I guess you first have to answer the question "what are TV-quality ads"?
Here is what I feel defines "TV quality", if you mean, literally, equal to the quality of watching TV in your living room".
- 30 frames/second, 60 fields/second, interlaced, or 60 frames/second non-interlaced (30fps non-interlaced is NOT equivalent, but 60fps non-interlaced is higher than TV quality. But computer monitors are non-interlaced. 30fps non-interlaced is NOT "TV quality", though, because it won't handle motion as smoothly as 30fps interlaced)
- 320 x 240 resolution (Yes, that's actually about as good as TV gets. The system has 570 vertical "lines", but transmission bandwidth limits the actual visible resolution. Some may argue for 640x480, but IMO, that is "beyond TV quality".
- Full-screen presentation (requires some fancy filtering in the PC to blow the image up to full-screen without seeing the pixels from the 320x240 image. This filtering is available in most new video cards)
- Stereo sound, medium quality, say 20kHz sampling
OK, now, given that definition of TV quality, no TV quality ads are not currently possible, but probably will be soon.
My 'evidence' of this is that @Home, the leading cable Internet provider, recently instituted a 10-minute limit on "TV quality" video streaming (which they defined as 30fps - they didn't specify a resoluton, though). At the same time, they noted, that they didn't know of anybody who was yet transmitting "TV quality" streaming.
Now, if you want to define "TV quality" as a little postage stamp at 30fps, with stereo sound, sure, that can be done today.
Postage stamps are being done, but as far as I know, at 15fps. (Again, check out ITVU) (Because, for one, at postage stamp size, you really wouldn't be able to tell the difference!)
ZULU has claimed to have the technology to deliver "TV quality" ads, and to deliver different ads to users with different speed connections. I have not seen it demonstrated, though, as their publically-available demo does not demonstrate this.
The demo delivers low-rate moving images using a VERY commonly-used Javascript technique (not video streaming), and delivers the same ad to everybody, regardless of connection speed.
There are a number of companies with similar technology - it is not unique to ZULU. ITVU is one that I have already mentioned.
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