JB ...
One fact is that the internet video download path might allow you to make one secure copy to a CD-R or CD_RW media so that you can put it in your DVD player on the TV, use it in a STB w/internal DVD (and perhaps in Tivo Boxes), or take it on the road for use with a laptop. That's what people plan to do to create their "favorite's CD" using music downloads this year.
People would likely not mind downloading 2-3 movies in an overnight span and have burned media by morning via the PC/cable-modem. I can see people collecting the entire startrek series for instance, in all digital form for personal use anywhere.
We could see this emerge to challenge the headend idea, and as you know, the internet reacts to opportunity 10-100x faster than the cable industry, so we will have to watch carefully.
Many predict that the cable and phone cos will ultimately just provide us a pipe and we all will get TV, VIDEO, PHONE, Vphone, EMAIL, ..all over the internet. The number of TV channels will initially be huge (1000's ?) as they can be from all over the world, then we'll see consolidation, and perhaps elimination of pure live broadcasting other than for news.
There will be a lot to watch ... just keep you eyes open for smart places to make money while it happens. That is why we are here right ?
Good Luck |
