BigShinyThing

Technology Review reports claims from a company called MatrixStream that it can now stream HDTV content in realtime, over the public Internet. That’s big news, for a couple of important reasons.

It makes moot the outcome of the format war between the HiDef successors to DVD: if it’s possible to stream HD content on demand long-haul over broadband, it’s unlikely that (m)any punters will take a chance on ending up stuck with the ‘BetaMax of HD’. Instead, they’re going to wait until Apple releases its much-anticipated HiDef ‘media centre’ device. Long tipped to feature iTunes-enabled online access to first-run and classic films and TV series, Apple’s box is an even more compelling proposition if that content can be made instantly available through streaming.

Streaming HD not only marks the death of physical media. It also defines a new battleground: one where encumbent media behemoths will have to fight it out not only against consumer-created content (the Cat Channel) but against existing professional content producers as well. bruckheimer.tv? Hell, that would be on my playlist. Content is media. True today, ubiquitous tomorrow, on a thousand ‘channels-of-me‘.

The only question is, which content will show up on streaming HD? MatrixStream claims to be betting on the long tail:

[...] Independent content producers who could use high-definition Internet IPTV to reach niche audiences with premium programming that makes today’s streaming video look primitive. “We’re talking about the real long tail,” says [MatrixStream's CTO] Chung. “Instead of 500 channels, you’ll have a million. Or, to put it another way, you’ll have just one channel — yours.”

That’s a lot of content, and it will take a while for producers to create (and financiers to see the value of) high-quality niche programming. In the interim, we’re sceptical that punters who have just paid out for their HD home cinema ‘experience’ will use it to watch the same YouTube nonsense that keeps them busy in the office. Likewise, we doubt that MatrixStream’s system will herald the crossover of fan-created TV into the mainstream (not yet, at least).

We think they’re most likely to get bought out by Apple and end up streaming the same glossy, professionally-produced content we’re busily consuming on our Sky+ boxes and at the cinema — the revolutionary aspects of this technology will be in the way it opens up the market to different media and channel models. Assuming of course that Apple (or whoever gets their deals in place first) doesn’t just lock it all down with DRM and create a media monopoly that Charles Foster Kane himself would have envied. Stay (ahem) tuned.