Geez, no geek speak please!

BmoreMoney

BmoreMoney

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I don't want this to come across as a complaint thread because it's really not, I'm just curious and would like to be able to understand.

This is in regards to streaming. I must say in no way do I understand everything that goes into producing a stream, what type of equipment is needed, and certainly not the technical terms used. I am speaking in generalities only. As I'm sure we all will agree, freezing is one of the most frustrating and annoying things in the world - especially when bought with our hard earned money.

Streaming has been going on for years now so how are not all the " bugs " worked out by this point in time? Sure hiccups can always pop up with anything once in a while but this seems to be a common problem regardless of production company , venue, operator, time of day, etc etc. In no way am I singling out Accu Stats, as far as I know they have a stellar reputation and regarded as tops in the industry. But even with being said, even they ate not immune to the problem. What are the issues? Are the issues even known? Is it cost prohibitive to deliver a consistent product ( such as " bandwidth " as mentioned by someone )? While I would not complain about the price charged for streams to watch the best players in the world, I think I would expect a consistent product for the $30,40, 50 or more charged. Strictly talking about product, imagine if when we go to the movies and plop down $15 bucks to watch the newest blockbuster if we sat down in the theater and there were 30 " freezes" that occurred during the movie - with many at crucial times. People would be losing their minds and doubtful that product would survive very long.

So without getting too technical can anyone explain what the issues are, what needs to be done to remedy, and if anyone is actually addressing them? Like I said, I'm just trying to understand.
 
I'm with you on this. My "geek skills" are officially one step above cro-magnon level. That said, from my understanding of it, it goes something like this-

You want a great race car. So, you go out and buy the best race car you can afford to get. Has a lot of the "bells and whistles" with it. Now you want to race it. This is where the problem comes into play.

You have to race your car on someone else's roadway. That roadway sometimes is great, sometimes it has potholes and gravel stretches, and sometimes even is unpassable. You are thereby limited on how fast you can go by the roadway that you don't control.

Being still a "new" era, there are a lot of bad roads out there still.
 
One thing i know-When you buy a UFC stream, it will be flawless from beginning to end so the technology is there.
 
I'm certainly no expert, but let me try and explain what I can.

The biggest issue that streamers will encounter is bandwidth. Meaning how much information (video, in this case) can be sent down the internet highway at a time. The streamers are most always at the mercy of the internet available at the facility that the tournament is being played at. If the internet "bandwidth" at that location isn't good enough, the result is choppy video, drops, etc. If there are multiple people accessing the internet at that location, that limits the throughput as well. (If its a hotel, or a restaurant, or other place where the business hosting the event has to use that same internet connection, for example.)

The higher the resolution of the video, more bandwidth is required.

There are undoubtedly many more issues that have to be accounted for, but that is the most basic and most common issue. Hope that makes sense.
 
They have been streaming pool for over a dozen years. Either the bandwith is too low or they need to up date their equipment. I never buy the first day of a pool event or buy when streamlining from somewhere no one has streamed before. I buy boxing PPV with never a problem and have Netflix with no problem. So it can be done right. Johnnyt
 
Nostroke said:
One thing i know-When you buy a UFC stream, it will be flawless from beginning to end so the technology is there.
Click to expand...

I know, right?

I mean when I pay $70 for a Mayweather fight it goes flawlessly...

And the NFL,NBA,MLB, NHL packages are perfect as well.

I can't seem to see the issue....
 
jimmyquinella said:
I know, right?

I mean when I pay $70 for a Mayweather fight it goes flawlessly...

And the NFL,NBA,MLB, NHL packages are perfect as well.

I can't seem to see the issue....
Click to expand...

Hmm.....perhaps the issue is that the above mentioned associations have about a $10M budget allocated to servers, cameras, and staff to run all of the above....?

Just a thought....
 
I believe they can get a fairly decent quality stream thru FB or Youtube, its just that they wont be able to make money off the stream.

Heck you can even watch all the NFL football games from reddit.
 
BmoreMoney said:
I don't want this to come across as a complaint thread because it's really not, I'm just curious and would like to be able to understand.

This is in regards to streaming. I must say in no way do I understand everything that goes into producing a stream, what type of equipment is needed, and certainly not the technical terms used. I am speaking in generalities only. As I'm sure we all will agree, freezing is one of the most frustrating and annoying things in the world - especially when bought with our hard earned money.

Streaming has been going on for years now so how are not all the " bugs " worked out by this point in time? Sure hiccups can always pop up with anything once in a while but this seems to be a common problem regardless of production company , venue, operator, time of day, etc etc. In no way am I singling out Accu Stats, as far as I know they have a stellar reputation and regarded as tops in the industry. But even with being said, even they ate not immune to the problem. What are the issues? Are the issues even known? Is it cost prohibitive to deliver a consistent product ( such as " bandwidth " as mentioned by someone )? While I would not complain about the price charged for streams to watch the best players in the world, I think I would expect a consistent product for the $30,40, 50 or more charged. Strictly talking about product, imagine if when we go to the movies and plop down $15 bucks to watch the newest blockbuster if we sat down in the theater and there were 30 " freezes" that occurred during the movie - with many at crucial times. People would be losing their minds and doubtful that product would survive very long.

So without getting too technical can anyone explain what the issues are, what needs to be done to remedy, and if anyone is actually addressing them? Like I said, I'm just trying to understand.
Click to expand...

Like you I do not "get" the technical stuff. To me it is all just magic.

