At a time of financial turmoil, packaged media may seem threatened by the easy availability and low apparent cost of online video. How close is streaming video to overtaking DVD and Blu-ray as the main source of entertainment in the home? Some clues were to be found at Streaming Media Europe 2008, held in London last week. BOB AUGER reports.

The opening keynote was delivered by Claude London, Director of Digital Media at BBC Worldwide. In his view, there is a big difference between the short-lived content available on sites like YouTube and mainstream content with high production values which the consumer will want to watch again and again.

Several speakers were keen to point out that the average running time of YouTube clips is around two and a half minutes and even so most clips are abandoned after less than 20 seconds. Hardly a threat to long-form media, as Claude London pointed out. "Traditional media companies need to be more open to online opportunities," he says, "they should use sites like YouTube to get people talking about long form media. Instead of seeing it as a threat, they should exploit its possibilities."

Simon Hudson, Sector Director of ioko, drew attention to a YouGov survey, in April this year, of 2,168 online adults. It revealed that 57% of UK residents watch ten hours or more of time-shifted TV each week. The drivers that could lead to increased consumption included 'ability to watch Internet video on TV' (38%) 'better picture quality' (47%) and 'more free content' (56%).

Claude London compared a short YouTube video of a kitten at a washing machine with the recent BBC HD programme "Tiger – Spy in the Jungle" to make the point that 'free content' is unlikely to generate repeat viewing, whereas the combination of BBC iPlayer and TV transmission not only leads to increased audiences but also generates traditional media sales. Of course, the iPlayer is only 'free' to the extent that it is funded by UK licence fee payers.

The desire for better picture quality indicates that many viewers with HD Ready screens of 32" and above can now see just how bad most streaming video really is. Those who can already watch internet video on widescreen TV are quickly choosing not to, preferring instead their iPhone, Android or Nokia N96.

The mention of HD video causes most streaming enthusiasts to enter defensive mode. Claude London mentioned the Virgin trials but indicated that HD delivery for most broadband users may still be five to ten years away. In the session on Content Delivery methods, following an inconclusive debate on the relative merits of P2P, streaming, multicast and downloads, delegates were to hear that few users receive streams above one Megabit per second.

Presumably following Samuel Johnson's remark that it is "Not that it was done well but that it was done at all," Alex Wolfe, of A-Stream attempted to promote 'better than SD quality' as possible now for some DSL users. In his view, the fact that 'shaped streaming' meant that frames were invisibly dropped to provide "a continuous experience" was a plus point – not a view that compressionists working in Blu-ray and DVD would necessarily endorse.

It was also confirmed that the creaking broadband infrastructure could collapse under the strain of distribution of 'free' HD content. Yet there was little or no explanation of how the network outside major cities can be upgraded to handle HD streams without either massive government assistance (unlikely in the current financial situation), a hike in broadband subscriptions (thus making wired broadband uncompetitive with wireless solutions) or a commercial charge for content that includes delivery costs.

Assuming that the funding could be found to bring fibre to the home (or at least the kerb) could video content ever support the costs involved? It would be interesting to compare the real costs of delivering five Gigabytes of video to every home as a polycarbonate giveaway in the daily newspaper with streaming the same content via ADSL – now or in the foreseeable future. Then do the sums again at Blu-ray HD bitrates…

In his keynote to the first European event, in 1999, Nicholas Butterworth, then CEO of MTVi, sang the praises of DSL broadband video delivery, with a timeframe of "around two years from now". Although he was cagey about giving an exact timescale, his predictions mirrored this year's event: Streaming video to the desktop, the car, the living room and wirelessly to mobile devices — all were on the menu ten years ago and, equally, at this month at Streaming Media Europe.

Has that much changed in the intervening years? In 1994 Electric Switch was working with Iterated Systems of Atlanta to deliver fractal video of 320x240 at 15 frames a second and around 100 kbps. The results were surprisingly good, but they were not television. Much the same can be said of the streaming video available today.

The moving target of audio and video perfection remains just out of reach and, impressive though some of the demonstrations may be, on the evidence of this year's event streaming media remains king of convenience and not of quality.

Story filed 27.10.08