Television and especially high definition television is something that we're already seeing as a viable method for internet distribution. Best found in the rampant use of torrents, the widespread availability and demand for high-definition TV (HDTV) is already upon us.
But currently there's no efficient method to stream media at such high resolution - a problem that Akamai is attempting to solve by expanding the company's delivery hardware. Akamai plans to overcome speed limitations by building closer proximity to cable providers and more importantly, to the end user. Diminishing physical distance helps to not only maintain faster speed but also a more consistent bandwidth.
While bulking up on hardware isn't sexy in a peer-to-peer age, Akamai's push into HD marks a decisive advantage over competitors, like Limelight and Move Networks. Akamai has aggressively maintained its dominance in the content-delivery-network (CDN) market, despite the recent influx of companies, by buying up a P2P competitor (Red Swoosh) as well as content management tools (Nine Systems). By integrating Red Swoosh's efficient distributed delivery mechanism (read P2P) into its hardware, Akamai is lowering its distribution costs to manage while other CDN companies begin a price war.
Thankfully, updating software for HD television on the internet will not be as costly as Akamai's hardware upgrade. Adobe's adoption of the video codec H.264 (a compression for video that uses substantially smaller file sizes) into the ubiquitous Flash will only fuel the fires of delivering HD content over-the-web. The improvements to Flash's video have taken cues from the continued popularity of the Apple Trailer web site with its use of H.264 for high-definition video. Similarly hopeful for internet HD TV is the implementation of Microsoft's Silverlight technology. Built into Netflix's new Watch-Now service, Silverlight allows interaction with other users as well as solid Operating System for video watching. Netflix's service was built in less than three weeks for a presentation and left many drooling in the audience.
However, the timing of Akamai's announcement comes after a disappointing second quarter for the company and facing the "possibility that after two years of extremely rapid expansion, video streaming and consumption is flattening." The glimmer of hope is that streaming HD television through the internet is a market with large potential. For the broadcasting industry, who are particularly interested in maintaining vertical distribution, streaming is the ideal method of providing content without worrying about pricing, piracy and ownership - the main issues which resulted in NBC's recent pullout from iTunes downloading service.