Internet Television

Shopping on line can be easy, simple and save you lots of money. It can also take a lot of your time, frustrate you, and result in unwanted purchases. Now the same can be said for regular high street shopping, but with the vast opportunity presented by the Internet it will pay you to spend a few minutes reading this and understanding how to better optimize your Internet Television shopping experience:

1. Compare - without doubt the biggest advantage that the Internet Television offers shoppers today is the ability to compare thousands of Internet Television at a time. This is a great thing, but not necessarily all the time! Too much can be daunting at times so take advantage of the great comparison sites and where possible let them do the hard work for you.

2. Research - if it has been said it will be on the internet. Ignorance is no longer a justifiable reason for buying the wrong thing. Take the time to research in detail everything that you could possible want to know about

3. Testimonials - don't know anybody that has bought a Internet Television? Wrong! If the Internet Television is good the internet will let you know. Use the Internet as a friend and get testimonials before you buy.

4. Questions - Got a question about Internet Television then search the Forums, FAQ's, Blogs etc. Don't be afraid to ask .....

5. Reputation - Never heard of the company selling Internet Television? Don't worry, no reason why you should know every company in the world, but you know someone that does! Use the internet to find out what people are saying about Internet Television and build up a picture of their reputation for sales, returns, customer service, delivery etc.

6. Returns - still worried that even after all of the above your Internet Television wont be what you want? Check out the returns policy. There is so much competition now that someone, somewhere is bound to offer the terms that you are comfortable with.

7. Feedback - happy with your Internet Television then let people know, after all you are depending on others people input in your buying decision, so why not give a little back.

8. Security - check for the yellow padlock on the Internet Television site before you buy, and the s after http:/ /i.e. https:// = a secure site

9. Contact - got a question about Internet Television, or want to leave a comment then check out the sites contact page. Reputable companies have them and respond.

10. Payment - ready to pay for your Internet Television, then use your credit card or PayPal! Be aware of companies that don't accept them, there may be genuine reasons but given the huge amount of choice you have when buying online there is no reason at all not to buy via credit card or PayPal.

Internet television (or Internet TV) is television distributed via the Internet.

Overview In the past, television was only distributed by cable television, satellite television, or extra-terrestrial television systems. The primary models for Internet television are streaming Internet TV or selectable video on an Internet location, typically a website.

Today -- with the increase in Internet connection speeds, advances in technology, the increase of total number of people online, and the decrease in connection costs -- it has become increasingly common to find traditional television content accessible freely and legally over the Internet. In addition to this, new Internet-only television content has appeared which is not distributed via cable, satellite, or terrestrial systems.

Internet television utilizes the connections of the Internet to deliver video from a source to a target device. Some of the ways in which Internet delivered television is used include:

watching on a regular TV (via a direct connection from a computer or a Set-top box), or on a computer, or on a portable device (such as a mobile phone)

showing a channel 'live' (like regular TV), or allow the viewer to select a show to watch on demand ("Video-on-Demand" or VOD).

viewing anything from low budget, home camcorder productions to expensive professional productions

Interactive advertising

The medium supports very broad variation, allowing for copy protected streams or streams that can be recorded. Sources of Internet TV can be free, subscription- or fee-based, or supported by advertisements.

The barriers to wider adoption of Internet television in the past have been Streaming media technology and bandwidth limitations. The bandwidth issue primarily meant that streams were using low bandwidth and that resulted in poor quality. The BBC's Dirac (codec) project seeks to address the technological barriers by creating a scalable, high-quality, Free software codec for streaming video content over the net.

As Internet television becomes more pervasive, some companies have made efforts to develop the transmission of existing pay-TV channels to regular TV sets over the net, while retaining control over how the medium is used. Such control is required in order to protect existing subscription and pay-per-view business models. Additionally, there are the copyright issues associated with the distribution of all media. The challenges lie in seeking to maintain the protections of a copyright and the revenues associated with it, while moving to another delivery model for video.

Internet Video on Demand (VOD) offers a different approach, and it is interactive, requiring the viewer to select specific videos to watch. The usage of internet protocols to provide two-way communication will also open the way for interactivity with the video content, for example making it possible to choose between multiple camera angles, vote on an Interactive television show while watching it, or order a product sample

Implementation Internet Television services have at least two different models:

Free Free Internet Television is available from the Web, and is accessible without the need for either a set-top-box, a specific carrier or an operator. It is easily viewed by connecting the television set to the video output of the computer and accessing the streaming video.

