Submitted by johnh on January 3, 2005 - 08:29.
Cybersky-TV [more info] represents, if it turns out to work, the holy grail of webcasting. Like Bittorrent, but for live TV. Expect it to be chock-full of relays of live sports, movie channels, cable pr0n and all other kinds of infringements when (if) it launches on schedule in about a month's time. Shortly after that, there'll be homebrew versions of the above as people figure out how to make a 'channel' by making a looping playlist from from their TiVo recordings and downloaded torrent files.
Shortly after *that*, it gets interesting as the required 'substantial non-infringing uses' get underway with community and college radio and TV channels, some of them brand new. Home appliances which can view these new channels. Auto-downloading plugins for Windows Media Player and RealPlayer/QT. If it works.
For broadcasting, probably the beginning of a fatal earthquake. *Totally* the end of cable TV and the ever-crappy DAB Digital Radio. If it works, if it works, if it works...
... Peercast, for example, just falls short of the mark - extremely skippy for the most part even over DSL - and is too tricky for end-users even though the Winamp plugin is very painless. The thing is, something which does work is definitely coming down the pipe any moment now. Get ready. Meantime, I've signed up for the CTV testing runs and I'll let you know how it's going.
Happy new year...