I just posted this in the TAR/DCC thread. I figured I'd make a thread for it so it can be searched-for in the future.
There's a TON of variables involved in streaming - only a small % can be controlled by the streamer. Here's the info:
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I'll try to help people understand. I'll post this as a brief tutorial on the mechanics of streaming and outline some of the variables that can go right/wrong and what's in and out of TAR's control.
When TAR streams, there are three connections that can possibly affect the quality of your stream:
1) Hotel internet
2) CDN (Content Delivery Network: i.e. uStream, whoever "hosts" the streams)
3) Your own internet connection
HOTEL INTERNET:
There are three general types of hotel internet connections that can be found across the U.S. and internationally: Managed, Unmanaged and Dedicated
The HUGE-HUGE-HUGE majority of internet connections found in hotels (even corporate salons and conference centers) is "unmanaged." What that means is there is a certain amount of bandwidth for the hotel and it gets used as a first-come / first-serve basis. Unfortunately, many hotels have guest rooms and corporate salons pulling from the same pipe. What this means is whenever someone crawls into bed and wants to watch porn, youtube or download a bunch of MP3s from Kazaa (that's the worst), it sucks the rest of the hotel dry.
After scores of complaints, many of the IT-ignorant hotels have figured out that by getting two separate lines (one for rooms and one for corporate salons), they can mitigate the number of complaints and do a better job in protecting corporate connections (i.e. PAID internet lines, like what TAR uses). However, if someone in Salon A is pulling a ton of bandwidth (i.e. Accu-stats), it could affect what someone in Salon B is trying to do (TAR) and vice-versa. When ensues is a bandwidth tug-of-war between both parties and neither party wins. Eventually, they each "tap-out."
Over the last couple of years, you're starting to see more "MANAGED" hotel lines become available. It's REALLY rare that hotels manage their internet services on their own. Companies like I-BAHN and WAYPORT typically contract their services with the hotels' parent companies. With managed internet services, the hotel (I-BAHN) provides the client (TAR) with a public IP address that can be managed (i.e. provided with Quality-of-Service, or QoS). What this means is traffic coming from this IP address leaves the hotel prior to someone's porn, youtube or Kazaa.
Therefore, even if the hotel's bandwidth is sucked dry--- the person with the public IP address experiences perfect throughput. The problem with this is that the investment for managed internet at a hotel can sometimes be a few thousand dollars (for an event like DCC). The amount of money that it costs would have to be offset with hundreds and hundreds of PPV sales--- and we all know that'll never happen--- and companies don't wanna risk it (and I don't blame them). A thought could be to approach the hotel/managed service provider as a sponsor--- that could solve the problem.
Dedicated bandwidth can be T1 lines brought in by Verizon just for a single event. It's berserkly priced-- so no one but big companies do it.
CDN:
The backbones of most CDNs like U-Stream are usually pretty vast. They usually partner with the RackSpaces, VitalStreams, and Akamai's of the world to ensure their end of the equation doesn't shit-out. HOWEVER, they sometimes do. Just because they're tied into TONS of bandwidth doesn't mean they can't cap-out or, more realistically, have hardware issues with the servers handling the streams. Providers like U-Stream use FMS (Flash Media Servers) to handle the live broadcasts. Each server, depending how they're configured can handle up to, say, 2000 streams. Of course, they cluster/group these servers to ensure they can handle a ton of live broadcasts. It's not out of the ordinary for a switch to fail, a cluster fail, have a routing problem or just flat-out run out of server "juice" if you would. It's happened to me a ton of times, it DOES happen...trust me. CDN's typically shit-out when EVERYTHING ELSE goes perfectly, believe it. Murphy's Law.
YOUR OWN INTERNET CONNECTION:
People tend to always think it's the other guy, when it doesn't have to be. For instance, I was on the TAR stream a few times and people were upset about choppiness; but, it was fine on my end. That proves that TAR was getting the stream to the internet just fine. How it gets to you--- well, that's another story. There are a couple of things that can affect your experience at home:
1) Wireless. If you use HughesNet or Satellite, just be happy you can see anything at all. If you're using a cell card/air-card....you WILL have problems (if not immediately, eventually). If you use a wireless router at home, you must have an excellent signal (not "very good" - but "excellent"). With the wireless router, it's CRUCIAL you setup encryption and protect the signal. BETTER YET--- don't broadcast the wireless ID (i.e. THE SMITH FAMILY or whatever you call your wireless zone). Otherwise, people ARE 100% stealing your wireless... thus, slowing you up. For an important stream, the best policy is to plug directly into the DSL/CABLE/FiOS box to eliminate the variables that come with wireless.
