Feasibility Study of a Digital Platform for the delivery of UK ... - BFI

UK FILM COUNCIL
As a guide, at the end of 2005, it is common to find the following bit rates in different environments:-
• DTV – BBC channels and other high quality up to 6 Mbits/s
• Multi-channel services – between 2-5 Mbits/s (and above)
• DVD – 6 Mbits/s on average but often up to 9 Mbits/s
• Internet streaming – 300Kbits/s up to 1.5Mbits/s – average = 500 Kbits/s or 768 kbits/s
• 3G mobile phone – up to 200 Kbits/s but often lower
• 2.5G Mobile phone – 56Kbit/s and upwards
The general principle regarding bit rate is to always encode at the highest bit rate possible. Over time, improved compression
techniques, increasing consumer bandwidth and hardware improvements continually redefine the norm for bit rates. This is particularly
true of video playing software (such as Apple QuickTime player and its associated format) which is able to adapt to show the film at the
highest possible quality available given the available bandwidth automatically.
Provider’s Internet Connection
There are a number of issues which can affect the cost and, potentially, the quality of service to consumers for a digital film service.
These start with the possibility that there might be insufficient bandwidth to deliver the films in the first place. It is essential that
sufficient bandwidth is available.
Bandwidth should be “burstable” up to a very large amount (this means that if there is a high peak of demand, the internet connection
will scale to meet that demand). With such a “burstable” connection, the monthly charge for bandwidth will be calculated based on either
total data transferred or average data throughput (which amounts to the same thing).
It may be necessary to cap the maximum data rate of the system to ensure quality of service and to give some predictability to costs.
Data delivery costs vary hugely across the market depending on the provider’s model (especially in relation to peer to peer systems
(discussed later)). In price per Gbyte transferred, they range from a few pence to more than one pound. In the mobile environment, the
cost of the data transferred will be passed directly to the user by the network operator, although operators are usually loath to share
these revenues with content providers.
In all circumstances, as the size of file will be known in advance, it should prove possible to recover (or at least account for) data delivery
charges in much the same way that internet e-commerce companies account for postage and packing.
Feasibility Study for a Digital Platform for the delivery of Independent UK films and Specialised films to the Home
UK Film Council © 2006
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