But I have had the cord cut for some time o I watch all of my TV vie some sort of streaming. And, sad to say, I get some freezing even when streaming from entities like ESPN, NFL Network, NBCSportsNetwork, and Youtube. I suspect it is just a function of the complex byways of the Internet, but I couldn't say conclusively. I will add that there seems (subjectively because I have never actually tracked it) to be less freezing with Netflix and Amazon Prime. I also use a billiards streaming service from Europe, kozoom, and there is some freezing going on there.

So I guess what I am saying is that there probably isn't a way to eliminate freezing, since big outfits haven't been able to eliminate it. OTOH, the technology is just getting better and better so I think it is a matter of time before we are telling our grandkids about the primitive old days when streams would freeze. LOL
 
Streaming has come a very, very long way. This year I online training for groups of 25-80 people spread out all over the world and there were very few complaints about the quality.

This includes places like Egypt, Poland, Spain and a host of rural areas both within and outside the US.

The biggest problem with streaming out (i.e. from a pool room) is that you need a stable and reasonably fast upload pipe. Most broadband connections are imbalanced to favor the download because that's what most consumers need. So you might have 15 MBs connection to download things from the internet but only 1 or .5 MBs to upload things to the internet. Most users (and the bar) will think it's a good connection because it loads Facebook fast - but it isn't enough bandwidth to originate a stream. So they might tell the streamer they have a good, fast connection but they don't.

And there really isn't enough money in it to plan for that contingency and bring extra equipment in, etc...

Here is a post I made a few months ago which goes into this in more detail without too much geek speak. read here.
 
This may not even make sense, but in my mind this is how it should work. I do get that the more folks watching something, the more " bandwidth " it would take. That seems like common sense to me. Why can't streaming be done just like say a Web hosting service? When you pay someone to host for you, you don't need all the big fancy servers and what not. You need your pc. Now we all know all of these teenage hood rats can pull of live streaming of schoolyard fights flawlessly via FACEBOOK LIVE performance whatever. So why can't a " Master " stream ( video shot on location ) just be sent to a " stream hoster " with all the needed equipment and bandwidth and then the end user gets it from them? Guessing cost would be determined by how many people watching it. Do the pool streamers not do this because they are trying to avoid this cost because it would come out of any profit OR is this just not possible?
 
BmoreMoney said:
This may not even make sense, but in my mind this is how it should work. I do get that the more folks watching something, the more " bandwidth " it would take. That seems like common sense to me. Why can't streaming be done just like say a Web hosting service? When you pay someone to host for you, you don't need all the big fancy servers and what not. You need your pc. Now we all know all of these teenage hood rats can pull of live streaming of schoolyard fights flawlessly via FACEBOOK LIVE performance whatever. So why can't a " Master " stream ( video shot on location ) just be sent to a " stream hoster " with all the needed equipment and bandwidth and then the end user gets it from them? Guessing cost would be determined by how many people watching it. Do the pool streamers not do this because they are trying to avoid this cost because it would come out of any profit OR is this just not possible?
Click to expand...

That's pretty much how it works now Bmore. The number of viewers won't slow down the stream. The two constraints are the upload speed between the streamer and the servers and the download speed of each viewer.

Sometimes there will be a one-time event - like the super bowl - that creates really high traffic on the internet and that could affect it. But those events are rare.
 
BmoreMoney said:
So why can't a " Master " stream ( video shot on location ) just be sent to a " stream hoster " with all the needed equipment and bandwidth and then the end user gets it from them? Guessing cost would be determined by how many people watching it. Do the pool streamers not do this because they are trying to avoid this cost because it would come out of any profit OR is this just not possible?
Click to expand...

This is actually what they're doing......

Did you think you were linked up to their PC?
 
BmoreMoney said:
So why can't a " Master " stream ( video shot on location ) just be sent to a " stream hoster " with all the needed equipment and bandwidth and then the end user gets it from them?
Click to expand...

That's exactly what they should do. And, they should also have a couple of cell phone data cards from another carrier or two as inexpensive backup links. ie: if the hotel internet isn't working well, use the cell phone internet link A or B.

These days with 4G LTE it's plenty of bandwidth to pull it off.
 
sixpack said:
That's pretty much how it works now Bmore. The number of viewers won't slow down the stream. The two constraints are the upload speed between the streamer and the servers and the download speed of each viewer.

Sometimes there will be a one-time event - like the super bowl - that creates really high traffic on the internet and that could affect it. But those events are rare.
Click to expand...

So what the problem then? Doesn't these hotels and other commercial venues have " the super fast business / enterprise connectivity?
 
I'm just so glad that I used the fantasy baseball money I won this season to buy a new Mezz and this season's NHL Gamecenter. I was thinking about holding off on the season hockey pass and getting the early bird special.

Think I'll stick to buying Bigtruck and CSI's bar table streams.
 
BmoreMoney said:
So what the problem then? Doesn't these hotels and other commercial venues have " the super fast business / enterprise connectivity?
Click to expand...

Again, they have fast "download" connections. That's the part where the guests using the internet at the hotel get their information from the internet "into" their devices.

"Upload" speeds are where the person using the facility is sending information to the internet (guests sending email, etc). And "upload" speeds are a very small fraction of the "download" speed, cuz they simply don't need the upload capacity for regular usage.

Its the same with your connection at home. Go to google and search for Speed Test, and run it. You're Download speed will be much higher than your "Upload" speed.

Commercial streaming applications are a whole other beast.
 
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