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Because of the increase in Internet connection speeds and the total number of people online, and the decrease in connection costs; it is increasingly common to find traditional television content, accessible freely and legally over the Internet. This comes in four basic forms:
One of the main barriers to wider adoption is streaming technology, both the quality and the cost (to the providers), but the Dirac project at the BBC looks set to create a scalable, high-quality and more importantly free-for-all codec for streaming video content over the net. But with or without this as a catalyst, the trend is clear until people lose their appetite for faster internet connections.
Parallel to this trend are attempts to more easily transmit existing pay-tv channels over the net, to a regular tv set, while retaining control over how the media is used. This is in order to protect the subscription and pay-per-view business models.