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TMCnet's Live Streaming Coverage Week in Review

TMCnews Featured Article


February 18, 2012

TMCnet's Live Streaming Coverage Week in Review

By David Sims, TMCnet Contributing Editor


Looking at some of the top news stories of the week in live streaming coverage, GL Web Television, a division of the Canadian telecommunications service provider Gold Line, recently picked ZiXi’s Video Transport Platform to offer 400 channels of high-quality, live and on demand TV programming over the public Internet.


ZiXi officials said that the new deployment will enable GL Web to offer over-the-top (OTT) content to more than 500,000 subscribers worldwide via several mobile devices, including the Apple (News - Alert) iPad, Android, and Amazon.com’s Kindle Fire.

“The ZiXi Video Transport Platform is simply amazing – it’s an affordable, scalable solution that enables us to deliver broadcast quality video over the Internet without the use of expensive CDNs,” said Arash Bafekr, Gold Line’s vice president of operations.

TMC (News - Alert) had the news that BitTorrent inventor Bram Cohen (News - Alert) introduced his newest project Monday at the San Francisco Music Tech Summit.  It’s a new live streaming video streaming protocol that does not rely on a centralized infrastructure to operate, making it possible to watch programs and videos simply by connecting to others watching the same thing.

Cohen stated the protocol can be used for video conferencing, live streaming of video games and sporting events, and he sarcastically added it could “kill off television.”

Although he seemed to be joking, there is no doubt that this latest invention by the controversial Cohen will add fuel to the fire in the battle between cable television stations and its cheaper alternatives.  Cable companies have already begun to lobby the FCC (News - Alert) to change its rules to allow the conglomerates more control over content distribution and Cohen has brought another piece to the puzzle to challenging the cable companies.

And TMC noted that for people looking for a cheaper alternative to cable, startup company Aereo plans to offer live streamed programming and 40 hours of DVR storage for $12 per month.

Subscribers will be able to start programs on their Internet-connected television and then continue watching the broadcast on a smartphone or tablet. Viewers will even be able to pause and rewind programming.

For those looking for a cheaper alternative to a basic cable package and for those who can’t receive regular broadcast television over their antenna, Aereo’s package sounds like a channel surfer’s dream come true. The company has started offering its services in New York City with the hope of expanding to other areas later.



David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of David’s articles, please visit his columnist page. He also blogs for TMCnet here.