2) Malware. Your computer is infected no matter what software you use to protect yourself. Many of these programs tie-up a huge portion of your bandwidth and unless you have software to track the up/down stream of your connection, you'll likely never know what's going on.
3) Small local ISPs. They ALL lie. Every single one of them. They oversell and overbook their access worse than Delta Airlines (a-holes, if you ask me). Everything might be OK but them and you'll think it was TAR because you have no way of knowing. The solution is: get Verizon or Comcast.
4) Peer-to-peer programs. Finally, when everything else is perfect--- these can bring you down. If you run programs like Bearshare, Kazaa, etc, in the background, you might be setup as a "download seed." That means that the MP3s you downloaded previously are now being hosted (off your computer) to someone else. People from around the world might be downloading your crap and using "whatever bandwidth is available." It's a good policy if you steal music to disable the host option so people can't download your stuff and use your bandwidth.
CONCLUSION:
There are a LOT of variables in live streaming. Many are outside of TAR/Accu-stats control. UNFORTUNATELY, sometimes, the internet at the hotel is out of their control and the transmission "is what it is." UNFORTUNATELY, even if the hotel has a "managed" option, the costs involved are too high to incur based on what people are willing to pay for an internet PPV. Fortunately, the TAR guys are all class-acts and they take care of their peeps. I'm guessing they take one on the chin many-a-times when things go wrong and they didn't do anything wrong on their end.
I've been in this business my entire life doing "TAR-like" events for large corporations across the country. Even when you do events for huge companies and they pay THOUSANDS of dollars for the broadcast, things go wrong. I remember when I did the IPT stuff in Reno the hotel's ISP went down for a few hours. Go figure. All you can do is perform on the things you can control. Everything else is as they say, vios con dios---- it's in God's hands lol.
There's a TON of variables involved in streaming - only a small % can be controlled by the streamer. Here's the info:
-------------
I'll try to help people understand. I'll post this as a brief tutorial on the mechanics of streaming and outline some of the variables that can go right/wrong and what's in and out of TAR's control.
When TAR streams, there are three connections that can possibly affect the quality of your stream:
1) Hotel internet
2) CDN (Content Delivery Network: i.e. uStream, whoever "hosts" the streams)
3) Your own internet connection
HOTEL INTERNET:
There are three general types of hotel internet connections that can be found across the U.S. and internationally: Managed, Unmanaged and Dedicated
The HUGE-HUGE-HUGE majority of internet connections found in hotels (even corporate salons and conference centers) is "unmanaged." What that means is there is a certain amount of bandwidth for the hotel and it gets used as a first-come / first-serve basis. Unfortunately, many hotels have guest rooms and corporate salons pulling from the same pipe. What this means is whenever someone crawls into bed and wants to watch porn, youtube or download a bunch of MP3s from Kazaa (that's the worst), it sucks the rest of the hotel dry.
After scores of complaints, many of the IT-ignorant hotels have figured out that by getting two separate lines (one for rooms and one for corporate salons), they can mitigate the number of complaints and do a better job in protecting corporate connections (i.e. PAID internet lines, like what TAR uses). However, if someone in Salon A is pulling a ton of bandwidth (i.e. Accu-stats), it could affect what someone in Salon B is trying to do (TAR) and vice-versa. When ensues is a bandwidth tug-of-war between both parties and neither party wins. Eventually, they each "tap-out."
Over the last couple of years, you're starting to see more "MANAGED" hotel lines become available. It's REALLY rare that hotels manage their internet services on their own. Companies like I-BAHN and WAYPORT typically contract their services with the hotels' parent companies. With managed internet services, the hotel (I-BAHN) provides the client (TAR) with a public IP address that can be managed (i.e. provided with Quality-of-Service, or QoS). What this means is traffic coming from this IP address leaves the hotel prior to someone's porn, youtube or Kazaa.
