News

Streaming television and movies to Internet users has taken a long time to get going in Canada. It's finally here — but the pickings appear slim. The kind of legal and licensing hurdles that Canadian distributors have to jump before letting us watch what we want, when we want, are formidable.

We can watch TV shows streamed to the tiny screens on our handheld devices from outfits such as Mobovivo, although it's a different story for users with larger screens.

One of the great problems is allaying the fears of the major TV production companies, which are almost all owned by the even bigger movie studios, that once the movies and TV shows become digital, there's every expectation that they will end up available for free on the Internet via peer-to-peer file transfers. So the heavy hitters in Tellywood, as the combined TV and movie producers are often called, demand some system by which users will be unable to view what they rent or buy except on devices that have been "authorized" by the user.

Still, questions remain: Is streaming video over the Internet the way to go? Rogers Cable, Canada's largest cable company and largest Internet service provider is in no hurry to jump on the movies-over-the-Internet bandwagon.

David Purdy, vice-president and general manager of television services at Rogers Communications, is in charge of offering video on demand for the cable company. He was educated at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and at the University of Western Ontario.

Mr. Purdy has an extensive background in the television industry, and has helped launch several Canadian specialty channels, including Discovery Channel Canada, The Comedy Network, OLN Canada, and Rogers Sportsnet. In addition to his extensive media knowledge, Mr. Purdy has been instrumental in launching a number of new products at Rogers Cable Inc., including Interactive Television, Wink, VOD, FOD, SVOD, HD and PVR.

We've asked Mr. Purdy to answer readers' questions on what he thinks is the best way to offer television and movies to Canadians.

Editor's Note: globeandmail.com editors will read and allow or reject each question/comment. Comments/questions may be edited for length or clarity. HTML is not allowed. We will not publish questions/comments that include personal attacks on participants in these discussions, that make false or unsubstantiated allegations, that purport to quote people or reports where the purported quote or fact cannot be easily verified, or questions/comments that include vulgar language or libellous statements. Preference will be given to readers who submit questions/comments using their full name and home town, rather than a pseudonym.

Jack Kapica, moderator, asks: Welcome David Purdy, and thanks for joining this discussion. I'd like to start by asking, what kind of problems do Canadian companies such as Rogers face when trying to get the rights to show video on demand?

David Purdy: It is my pleasure Jack.

With prime time main network shows in Canada negotiations are a three-way conversation between the studio, the Canadian network and the cable company. In the United States the studio and the network are the same organization. The business model for a three-way conversation versus a two-way conversation is more difficult and of course these discussions take more time in Canada than they would in the United States.

Tim Cares from Canada writes: Isn't traffic shaping just a way of eliminating competition from your VOD services? Does VOD take up bandwidth in a similar way to downloading movies or watching from a legitimate streaming source?

David Purdy: Video on Demand (VOD) does require bandwidth. Rogers is committed to delivering video services on both platforms. The platform that the customer decides to use, will be the one what will support.

Remain Nameless from Canada writes: Mr Purdy, I have heard that some cable companies in the U.S. are required to place limits on viewing recorded programs on their personal video recorders — the recording self-destructs after a single viewing, or within so many hours of being recorded whether it has been played or not. Is this likely to happen in Canada too?

David Purdy: This is not something that I have been asked to support by any studio.

Jonathan Cooper from Toronto writes: Mr. Purdy, I find it bizarre that the TV and movie companies seem intent on crippling their online offerings, making them harder to use than the illegal alternative. It's already easy to get HD movies and TV shows from file-sharing websites, so any legal download service rolled out must be better than the alternative, not worse. That means a TV episode must be released on HD VOD immediately after it is aired, because that's how quickly it will get posted on the Internet.

I would gladly pay to watch my favourite TV shows and movies in HD on demand, but if the free alternative offers better quality and flexibility, why bother with a paid option? Wouldn't it make more sense to focus on making legal content distribution as user-friendly as possible, knowing that the cat is already out of the bag with regard to file sharing?

