Will the switch to higher quality video streams on the BBC iPlayer cause ISPs to bitch and moan, or take action? UK broadband users should prepare themselves for metered services.

The BBC iPlayer has been one of the most successful online video launches so far, with traffic increasing every month and the Corporation able to use its huge non-commercial presence to push the service.

ISP Complaints

But with success comes problems, one of which is the fact that British ISPs have expressed concerns over the amount of bandwidth the iPlayer is using. Some even suggested that the BBC should contribute to the ISPs so that they can pay for network upgrades.

Any chance of this issue going away quietly seems to be non-existent with the news that the BBC is planning on increasing the quality of content on the iPlayer.

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While traditional TV may still be the choice of most sports fans seeking coverage of Beijing 2008, there are signs that the Games are acting as something of a trojan horse for online video.

The Olympic Games is proving to be a big hit for the promotion of Web and mobile video, with official figures from the beginning of this week showing that online video traffic for the Games is up massively.

Huge Increase On Monday

Nielsen’s viewing figures for NBCOlympics.com show a huge increase from the amount of people watching on the Internet over the weekend compared to Monday.

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Can you tell the difference between what all of the different makes of set-top-box are offering? Me neither, which makes any initiative an important one for anyone interested in purchasing one the many on offer.

VUDU is a set-top-box that rivals, and does pretty much the same thing, as Apple TV, Roku, and a host of other similar products.

Adult & Family-Friendly Content

Last week saw the company announce on-demand porn films via an Adult Video Network (AVN) channel. Adult movies can be bought or rented for between $6.99 and $29.99. But this week’s offering is a bit more family friendly, and judging by the premium prices charged for adult material, more friendly to your wallet as well. (more…)

YouTube currently doesn’t offer any form of live streaming, with all videos pre-recorded and uploaded. But is that set to change any time soon?.

Live streaming video sites are one of the largest growing band on the Internet. It seems like they’re breeding, with another one starting up almost every month.

Few Big Names

Most of these fail to gain any traction whatsoever as a tool for life casting, but some do make it at least to be known to the wider Web community. UStream, Justin.TV, Stickam, and Mogulus are probably the best known of them all.

But it seemed for a while that the live streaming market was about to have another big player enter its midst, in fact, the biggest player of them all in the form of video on demand leader YouTube.

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The WB Network brand was once synonymous with a number of big TV shows, but after being abandoned two years ago, it disappeared overnight. Where to next? The Web of course, which offers a lifeline for networks not deemed fit for traditional television.

Warner Brothers announced in April that it would be bringing back formerly dead The WB Network TV brand. The ad supported video on demand venture would include two sites, TheWB.com and KidsWB.com.

From Beta To Public

TheWB.com then launched in private beta at the beginning of June. At the time, the site was said to be half-finished and containing only a few episodes of a few shows.

Now, two months later and a date has been set for a full public launch. Warner Bros. has until August 27th to iron out all of the original problems as that’s when we’ll all be able to visit the site and make our own minds up.

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In this digital age that we are now on the verge of, content producers are having to ensure their rights are protected. But do their arguments sometimes go too far?

Cablevision recently won a court case against content producers who had accused the company of breaking copyright laws by the use of a Tivo-like remote DVR.

We’ve already heard from Sherwin Siy how the appeal court’s decision was correct, and constituted a victory for home recording. Here, he discusses the wider implications related to buffering for all video streaming sites.

Why the Cablevision Decision Matters

In my post from Monday, I laid out a very brief outline of some of the conclusions reached by the Second Circuit in its Cablevision decision on remote DVRs. Today, I want to take a step back and discuss why it was so important for the development of digital media and technology.

Two theories espoused by the TV networks in the case were extraordinarily dangerous for copyright law. The first was that fleeting, transitory copies like buffer copies could make someone liable for copyright infringement. The second was that the provider of a product or service could be directly liable for infringement when the actual copying was done by someone else entirely.

Buffer Copies

Rashmi’s talked about the buffer copy theory in relation to the Copyright Office’s section 115 rulemaking, but I think it’s still worth mentioning the basics: A buffer copy is a copy that is made in the course of digital transfer. It’s not intended to be directly viewed, accessed, or used by anyone. It’s just a step in the relay of information from one source to another. 

Trying to count this as a “copy” in the sense of copyright law makes little sense. In the end, whether the process used to get a streaming video from a server to my PC makes two or two thousand buffer copies in the process, it doesn’t matter (for copyright purposes—let’s ignore system resources for now) to me, the sender, or the copyright owner. 

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This Olympic Games sees the Web competing for viewers with traditional TV for the first time in Olympic history. But will the Internet do as well as hoped?

I had high hopes that the Olympics Games in Beijing were going to be a high point for Web television, and prove that more people are turning to the Internet for coverage than ever before.

While it may be true that Beijing 2008 has more coverage online than any Olympics before it, and that the Web viewing figures are healthy so far, traditional TV is still beating it by a huge margin.

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