By Brian Boyko
Editor, Network Performance Daily

Earlier today, Steve Jobs came out with his black turtleneck and started his keynote speech at the Mac Expo, one of the two major speeches Jobs gives each year about new products to announce, which is preceded by heavy speculation and guesswork and possibly lawsuits.

This year, the big announcement was about something called the "MacBook Air" which is supposedly just like other Macintosh notebooks, but small enough to be a choking hazard for children under three.

One of the other announcements of the event was improvements to AppleTV and the iTunes Store which included support for high definition podcasts and movie rentals. The movie rentals aren't available online yet, so I can't tell how much bandwidth they'll take up, but at 720p, (which is 1280x720 pixels at 30 frames per second) the files are roughly 30 megabytes per minute of video. (I can't imagine the movie files would be lower in resolution.)

High definition files over the net aren't a new problem, but when Apple tends to throw its marketing department over to an idea on the cusp of mainstream adoption, that idea almost always becomes part of the mainstream. I mean, I have to give credit where it's deserved, Apple managed to convince Western civilization that it was a really good idea to have a $400 portable music player in their pockets to replace $30 portable MP3-CD players.

So these high-definition, large-size files are seemingly in the near future for us all - and that means corporate networks. As Apple makes further strides into creating new media formats and distribution models, it's important to keep an eye on the secondary effects that these cultural changes have on our technology, including whether this could negatively affect [application performance], because undoubtedly, some of these files will be downloaded to - and possibly transferred from - corporate networks.

In this respect, the shift in demand from standard or "web" definition video to high definition video could create as much of a disruption on the network as when video started illicitly appearing on corporate networks in the first place.

The timing is particularly important - with the effects of the WGA strike still causing television to enter a doldrum, it makes it more likely to make people turn to the Internet for entertainment - in short, the new media is filling the gaps of the old.

Of the fifty or so high definition podcasts on the iTunes Store, none of them are from major media companies. In fact, half of those shows are produced by Austin-area based startup On Networks, which produces professional-quality shows for the Web on a smaller budget then would be found in Hollywood.

One of these shows is the sketch comedy troupe "The Fake Cake Cookbook Backpack Picnic" (or "Backpack Picnic" for short). They produce about four small, 3-6 minute, self-contained episodes a month.

"[On Networks] always insisted that we filmed in HD, and we never argued, because it was never any extra cost to us," said Backpack Picnic comedian Jeremy Lamb. "We're actually very pleased that the final product is HD."

According to director/producer Renè Pinnell, "Backpack Picnic" is shot on Panasonic HVX cameras and then edited - the final version is 720p24 (or 1280x720 pixels, with 24 frames per second.) Previously, AppleTV's default resolution was 960x540. Full 720p content creates files a little less than twice as large as AppleTV's previous offerings.

"As of Q4-2007, ON Networks transmitted 300k-350k files of HD video per month with an average file size of 225MB," said Jim Crow, VP of technology for On Networks. "On average, this required bandwidth utilization of 2.5TB-3TB per day just for podcast traffic."

This compares to roughly 10MB per file for an equivalent YouTube video. Potentially, those who worry about YouTube on the corporate network now may have much, much more to worry about in the future.

What do you think of the MacWorld announcements? Will high definition video make a big impact on your corporate network? If so, how do you plan to weather the disruption? Feel free to leave a comment below.

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