As I write this, I'm re-ripping my music collection (and listening to ones previously ripped), downloading Yet Another Service Pack, browsing various sites, and downloading a couple shows I recently missed (E-Ring Pilot and Prison Break Ep. 6). In HD, no less. Technology never ceases to amaze me.

TV Torrents, especially, are a wonderful thing. Typically 6-24 hours after a show is aired, it's available in HD on your favorite tracker. Then there's this site I recently found, which has about a 1 week retention of the popular shows, almost all in HD. Then, of course, this is just brilliant. Who needs Tivo (or Myth)? Just download them all. No, wait. Automate them, a la TiVo/Myth. Burn them to DVD if you wish. Get the entire season.

I think the days of Cable and Satellite providers are numbered unless they do something drastic to change the service. VOD is their only hope of salvation, I believe, but it needs refining. First, it won't be able to take off until IPv6 is fully implemented. Why?

I envision a world in which every Cable/Satellite receiver has a largeish hard drive (500GB at least - enough to store a few seasons of a show in HD), a unique IP address, and of course, a very fast connection. 50MBps at least - this will provide adequate bandwidth for 2 simultaneous 1080p streams while still having a decent amount of headroom for other people utilizing the connection, and of course, the usual slowdowns. Luckily, there's a few people thinking this way. Anyway, to get back to the boxes - the role of content providers (Comcast, DirecTV, et. al.) would change drastically. They would become more of giant servers, with crazy fast connections. Obviously, certain things would still be broadcast live, but for the majority of shows, why not let the customer choose? Set up a tracker (again, another role for the content providers) that provides shows to customers. However, the beauty of every client having a large storage medium and fast connection means you could set up a DHT to speed up content delivery, as well as provide a backlog. While the content providers could have a decent retention rate, one couldn't expect them to archive and provide every show they've aired. (well, you could, but that's a bit farther off) But if User A wants the entire season of Lost, and User B, C, and D have enough shows between them to make up the whole thing, then A doesn't care how he's getting it. Again, the fast connections are a necessity. People are not going to sit around waiting for a show to download. I'd say a 5 second initial buffer is the maximum they'd stand for.

I believe this is a feasible idea, and what's more, it will take place within the next 5 years. TV has gotten stale, and this is a possible answer, with a viable plan. We shall see. We shall see.