On 26/09/2005, Martin Hill in the WAMUG Mailing List Digest wrote:
Darwin Streaming Server or Quicktime Streaming Server sending out
MPEG-4
streams is a win-win for standards and Apple and considering the Darwin
Streaming server is free and runs on Linux and Windows Server
hardware, and
has either the first or second largest marketshare - the ABC and others
really have no excuse not to offer it IMHO. :-)
my take on streaming, as a user, is that there now exists a false
dichotomy between serving streams and downloadable files from public
broadcasters.
As such, I think that standards is definitely the place around which
decisions should be getting made - and b*ggr the brand names.
It appears that the legal suits have maintained that
copyright/ownership, whatever the latest focus of control is, of
streamed content is different from downloads.
Mp3s from public radio are getting treated as different to streamed
files. But applications I use to fetch both for my hard drive don't
distinguish between them - - unless the streaming server is clogged of
course.
Given that any broadcast (from the time I listened on SW) has always
been capable of getting recorded, I wonder why this emphasis remains.
The basic difference surely is that streaming dishes the file out in
real time while downloads are faster for getting the file itself.
Why the delay for all broadcasting to become one standard? Are the
suits waiting for some kind of iTunes music shopping encoding to
prevent video streaming from getting recorded or nicked?
Surely the Holy Grail of cripple-encoding digital content has long
been proven a myth?
Hasn't apple proven that there is a point where people will cooperate
with a fair downloading setup and that if providers get restrictive or
greedy then their digital locks are simply given the boltcutter
treatment?
I repeat that I am a plain vanilla user with no axe to grind.
Nancy M
