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RTE Broadband Streaming

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  • 03-11-2004 10:53pm
    #1
    ro2
    Registered Users Posts: 562 ✭✭✭


    Does anyone know if RTE have any plans to do broadband steaming? I think there's enough people with broadband now to justify spending a few euro to test it. The BBC have an excellent service in the UK, they put servers in all of the ISPs to reduce the bandwidth used. I don't think RTE would need to go to that extent here.

    They could easily launch a service for Irish ISPs to start with. Rent a bit of rack space in Data Electronics and run a few gigabit cables into the INEX. Even if they didn't want to spend the money on connecting to the INEX I'm sure one of the existing providers would give them a connection for next to nothing. They could peer with a provider using BGP and filter the traffic to only accept Irish networks.

    The existing streaming setup must be costing them a fortune, their servers are in RTE rather than in a data centre. You can compare their current 56k setup with a few samples here:

    http://www.rte.ie/news/2004/1103/6news/6news56.smil
    http://60hud.com/videos/

    I might run a few tests to prove it'll work, maybe stream the first broadband budget...


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    #2
    cgarvey
    Registered Users Posts: 3,886 ✭✭✭cgarvey


    Good idea, and a couple of good solutions to the bandwidth issue.. However what incentive is in it for RTE? Other than to look "cool". The market would be a few techno people in Ireland, and abroad. I for one wouldn't pay for the service.. but if I was living in the states, say, I might pay a small amount (to include archive access to news, etc.).. but I can't see that there'd be a huge demand for a subscription service. If we're talking about free.. then I'd argue that the target audience is too small to warrant such a huge investment .. and I'm sure RTE would have preferred projects for that cash. It would be cool though!

    (Better suited to Net/Comms?)

    .cg


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    #3
    ro2
    Registered Users Posts: 562 ✭✭✭ro2


    I don't think it would be a huge investment. You can rent a half a rack out in DEG for €500/pm and I'm sure one of the ISPs out there would sell them bandwidth for a few euro per Mb if it was only going to the INEX, as it's only going from the cabinet to the other side of the data centre.

    I don't think it should be subscription based either. If they wanted to charge people, they should charge people outside of Ireland. They may actually save money by moving the servers from RTE to a data centre as they'll save money on the cost of the link from RTE to Colt.

    They already stream video at 56k so they already pay someone to make it. With windows media encoder you can make multiple bit rates at the same time so it wouldn't take much extra effort.

    I've a bit of room left in my cabinet if they can't afford it. I'll even throw in a box of cat 5 too :)


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