: Im ready to buy! It might be like a TIVO type thing where they stream you the movie and it spools it onto a hard disk. So you can pause and rewind. But not fast forward.
I think it would make more sense to partner with TIVO so they can feed that box the movies and get access to an existing user base. That would be much easier than developing something new and confusing (there is only room for one set-top box on top of the set, so it has to do almost everything, not just play Blockbuster movies).
Of course TIVO is being hacked (with the unwritten approval of the company), so that might worry the industry. | |
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dnoyeB
Ferrous Phallus
join:2000-10-09
Southfield, MI
| Re: Im ready to buy! If I were TIVO I would certainly allow it to be hacked too. That way you get lots of users who are just getting extra free movies and stuff. But once you feel you got enough of these leeches, you change the protocol or something and hope and prey they sign up ligitimately.
You think they would try that?
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dnoyeB
"Corporate fines should be paid with corporate stock." | |
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JYoung
G L 2814
join:2000-06-13
Sherman Oaks, CA | Re: Im ready to buy! They are already looking into downloading movies to a Tivo or a Replay like unit via the Internet. As broadband becomes more and more the norm, you will see this happen.
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This Space for Rent | |
| | | | | mrichards8
join:2000-10-17
Littleton, CO
| Re: Im ready to buy! Basically, the movie industry is scared to death of digital technology. They would rather support technologies like Tivo with a limited storage capacity (and subscription fee) than allow more "open" technologies with removable media like recordable DVD to become available. For the past few years, DirecTV equipment has been available that allowed the recording of satellite programs directly to D-VHS tapes with no loss in quality. Recently, however, DirecTV has stopped production of the D-VHS VCRs, and is instead marketing a Tivo/DirecTV combination receiver. I have read that this change was in large measure due to pressure from the movie industry. | |
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lml2000
Whazzup
join:2000-08-17
Los Angeles, CA
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| It WILL be a TiVo-like because in order to view the content on demand its has to be stored onsite somewhere, and on the most likely secure medium will be the hard drives of TiVo or Replay that are designed to store digital content is sufficient quantities for VOD viewing. Today's TiVo and Replay stand alone machines will likely disappear in the future as their technology is subsumed into the satellite receiver or digital set-top box where the content is considered "more secure" to the owners/licensors of the content. Today we see the DirecTivo receiver now on the shelves; we've also seen announcement MSOs such as Adelphia, AT&T, Comcast, Cox, & Charter that involve ReplayTV's digital recording device, whose technology will likely be incorporated into future digital set-top cable boxes.
As I see, to no surprise, is the typical glee and disbelief that this technology will ever become available and be sufficiently secure to prevent copyright infringement. I can't comment on how secure the content will be, but its fair to say it will be the intent of the technology to make as secure as possible the digital content stored to prevent copyright infringement. If the risk of copy infringement is sufficiently great, we simply will not see that much digital content available for VOD, at least that content that would command the highest margins to the licensor.
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Regards,
lml | |
| | mrichards8
join:2000-10-17
Littleton, CO
| A DVD movie actually contains a few GB of data. They must be streaming the video to the set-top box. Even that, however, will require broadband connections that are faster and more reliable than we have today. DVDs are encoded at a bitrate of 6000 Kb/s to 8000 Kb/s. This would require a DSL connection with a sustained download rate of 6Mb/s. The sound on a DVD alone would require 384 Kb/s. Even Video-CD quality (which is generally considered to be "near" VHS) would require a sustained 1376 Kb/s. This may be practical in a few years, but right now the average home DSL connection (600 Kb/s or so) could not support it. | |
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lml2000
Whazzup
join:2000-08-17
Los Angeles, CA
·RoadRunner Cable
| Re: Im ready to buy! If you follow the Enron-Blockbuster deal along with the involvement of SBC and the bandwidth that will be delivered ON A SWITCHED BASIS over its Project Pronto architecture, you will realize that one of the goals of Pronto was to deliver a 6 Mbps pipes to the lion's share of homes served by a Pronto neighborhood gateway, as well as those customers within a 12 K-ft of a CO.
Expect SBC to install soft-switched into some neighborhood gateways later in 2001. By means of a SVC (switched virtual circuit) a subscriber will be able to convert his 1.5 Mbps DSL connection to his ISP's router to a 6 Mbps DSL connected to a Blockbuster LAN by simply dialing in a few numbers on his phone. In this fashion, all the video traffic downloaded from the Blockbuster server to the subscriber's home will be AWAY FROM the IP gateway, and via a VPN, which will keep the Internet traffic at the neighborhood DSLAM free of traffic jams on a Saturday evening.
Yes, you're correct, this will not be available everywhere for years to come. But expect this technology to become available over the next two years in select markets. At issue is not only technology but also market demand and price structure. One cannot expect any of these companies to rush to market, spend billions of dollar, and deploy this technology all at once. Its gonna be well-planned, measured, and evaluated on a slow, select basis. Nevertheless, some select areas will see VOD in 2001.
What I'd like to see is how the transmission of VOD is going to be handled by the MSO who opt to install a minimal number of nodes along their fiber loops and a bunch of neighbors on a single coax branch decide to download about 20 films at or around 8 pm on a Friday or Saturday evening.
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Regards,
lml | |
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JerryC23
Character Counts 40,41,43
Premium,ExMod 1999-03
join:1999-10-08
Humble, TX
 ·Embarq
·Comcast
·RoadRunner Cable
| Nuclear Generating, Broadband, Movies and Football What does Nuclear Generating, Broadband, Movies and Football have in common?
ENRON
Come to Houston and see the Houston Texan football stadium
and the superbowel in 2012.
Subsidized by public TAXES, this "utility" company may bring a new meaning to the word "monopoly".
(and I ain't talking about Parker Bros. here)
Bill Gates and MicroSoft probably should take business planning from these guys.
"Lord, what fools these mortals be!"
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SPRINT and Mindspring: - DSL in Humble by Christmas? Really? | |
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JerryC23
Character Counts 40,41,43
Premium,ExMod 1999-03
join:1999-10-08
Humble, TX | Re: Nuclear Generating, Broadband, Movies and Football Boy - I wish I could vote for my last post!
I really like the wonderful irony here. | |
| | | watson2037
join:2000-09-03
Sarasota, FL
| Re: Nuclear Generating, Broadband, Movies and Football These people are forgetting the fact that cable can onyl carry so much data! Whether you stream it or not, or even if you could get 6000Kb streamed it would never work. Alright you have liek 50 people watching a movie and they are all getting or tryign to get that 6000Kb, the network will be soo congested it wouldnt be funny, the backbone to handle that kinda bandwith would be soo much they movies would have to cost you like $10.00! This is a stupid idea, maby it will work in like 10 years. They are way ahead of them selfs, why dont they work on a near vhs quality thing for the 'regular' computer. | |
| | | | | Anon | Re: Nuclear Generating, Broadband, Movies and Football I agree with you somewhat, Watson. The thing that concerns me most is the distribution DSL partners mixing up with perhaps a cable provider including now in the mix the entertainment industry and WOW! What a tangled web we weave! | |
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