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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Greg Jung who wrote (71820)	12/13/1999 8:06:00 AM
From: gnuman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Greg, re <it is not a pleasant experience to look through the very limited offerings with all of the flashing banner ads. Bandwidth will grow far faster than the demand for this service.> I'm not sure what you mean by limited offerings, those that come pre-loaded with RealPlayer, or those available on the net? There are thousands on the net. (Most without banner ads). As for bandwidth, IMO it will take a lot longer than you think. There already are indications that cable won't be the panacea the providers claim. Even with limited users, the systems bog down in the evenings during heaviest usage. The amount of bandwidth not used by cable TV is quite limited, and there are serious issues of contention. There need to be major changes to the infrastructure before it will be able to adequately handle projected subscribers. JMHO's

To: Greg Jung who wrote (71820)	12/13/1999 11:58:00 AM
From: benwood	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

I agree that the quality is relatively low with the free player that I use. I used to be a DXer when I was younger (pull in distant AM stations) and it sounds much like those distant stations I'd pick up now and then, or perhaps more like music over the telephone. A few stations broadcast in stereo and that helps. But basically, low quality AM bandwidth. And what else could it be at 12 to 20 kilobits per second? By my calculations, over-the-air analog FM would need approximately 30000 samples at 8 bits or 240 kbits/s to be reproduced digitally (a CD would be 705 kbits/s). Obviously, the compression used by RealPlayer does a very good job of optimizing the tiny spectrum they are permitted to use, but it doesn't come close to what I would choose to play for music. DVD audio, if they ever stop fighting over the standards and encryption, would be a much higher BW than any of these. BTW, I do find RealAudio useful for getting sports broadcasts on occasion -- last baseball season I listened to Randy Johnson or Pedro Martinez pitch several times. I felt it was a fabulous medium for sports/talk radio. Also, I listened to numerous dispatches from the Mt. Everest expedition that tried to find (and succeeded in finding) Mallory's body last March. I've felt from the beginning that the potential for RealAudio is large as it first absorbs the shortwave market and then eventually the news market, too. The big inhibitor of this stuff will be the video, though, not the audio. I'd love to watch the news whenever I wanted to, but to get even halfway decent video, I think it needs a minimum of 100 kbits/s (based on experience) and ideally much higher. Obviously, not a lot of people have connections that fast at home yet, and it won't take many of those to clog the pipe today.