Streaming Media - August/September 2007 - (Page 18)

letters to the editor Regardless of the value, the “distribution” is the least expensive portion of streaming video. Why would you shave a small percentage off distribution cost if it increases any risk that the client will balk before the video begins, or completes? Gary Russell Webcasting Technologies Atlanta If nothing else, Gary, your letter confirms what the authors of the article were asserting: That different file delivery methods are appropriate for different business use cases. RTSP delivery is certainly a reasonable choice in many instances, for the reasons you outline. And it appears that the terminology associated with this business continues to vex us, no matter how hard we try to arrive at consensus on what terms mean. The term “streaming media” is often used to refer to any video or audio delivered either via streaming or progressive download. As a catch-all phrase, it works just fine. But when we get down to addressing the specifics of delivery, we need to be careful. You write “HTTP may also be configured to begin playing as the media file downloads—which is technically streaming.” I think most in the industry would disagree; if it’s delivered from an HTTP server, it’s not “technically” streaming, no matter how much it might appear to be so to the end user.—Ed. Sticking His Neck Out? I wanted to congratulate you on the great June/July issue and point out a couple of corrections and maybe right some confusion. In regards to the article: “Cookin’ with P2P there are some ,” comments I would put forth: Many P2P marketing companies are customers of BuyDRM, and they all rely exclusively on DRM to generate user views and traffic to their customers’ content. Without DRM, their business model falls down. I would pose the question: How can anyone monetize an unknown user in a P2P network with a media file sans DRM? We have yet to see how this is actually done. We don’t believe it’s possible en masse without DRM. If DRM created such “friction between [content owners] and their customers” (as someone quoted in the article claims), how did Apple sell one billion-plus DRM-man18 STREAMING MEDIA August/September 2007 aged music tracks? How did American Idol sell 250,000 music tracks in five days using Windows Media DRM? How do Napster, the NBA, the UFC, Disney, Starz, Wal-Mart, CinemaNOW, MusicMatch, and [the list goes on and on] have such great success using DRM with all this friction? Where is the friction? In regards to the article “Streaming vs. Progressive Download,” on page 58 there were some errors in print. 1. How does the P2P framework not lend itself to DRM? This is a completely unsupported statement and there is a wealth of data in the marketplace that shows this to be false. In fact, DRM is a prime ingredient for companies that are successfully monetizing P2P traffic by: • Creating sell-throughs, • Acquiring new customer ccontact data (i.e., legitimate emails), • Driving traffic to legitimate websites, • Exposing users to free full-length media that they would otherwise have to pay cash for, and • Using ad-supported media 2. There is no such thing as QuickTime DRM. Never has been. Not sure where the author came up with this but I would challenge him/her to please provide more info about said QuickTime DRM. If P2P is not a practical delivery method for most any publisher, then I am a six-legged giraffe. You are kidding me, right? Don’t tell that to the numerous publishers pushing out games, movies, music, and software that use P2P to do so. Christopher Levy CEO and Founder BuyDRM As Christopher acknowledged in an email exchange after he sent us this letter, whether or not QuickTime has DRM depends on how far you’re willing to stretch the definition. The AAC audio files that iTunes delivers are in QuickTime container and encrypted with Apple’s FairPlay DRM.—Ed. WRITING TO THE EDITOR We welcome comments and suggestions regarding Streaming Media. Letters must include your name, email address, and company affiliation, if appropriate. Letters to the Editor may be sent to letters@streamingmedia.com.

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Streaming Media - August/September 2007

Table of Contents Sweet Sixteen Letters to the Editor Technology and Business Trends IBM Takes Webcasting to the Desktop ROI in the EDU Bank Serves Espresso, Enterprise Video Online Video Advertising: Hit or Miss MLB’s Foul Bawl A Crash Course in Flash Video Newspapers in Multimedia Metamorphosis Webcasting Large Entertainment Events: Seeing Through the Hype Webcasting With Windows Media Can’t Start A Fire . . . A WiMAX Primer Mobile Video at Last Telestream Episode Pro Grass Valley ProCoder 3 Silverlight Is No Flash Killer

Streaming Media - August/September 2007

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