Photo by RocketRaccoon on Flickr. Some rights reserved.
The BBC has joined 20 academic and media industry partners on an EU project to research new forms of internet TV.
The P2P-Next project is funded by a €14m grant from the European Union and will specifically explore peer-to-peer applications over the next four years, and aim to develop a new 'next generation' internet TV distribution system based on social interaction.
In practice, that means a service that could work between different types of devices, so content could be shared between PCs and set-top boxes, and it would also have some level of customisation to allow specialist interest groups to build around programmes and subject areas. A focus will be on sharing live content.
This could also become part of video-on-demand services, and the service will be tested with a view to rolling it out for major TV events. Other partners include FABChannel in the Netherlands, the European Broadcasting Union and the University of Rome.
Critics of the BBC's working relationship with Microsoft will be pleased to hear that this project will be run on an open source basis, with the results shared publicly. That will include analysis of all the legal, regulatory, security and commercial issues related to developing this kind of P2P service so could, in theory, help push the development of some new businesses on the back of all those results and that public money.
