[LINK] Forum on high speed bandwidth in Australia

[Roger Clarke]

>At 08:53 AM 8/05/2009, Tom Koltai wrote:
>>I suggest Split screen four windows.

At 9:08 +1000 8/5/09, Jan Whitaker wrote:
>  ...  please don't split screens for the general end use. I
>tried a double screen size, but the images weren't sharp enough. Yes,
>it would have given me screen size to have a split screen, but the
>blurry graphics would have made them unusable.
>If you want to have streams of the various feeds, feel free, but it's
>not an elegant bandwidth use solution to use a 256+ channel for text.
>There were people who chose the higher definition feeds option and
>then complained that they used up their daily data quota. Well, duh.
>Tom, not everyone has a multi-screen control console on their desks.
>You gotta learn to think like us plebs out in the burbs.

I tackled the general point in my talk, and this thread extends what 
I was on about *very* nicely.

In the best of all possible worlds ...

-   George sends multiple feeds out into the world
-   some of the feeds have some form of synchronisation mechanism
     (whereas others, such as commentaries, don't need it)
-   people subscribe to the feeds they want
     e.g. by ticking boxes on a control-page
     (the page needs to indicate the bandwidth needed to support each feed)
-   the feeds arrive in windows that can be sized and moved
-   people can sculpt their access according to personal preferences,
     device characteristics, bandwidth availability, etc.
-   a couple of bundled options can be offered, which have fairly fixed
     display arrangements (e.g. low-res talking-head top-left, slides
     bottom-left, commentary-feed top-right, control-panel bottom-right)
-   the bundled options can be provided by the multi-caster or any
     intermediary (which could also offer its own parallel feed)

Yes, it assumes a *lot* at the multi-casting end.  But Pia, George 
and Bob Edwards [did I miss someone??] showed that a lot can be 
strung together in quick time.  (I grinned at George when I asked him 
what his fallback arrangements were;  and he grinned back).

Yes, it assumes a fairly high level of user sophistication, which in 
the short term means an amount of disenfranchisement.

Yes, I'm aware of the existence of protocols that enable some of this 
(but I'd have to go and read my notes to get myself back into the 
alphabet soup, and then update myself on progress since I last 
looked).

Yes, I'm sure AARNet was supporting things like this some years ago; 
but did they down-scale and productise the results of their work?

No, I'm not aware of anything ready to roll that does all this;  but 
then I only bring my scepticism to bear on these kinds of services 
every few years  (:-)}

Yes, I'd be *much* more enthusiastic about such a multi-streamed and 
de-coupled video-conferencing architecture than I am about the mere 
'talking head' stuff that has dominated practice for the first 35 
years.


-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/

Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
                    Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916
mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au                http://www.xamax.com.au/

Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng  Australian National University
Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program      University of Hong Kong
Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre      Uni of NSW