SBC and Microsoft team up for HDTV over IP

We're jazzed to hear high-def TV will soon be coming over Internet lines with SBC Communications' Project Lightspeed; they intend to lay over 38,000 miles of fiber to bring 18 million households by 2007 up to speed with 15 to 20 Mbps, which, of course, should be more than enough bandwidth for HDTV. So SBC is teaming with Microsoft for IPTV services, which will provide an alternative to cable and satellite, with standard definition and high-def offerings, video on demand, and digital video recording. We're sure it's going to be heavily DRM-protected, but what can you do?

[Via Slashdot]

[Nathan Beckstrand @ Dec 19th 2005 1:47AM]

Standard mpeg-2 HD data rates (current tech for broadcast HD) require 25Mbit/s, however, with mpeg-4 or wmv9 you can get excellent results only using 15Mbit/s. In reality though you can probably go a lot lower and still get good results.