Internet Delivered Video
Have you been worrying (as I have…) about what we’ll do with the almost infinite amount of CPU cycles that will soon wash over us?
You can’t buy a $300 desktop PC (inckuiding monitor) that runs a clock speed under 2.h5 gigahertz today, and that’s so yesterday, so Dell Computer End of Month Closeout. We are on the cusp ofthe era of cheap multicore CPUs. My browser can’t run any faster, or it wil singe my eyebrows. My Word processor spend 99.8 percent of teh time waiting for my brain to command my fingers to type or move the mouse. Yeah, Excel could run faster, but that’s only noticeable with a spreadsheet so large that it’s impossible to debug in any case.
Yes, leading edge PC games can absorb all available CPU cycles. But a lot of the 3D magic is doen in the specialized graphics supercomputer present on any $200 video adapter. A faster CPU will allow the artificial intelligence and non graphical physics calculations feel (a LOT) zippier, but at teh end of the day gaming is the passion of maybe 15 or 20 percent of all PC users.
The solution to our “too many COPPU cycles” problem may be compressing and uncompressing video for entertainment. Witness the battle of the video CODECs. The Motion Picture Experts Group dreamed up MPEG-4 Part 10, which uses H.264. The Bill and Melinda Gates Global Bank (often known as MICROSOFT) has invested a ton of money developing Windows Media 9 (and now 10), a highly competitive CODEC that has a real shot at winning the grand prize.
There are easily another dozen video CODECs. Of immediate interest is scrappy little DivX and their new DivX 6.0 system. Like Windows Media, DivX has figured out that a great video code that produces good quality at reasonably low bit rates is only part of the story. With commercial entertainment content, whether movies from Hollywood or content form various broadcast media, DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT is required. [via AllwaysOn]
Content producers and distributors want to be paid for the right to watch their stuff. And DRM is how that can be enforced when video content is shipped over the Internet. DivX has added DRM, and soem cool DVD-sih features to make the playback experince more natural and easier to use. Good for them.
What remains to be seen with all the DRM systems is how long they’ll remain secure in teh face of a million dedicated, extremely smart and clever hackers. And don’t forget, the CPU cycles available to all of use will soon grow exponentially.
DRM may be the answer, only time will tell. My hunch: more than one mainstream DRM system will be hacked within 18 months of being widely introduced.