David Purdy: You are absolutely right. The studios and networks have to recognize that they must provide a legal alternative as quickly as possible if they are to avoid a Napster-like disruption to their businesses.

I would argue that this content should be available on both the Internet and on-demand platforms.

Big D from Canada writes: Good afternoon. We have already seen problems arising from our data downloading approaching a critical mass of the capacity of the current infrastructure (Comcast and other providers curbing usage). With most of our internet bringing Fibre only to the node and not fibre to the home, can we really believe we are that close to achieving real streaming TV and video over the Internet?

I have read Verizon has spent $30-billion and more than $1,300 for every home passed on its fibre-to-the-home infrastructure. Is it really that realistic to expect mass volumes of HD quality data streamed to every home in the near future? And have providers begun to use products such as Ca-Botics's cable-laying automated robots to lay fibre in waste water or are we still digging up roads to lay it? I realize this isn't directly related to Rogers, but what are your thoughts on incorporating a universal standard digital box and solid-state drive directly into TVs so I can get rid of all the extra clunk — which is my motivation for buying a flat panel in the first place?

David Purdy: We have been watching what is taking place in the U.S. with the development of cablecard technology and the announcements recently by TV manufacturers such as Sony Electronics who are starting to manufacture TV sets with set top box functionality. This is an advantage to customers like yourself who have purchased a flat-panel TV and don't have place to hide the set-top box.

It is early days for the delivery of HD content on the Internet. But it is foreseeable that over time, this will be a feasible service.

Rogers has invested heavily in spectrum and is a leader in this space (we've built our network to 860 Mghz) giving us current and future capabilities to offer more HD services on a our Digital and IP platforms.

S M from Toronto writes: While I can appreciate that U.S. licensing rules are difficult, as long as the TV shows I want to watch are not available on demand on the Internet, I will continue to download the shows I want so I can watch them at my leisure either on my computer or on my iPod. When will the TV production companies realize this? If they are worried about advertising, they should sell ads within the shows. I saw one for Verizon on 30 Rock last year and it was very funny.

Another question is, if the ISPs such as Rogers and Bell start providing TV shows on demand through their Internet services, will they impose traffic shaping on this streaming like they are currently doing for the Bittorrent and VOIP protocols that are not using their service? Will Roger's give priority to their internet traffic over third-party applications?

David Purdy: I agree absolutely. The sooner the U.S. studios and the Canadian networks support legitimate ways of accessing content on both the IP and digital cable platforms, the less piracy we will see.

At Rogers, we use the same network management equipment as other ISPs around the world. This equipment ensures that network capacity is reserved for time-sensitive services such as e-mail, websurfing and that peer-to-peer traffic does not overwhelm the system. It is not designed to block video traffic.

Alan Partington from Canada writes: I am young and computer literate, and as a result I tend to pirate most media I watch. I have tried legally downloading, but I have been disappointed with the availability, download speeds and DRM compared to pirated content. I feel like I am being asked to pay more money for an inferior product. What features are Rogers and other providers offering to try and make legal downloads more attractive than piracy? Thank you for your time.

David Purdy: Rogers does not currently offer TV or movie content on the Internet, however our Video on Demand service offers great value for money by building on a customers existing TV packages. For example, with the TMN service we currently have well over 150 movie and series titles available on demand at no incremental cost to the subscriber. In future we think that a similar extension of the TMN service will be available online.

This model could be replicated for all of your favourite channels and content. By having On Demad extensions available on both the Digital Cable and IP platforms we feel that the customer will be able to watch what they want, when they want, and ultimately where they want. The key to making this a reality is to convince networks and rights holders that they are best served offering a legitimate way to make this happen for the viewers so that they don't have to go to Peer to Peer sites.

Jack Kapica writes: That's all the time we have for this chat. I'd like to thank David Purdy of Rogers for coming online and talking about video on demand, and for all the questions we received.