RE: Ibash-99 and the Who

[Alan McKendree <amck@thenetdr.com>]

At 6:53 -0700 10/16/1999, The Who Mailing List Digest wrote:
>Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1999 09:17:03 -0400
>From: "O'Neal, Kevin W." <Kevin.ONeal@vtmednet.org>
>
>From everything I've heard and
>understand, the idea of watching a concert in real time over the net is a
>pipe dream unless you have cable-net access.

I expect it to be like every other real-time Internet broadcast I've
listened to; the site will be overwhelmed and unable to pump out enough
data to satisfy all those who want to listen. You'll have dropouts no
matter how fast YOUR connection is, because the problem will be at the
sending end.  The fact that apparently they're going to send video as well
as audio just makes the problem worse.  You'll only be able to get a clean
copy if they archive it for later access.

The whole thing reminds me of the early days of radio, where families would
cluster around the box just to hear a staticky, mostly-coherent
transmission because it was so new and marvelous.  If the goal were really
to broadcast a CONCERT, they'd be doing it on pay-per-view, where the focus
can be THE SHOW, rather than the means of transmission.  I'm reminded of
Marshall McLuhan's once-famous phrase, "The medium IS the message"...the
point of this whole exercise is  how it's sent, how it's received, and
getting people to do the necessary work at their end to receive the
transmission at all.  The music is not the point, it's just the incentive
to get the audience to do the setup work. Those who take part in the
exercise can someday reminisce to their children about the days back in '99
when they used their computer monitor to watch a staticky, semi-satisfying
video transmission over what was then called the Internet.

Alan
Dell is the one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind.  Apple sees in 3-D.