(i)A content provider offers pay-per-view movie(or
some other streaming-media service) service. He can
now set a rule that, if the requests for a particular
movie exceeds some particular no. or some other
statistics, then download the movie to the proxy. And
then whenever some user asks for that movie, then give
him the cached movie. This can save a lot of
band-width..This can be thought of as an example of
adding the content replication services to the
proxies.
This has two requirements:
1) Media Caching (Media Splitting can use the same engine,
it's just that the 'cached' object is not valid for long).
2) Accounting/Security measures in place to make sure
that the content provider receives just payment for each
view of the cached content.
(ii)A user doesn't have to install various types of
software or plug-ins for different type of media
types. He may tell the proxy that, "I have this
player, so if some other media type content comes to
me, then transcode that media type into mine and give
it to me." This will allow a client to view any new
media-type without having to install the new plug-in
or software.
The simplest way to resolve this is to have a standard
streaming protocol. RTSP has endeavoured to be that
protocol, but has only been used by Apple and RealMedia.
***
Jesse Pretorius
Systems Engineer
e-mail: JPretorius(_at_)Novell(_dot_)Com
AIM/InstantMe: preycor
ICQ# 4620796
Tel: +27 21 418 3805
Fax: +27 21 418 3931
Novell, Inc., the leading provider of Net services software
www.novell.com