Arstechnica is reporting that AOL will not be giving us postage stamp sized video with their upcoming In2TV broadband channel. They are making In2TV P2P (peer-to-peer) based, with propriatory video codec called AOL Hi-Q and a propriatory player to go along. Everythig will be heavily DRM-ed to prevent people from sharing the content, although we know how “hard” it is to do screen captures.
AOL says they’ll deliver DVD quality streaming video, I’d guess probably something up to 720×480 in size (most video, from local tv stations and online in general is 240×180 or 320×240 pixels). Although I doubt that quality will be achievable most of the time on a regular DSL or cable connection. The internet wasn’t made for streaming video, and certainly consumer grade internet connections don’t exactly route requests through the most efficiant path from point A to point B. High pings come to mind, especially when the kids around here get online. Not to mention that often you barely manage to get half of those 6Mbps your ISP offers when everyone in the ‘hood is gawking at stuff online.
Nonetheless I can’t wait to see what they’ve come up with, hopefully my Comcast connection won’t make things miserable like it does lately when I’m using Skype.
There’s a Florida connection with AOL In2TV – 2C Media (their website is still not done) is programming In2TV and creating viral video and editorial content.
