Geek 28 Oct 2004 02:34 pm
Wish list
With all this talk of podcasting, and this huge amount of (mostly amateur-like) audio and video content becoming available in a convenient format to the whole world, I was thinking about something that I would very much like to have: a way to access radio and TV content generated anywhere in the world, over the Internet, from anywhere in the world. For example, I would love to subscribe, podcast-like, to a feed containing the local nightly news from where I used to live; or to some US shows that are not available outside the US (my SO likes the NBC “Today Show”, for example; I think more along the lines of TechTV); or UK shows, for that matter.
This is possible for some types of content, but not most. For example, I can subscribe to several NPR programs through Audible (I wonder if that sells well…). And it would be useful even for content that is locally available, but inconveniently packaged. I can get the “Tonight Show with Jay Leno” here, but only if I subscribe to Foxtel Cable and get a bunch of channels I couldn’t care less about.
I can get a fair amount of this using bit-torrent and other P2P tools; mostly anything that is popular enough is out there. But this is not a very structured way to get content, and it’s not exactly legal; I’d be willing to pay reasonably well for this kind of service.
I think what I have in mind is a sort of globally-connected Tivo, getting content from anywhere, at any time, for my viewing convenience. I guess we’re headed that way, and will get there eventually; but first we’ll have to wade through a maze of twisty little licensing agreements, all different…
