Broadcast television in an IP world

Mon Nov 20 18:47:11 UTC 2017

In a message written on Sat, Nov 18, 2017 at 01:48:08AM +0100, Baldur Norddahl wrote:
> Does multicast have any future? Netflix, YouTube, et al does not use it.
> People want instant replay and a catalogue to select from. Except for sport
> events, live TV has no advantage so why even try to optimize for it?

Yes, but not the way you're asking.

Multicast to end user workstations and between ISP's is probably dead
and will never return.

Multicast used in private networks, including to distribute programming
to set top boxes is alive and well, often hidden in view but in use by
millions.

It's not just live TV, in the sense of sports.  Many businesses leave on
their favorite news channel 24x7x365, people still tune into topical
shows (evening news, the late show) on schedules, etc.  And some of them
also do things like push software and guide data using multicast.

-- 
Leo Bicknell - bicknell at ufp.org
PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/
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