On Demand
As the technology world moves rapidly forward, are we approaching a place of “pay for access” or do devices such as MP3 players (solid state or otherwise), etc, have a future?
As bandwidth increases, and companies like Telewest mooting a 100Mb service by the end of 2006, will we need to carry our own personal stores of media, or will we simply be able to just pay a flat monthly fee and access anything we choose, whenever we want? Now that’s a goal worth pursuing methinks.
I could simply access my online account and choose my personal library of tunes, movies, content, etc. This library could be accessed wirelessly from any mobile device I may happen to be carrying around – dedicated MP3 player, mobile phone, portable media player, laptop, etc – and I could play, skip, shuffle, pause as I feel fit. Sure, in the early days there would be “premium content” that I could access for a small fee on top of my access charge (that’s how it works), but I would not be restricted by formats, DRM, etc, etc, and just be able to access and explore a world of media channels at my leisure – even in my own home.
But what about pause live TV? Surely we’d need a hard disk for that? Ultimately, no. With much more capable infrastructures at key content providers (Network TV Stations), they would have the infrastructure in place that tagged the programme you were watching and paused it on their system (they would run their own hard disks or equivalent) so you could resume whenever you liked – even from another device in another place since you just need to log in to your account from your current location and pick up where you left off.
Sounds like a far-fetched future?
Not so … Sky announced yesterday that they were launching a Sky-by-Mobile service. According to stuffmag.co.uk: Sky By Mobile is available on all networks, but you’ll need a compatible GPRS or 3G handset – you’ll find model details on the Sky By Mobile website. While Sky makes no charge for the service, you will have to pay standard data fees to your network.
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