DOWNLOAD on Demand

摘要

There's a rapidly developing option for TV audiences hungry for a wider range of content: down-load-on-demand. Thanks to recent deals involving upstart video-download service Akimbo and TiVo, subscribers can download everything from baseball games to cooking programs over a broadband pipe and into a digital video recorder hooked up to the TV. Last week, Major League Baseball Web site MLB.com announced that it will deliver highlights and condensed games to subscribers' televisions via Akimbo's DVR system. And TiVo has tapped three IFC original series (Greg the Bunny, Hopeless Pictures and The Festival) for the trial of its new service, which allows viewers to download content over the Internet and save it to a DVR for viewing on a TV. Download times aren't exactly VOD-quick: 3- to 5-megabit-per-second (Mbps) connections can download an hour-long program in about an hour.