http://www.kotaku.com.au/2009/03/onlive_makes_pc_upgrades_extinct_lets_you_play_crysis_on_your_tv-2/
80ms to ping my ISP's DNS server and they claim to deliver is in 1ms? I think the term bullshit applies

This is rather old news...

Yeah I'm not sure why they re-posted it

Did you mean this one?

Reading through it, it sounds like they are just using creative wording.
A ping of 1 ms doesn't mean from you to them. It likely just means how long it takes from when they get a message from the user to when they have processed it and the like.
It could also be a theoretical 1 ms that is based upon the availability of servers and the connection. Sort of like how all our ISPs say we get one speed, when in actuality we would need to sacrifice a goat to a pagan god to even get close to that speed.

I just hope this actually does work.

Yup, it's the "theoretical" that makes me wary of most "estimates" of internet speeds and such. This service is going to have to wait till mainstream internet speeds catch up.
It's the "theoretical" speeds that piss me off.
This service really has to wait until mainstream internet speeds catch up, otherwise it's doomed to failure.

He said the server compresses the video in 1ms.
If they can get 80ms ping, that'd be like 13fps.
Yeah, I agree. My ISP tells me that my speed is 1.5mb/s, but I really only get 150kb/s. But there are lots of people that get 1.5mb/s actually, even if their theoretical speed is like 8mb/s.

I don't. I don't want all my gaming to depend on a network, however fast and secure it might be, and we all know there's a world between what a company claims and what a company delivers, most of the time...

I remember when people thought streaming video was a pipe dream. When Real streaming came out, hope didn't get much better.
The networking magic behind this project is pretty amazing and most people will just have to see it. Also, don't know if its planned yet but the code behind this would also improve live streaming a whole lot.

That's because your connection is 1.5 Mbit/s, which is a very different thing from 1.5 Mbyte/s (note that byte is abbreviated "B", while bit is abbreviated "b", making it very easy for ISPs to confuse people on this matter).

Still crappy experience with YouTube here (not always, though). So any real-time, 3D, interactive & bidirectional streaming will be only one thing: FAIL.
Tech is no magic, just the ratio between what the theory says and what can be done in real life conditions. Onlive is a giant lie full of advertising bullshits.

I was about to ask "what about actually owning titles?" but then ownership seems to be on its way out now anyway.
Maybe in future, rental services will be the only intellectually honest means of gaming. Sad, really. But at least we'll be able to try games we wouldn't have normally touched. And won't have bought so many duff games... Silver linings and all that.

It may be. But then something like this will end up being viable. It should be now, but there is still a lot of antiquated internet infrastructure buggering up the works.

For this to work they're going to need servers right on your doorstep. So don't be surprised that it hasn't left the US yet.