Da’s Entropy

I was selected as one of the four CSUA (Canadian Satellite Users Association) Broadcast Technology Scholarship recipients last December. In January, they invited me to attend their annual conference, which took place at Toronto Marriott Downtown Eaton Center (More conference details here).

There are a few interesting things happening to the broadcast industry recently. The most interesting one for me is the competition between traditional broadcasting, such as TV, and media distribution via the Internet, such as Youtube, Joost or even iTunes. Internet programs have certain advantages (customizable, interactive, etc.) over traditional broadcasting, but the latter also improves, by providing interactive services(VoD), better-quality programs (HD), etc.. And as broadcasting is still the most efficient way for large volume content distribution (e.g., HD program), this industry will remain prosperous in the near future. (So for all my friends who does research in networking — there is still much to do, such as efficient multicasting and P2P streaming. Actually both of these technologies exist already, but neither of them is capable of delivering HD program yet, hinting much room for improvement.)

While competing with Internet, the broadcasting industry also leverages networking technology for content handling and distribution. Most programs are stored on harddisk rather than tape (though tape is still used for archiving programs), and most programs are transmitted via the network from the content generator to content provider. CSUA has renamed itself to CBDA (Canadian Broadcast Distribution Association), to reflect the change that satellite is no longer the only way for broadcasting content distribution.

There are also some other interesting topics in the conference, such as government regulation, the consolidation of the satellite industry, and a report on CES2008. On the whole, it was a fun two-day escape from school.