Therefore, even if the hotel's bandwidth is sucked dry--- the person with the public IP address experiences perfect throughput. The problem with this is that the investment for managed internet at a hotel can sometimes be a few thousand dollars (for an event like DCC). The amount of money that it costs would have to be offset with hundreds and hundreds of PPV sales--- and we all know that'll never happen--- and companies don't wanna risk it (and I don't blame them). A thought could be to approach the hotel/managed service provider as a sponsor--- that could solve the problem.
Dedicated bandwidth can be T1 lines brought in by Verizon just for a single event. It's berserkly priced-- so no one but big companies do it.
CDN:
The backbones of most CDNs like U-Stream are usually pretty vast. They usually partner with the RackSpaces, VitalStreams, and Akamai's of the world to ensure their end of the equation doesn't shit-out. HOWEVER, they sometimes do. Just because they're tied into TONS of bandwidth doesn't mean they can't cap-out or, more realistically, have hardware issues with the servers handling the streams. Providers like U-Stream use FMS (Flash Media Servers) to handle the live broadcasts. Each server, depending how they're configured can handle up to, say, 2000 streams. Of course, they cluster/group these servers to ensure they can handle a ton of live broadcasts. It's not out of the ordinary for a switch to fail, a cluster fail, have a routing problem or just flat-out run out of server "juice" if you would. It's happened to me a ton of times, it DOES happen...trust me. CDN's typically shit-out when EVERYTHING ELSE goes perfectly, believe it. Murphy's Law.
YOUR OWN INTERNET CONNECTION:
People tend to always think it's the other guy, when it doesn't have to be. For instance, I was on the TAR stream a few times and people were upset about choppiness; but, it was fine on my end. That proves that TAR was getting the stream to the internet just fine. How it gets to you--- well, that's another story. There are a couple of things that can affect your experience at home:
1) Wireless. If you use HughesNet or Satellite, just be happy you can see anything at all. If you're using a cell card/air-card....you WILL have problems (if not immediately, eventually). If you use a wireless router at home, you must have an excellent signal (not "very good" - but "excellent"). With the wireless router, it's CRUCIAL you setup encryption and protect the signal. BETTER YET--- don't broadcast the wireless ID (i.e. THE SMITH FAMILY or whatever you call your wireless zone). Otherwise, people ARE 100% stealing your wireless... thus, slowing you up. For an important stream, the best policy is to plug directly into the DSL/CABLE/FiOS box to eliminate the variables that come with wireless.
2) Malware. Your computer is infected no matter what software you use to protect yourself. Many of these programs tie-up a huge portion of your bandwidth and unless you have software to track the up/down stream of your connection, you'll likely never know what's going on.
3) Small local ISPs. They ALL lie. Every single one of them. They oversell and overbook their access worse than Delta Airlines (a-holes, if you ask me). Everything might be OK but them and you'll think it was TAR because you have no way of knowing. The solution is: get Verizon or Comcast.
4) Peer-to-peer programs. Finally, when everything else is perfect--- these can bring you down. If you run programs like Bearshare, Kazaa, etc, in the background, you might be setup as a "download seed." That means that the MP3s you downloaded previously are now being hosted (off your computer) to someone else. People from around the world might be downloading your crap and using "whatever bandwidth is available." It's a good policy if you steal music to disable the host option so people can't download your stuff and use your bandwidth.
CONCLUSION:
There are a LOT of variables in live streaming. Many are outside of TAR/Accu-stats control. UNFORTUNATELY, sometimes, the internet at the hotel is out of their control and the transmission "is what it is." UNFORTUNATELY, even if the hotel has a "managed" option, the costs involved are too high to incur based on what people are willing to pay for an internet PPV. Fortunately, the TAR guys are all class-acts and they take care of their peeps. I'm guessing they take one on the chin many-a-times when things go wrong and they didn't do anything wrong on their end.
I've been in this business my entire life doing "TAR-like" events for large corporations across the country. Even when you do events for huge companies and they pay THOUSANDS of dollars for the broadcast, things go wrong. I remember when I did the IPT stuff in Reno the hotel's ISP went down for a few hours. Go figure. All you can do is perform on the things you can control. Everything else is as they say, vios con dios---- it's in God's hands lol.
U-Stream def has its issues as well.