Mass Video Streaming On The Web Reaches New Heights

Let me state right from the start that I am very, very skeptical about the veracity of the figure quoted by the organizers of this past weekend’s Live Earth event in counting the event’s audience – both online and offline. Why? Well, it’s hard to believe roughly 2 billion people visited the arenas, tuned in their televisions, and pointed their Web browsers to the sites bearing video streams broadcasting the action from around the globe. To say the least, it appears far-fetched to assume one-fourth to one-third of the world’s population was fortunate enough to partake in the sonically-backed global effort to raise awareness about climate change throughout the 24 hours that comprised July 7, 2007. Even when taking into account the fact that more individuals are “connected” today than ever before.

Putting aside the event’s organizers’ estimate of an overall statistic, however, let’s muse a bit about Live Earth’s online presence particularly.

I felt compelled yesterday morning after reading a snipped published by Reuters about the event’s online viewership to write something up. Not just to reiterate the quote of 9 million online viewers; nor to reiterate that that number indeed ranks the Web effort for the Live Earth syndicate as #1 in history, surpassing 2004’s Live 8 global concert and anything else that may have come before.

Instead, I’d like to say one thing. Really, one thing. One thing to sum my impression about the streaming of video in massive quantities on the Web:

Finally.

We’ve finally been able to witness good quality live/almost-live captures of events happening most anywhere on Earth through our cathode ray and LCD displays in reasonably good picture quality. Finally.

Finally, broadband has become ubiquitous enough that companies/services/utilities/etc. can offer enough bits per second to enough people that moving pictures on the Web can be something we enjoy rather than tolerate. Finally.

Now, I must say I may have had a better-than-average experience when taking in the various concert streams available last Saturday. Mostly due to the better-than-average network service I enjoy here in the northeastern region of the US. FTTH, or “Fiber To The Home” definitely does have its advantages.

But I have a strong suspicion that most of the other 9 million purportedly said to experience Live Earth on the Web must have had reasonably good, solid streams showing second after second, minute after minute, even hour after hour on their monitors as well. I think about how well online programming is throttled to promote both performance and efficiency today and deduce that most all of the 9 million other folks tuning in to Live Earth online must have had similarly good experiences.

So it looks like we’re getting very close to a point at which the dreams of the ‘90s are taking shape for real. And that…well, that’s no doubt a very cool proposition to play with right now.

To finish this off, I have a few questions for you: Did you see Live Earth? If not, you can do so right now, on-demand. What was/is your experience like? Are you excited about the prospect of experiencing regular real-time good- to high-quality video streams via your PC - and eventually via your Internet-connected “media center”? Do you care? Please, do let us know. We’d love to hear your musings on the subject.