The Stake: $2,000
Background
The idea is simple: Log on, select a flick, and view it immediately. Making it happen is more complicated. To deliver video-on-demand to a mass audience, archives must be digitized and compressed, copyrights protected, and business models formulated. Moreover, the conduit to consumers must deliver image quality sufficient to satisfy viewers accustomed to TV and DVD. Griffin and Bell have left plenty of wiggle room regarding how such a service might work. The content library might reside on centralized or distributed servers, waiting to be streamed to the customer's system. The service might consult a user profile and deliver desirable titles ahead of time. Or televisions could come preloaded with an unlockable library of content aimed at the average consumer.
YES
Jim Griffin CEO, Cherry Lane Digital; founder, Evolab
DESIGNATED NONPROFIT:
Electronic Frontier Foundation
"Mass-market video-on-demand will emerge because the current situation is, in consultant Michael Rothschild's phrase, bionomic: What the entertainment ecosystem demands, network flora and fauna will supply. Codecs will evolve to give viewers the quality they require at whatever available bandwidth. Rights holders will realize that copyright laws can't force open a wallet, and payments will find a more efficient path between artist and fan. Ultimately, video data will come from centralized servers; meanwhile, buffers and caches will do the trick. ReplayTV, which now ships with Ethernet, can already share movies. All that's missing is a business model and a content library.
NO
Gordon Bell Senior researcher, Microsoft
DESIGNATED NONPROFIT Computer History Museum:
"We should have something like video-on-demand today. That we don't - after years of development and experimentation - leads me to conclude that VOD isn't likely to happen within a decade. Several factors have to come into play first. You need sufficient universal bandwidth - at least 1 Mbps, well beyond what's available to most consumers today - and a codec that delivers television quality at that data rate. You need a connection between the server and the TV (I don't think 5 million people will want to watch movies on their PCs). Finally, you need attractive services and content suppliers willing to sell bits. I wish I were more optimistic; TV annoys the hell out of me."
VIEW
The Price of Being a Fortress
Question
Long Bets
