The Olympics are a cultural event. Id love to have the option to see them on a huge screen with a big crowd, but more importantly, I think we should all be able to see all the events live (or recorded) in HD on any device we want. The internet, with open formats and without exclusivity deals, would allow this by 2016. And I bet we could even find announcers for every event, even if its just some kid really into the obscure event who layers his funny commentary over the stream.

Mark, what you dont seem to acknowledge are the advantages like choice that video over the internet gives to fans and creators. I have a mac mini hooked up to my HDTV, and I use Front Row to watch a lot of podcasts, some in HD. I also use Miro, which allows me to watch other MRSS content distributed over bittorrent. While you are correct that the bandwidth is not yet here to watch live HD streams, for episodic content, podcasting or MRSS w/ bittorrent makes more sense than appointment viewing or Tivo. New shows are always there waiting for me, and the creators dont have any network overhead, schedule or time constraints to deal with. Overall, this method of distribution offers much greater independence to creators and 'what we want, when we want, where we want, how we want' options to viewers unlike weve ever known.

This is the future. We are simply waiting for some advances in usability of the technology, and a larger audience of folks who discover this type of programming (and an increase in advertising money that will follow the eyeballs, and will allow more expensive shows to be made). Then the networks will have nothing left but live tv, till the bandwidth is good enough to do live streaming over the net in most homes as well.

YouTube gets all the headlines, but it is the independent producers of episodic content distributed over the net to HD sets in the living room who are really leading the charge.

the Miro player is trying to address the costs you outline, combining RSS and Bittorrent. id say Democracy Now is doing that well. this helps to lower the costs of distributing episodic content, especially if they build in the Front Row-type usability. of course, paying for the content isnt there yet though.

cool, but why wont someone just take the form factor of the Nintendo DS Lite, slap a phone on the outside with buttons, stretch the top screen to the maximum, and replace the bottom screen with a keyboard. if the d-pad becomes more circular, youve got your mouse right there and mouse buttons on the other side. that's what im waiting for. oh, and batteries that you can slide in-and-out as easily as cartridges. charge a couple at home on an included multi-charger and youre good for a day. gaming, phone, internet, and media. and make it open and service provider independent. isnt that it?