The greatest core theme of the free Internet Television model is that it is based on the same publishing model that exists on the Web: it allows access to an open platform, that anyone can access, use and build for, together with the development of open source software, open standards and formats.The first country in the world to have its own Internet TV model was Cyprus, which launched Cyprusitv.com in March 2006. This project was created by Dean Di Libero using the Narrowstep telvOS operating system

Those that create valued and interesting video products have now the opportunity to distribute them directly to a large audience - something impossible with the previous television distributing models (closed software, closed hardware, closed network). The free model has been used around the globe by local and independent television channels aiming for niche target audiences, or to build a collaborative environment for media production, a platform for citizens' media. It isn't strictly a citizen's format either as the broadcast model used in television for decades will begin to find competition in Internet television supported by advertising.

iPlayer On July 27, 2007 the BBC released their iPlayer (as public beta test software) to United Kingdom Television licensing in the United Kingdom payers offering free BBC television content via the internet.

Subscription based This type of service has been generally funded and supported by large telecom providers and is seeing a wide range of competition from even cable providers and broadcast networks. It follows the cable, satellite or terrestrial pay-per-view systems, based on a subscription fee, adding new features like high-definition TV, video on demand and digital video recording.

Europe and Asia have been the leaders in implementing these Internet Television services for paying customers, which are expected to become mainstream in just a few years replacing traditional cable subscriptions. In the US the providers have not shown so much interest about this technology yet. Internet Television is a more interesting alternative to cable TV also in countries where there is a poor cable infrastructure, like India and China.

Zipityzap.com is currently under development in the United States. It plans to offer "cafeteria style" internet television. Acting as an internet television portal, users will be able to subscribe to "channels" on an individual basis thus eliminating the need to purchase an expensive entertainment package. Content will be streamed directly from the content provider to the end user with real-time subscription authorization provided by Zipityzap.

The software platform chosen by network operators to provide the most recent Internet television services has been Microsoft TV IPTV Edition, which works together with a set-top box.

These services are limited to the offer supplied by the provider meaning that you can only get on your TV set the channels and services you are paying for.

Some of the technological arguments to broad internet television acceptance are:

Lack of set top boxes - these need the latest compression technologies (MPEG-4's H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec; and VC-1). Decoding chips are still new and expensive.

Incompatible standards (different software and/or hardware are required to watch different providers)

Low bandwidth to the home - a standard definition digital signal requires a 2 Mbit/s connection. High definition requires 8 Mbit/s.

Restricted bandwidth in the internet backbone (this will be a problem if many people decide to adopt internet TV via unicast.)

Streaming media technology - which can be of poor quality and high cost to the providers. Multicast and P2PTV are some of the suggested solutions.

Old media meeting new media - licensing regulations, existing deals, and uncertainty over payment, security, and advertising has led to only slow steps being taken by the companies which own the TV content.

Either VC-1 or MPEG-4's H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codecs are being used for downloadable video (as also used in HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc). For streaming video content, the BBC's Dirac (codec) project seeks to address quality and incompatibility by creating a scalable, high-quality, Free software codec.

4oD In 2007 Channel 4 released their Channel 4#4oD service to download paid Channel 4 television content via the internet.

Terminology There are many ways to deliver video over an IP network and many buzzwords have been applied to these various ways, many of which are still used completely interchangeably even by professionals in the field.

The current trend is to restrict the term IPTV to those services operated and controlled by the same company that operates and controls the "Final Mile" to the consumers' premises. This allows a certain level of service to be guaranteed. Further, an IPTV service requires the video and audio to be carried in a single MPEG2 transport stream over the IP network. Many services can be carried in a single transport stream.

Internet TV now normally refers to those services sourced over the Internet by service providers that cannot control the final delivery. Again, transport streams in IP packets are used with one or more services per transport stream.

Other TV-like services are available on the Internet but these send the video and the audio in separate streams over the IP network and do not use transport streams.

Whilst the differences may seem irrelevant to the consumer, the underlying technology employed is quite different and directly affect the range and quality of service that can be achieved. IPTV users are limited to a relatively small range of programs but at high quality, whereas an Internet TV user may have access to many thousands of channels from literally all over the world but without any guarantee of being able to watch them. Streaming services such as YouTube generally offer User Generated Content UGC as individual short clips rather than professionally produced programs or films grouped as a channel.

Other names for Internet television

Television on the desktop (TOD)
TV over IP - Television over Internet Protocol
Vlog For video web logging.
Vodcast For video on demand.

Methods used for Internet television

Broadcatching For a P2PTV paradigm in use today.
Streaming media

Technologies used for Internet television

BitTorrent
Dirac (codec)
HTTP
Nullsoft Streaming Video, a technology used by AOL to deliver Internet based video content.
RSS (file format)
RSS enclosure
RTSP
Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language
Theora
WTVML