This is true. But the mammoth did have a great personality.
TAR and The DCC
- Thread starter EZMoney
- Start date
This is true. But the mammoth did have a great personality.
We use a push system of streaming. This means we push our stream out of the location to a content delivery network AKA CDN. The viewer connects to the CDN be that Ustream or AudioVideoWeb and pulls the stream down from their network. The CDN has many servers and a very large amount of bandwith to serve all of the viewers.
If viewers were pulling the stream directly from us at the site almost no one could see it.
The audiences we get on the PPV are very small for what AudioVideoWeb is capable of dealing with bandwith wise on their end. The problem is they can only put out a quality stream if they are receiving one, same with Ustream. In this case the hotel network made send out a quality stream very difficult.
That said we have at various times had problems on the CDN end as well. It is like a long chain. Any link in the chain that breaks will cause problems for anything after that link.
I enjoyed what little I got to watch, and appreciate the work that the TAR crew put in. Waking up and watching the end of some great matches are things i'll never forget. (Well i'm going to try and forget the Lutman vs Cone marathon). Erica was funny as hell and brought something different to the booth, poor nasty sounded dead ass tired at 8am, and Andy was always good company.
Being an Engineer, I totally understand the complications and just can't find it in my heart to ***** when I got to watch some awesome matches in the beginning of the week.
Cheers to JCIN and the Tar Crew. You have one person here that enjoyed the service you brought us.
Being an Engineer, I totally understand the complications and just can't find it in my heart to ***** when I got to watch some awesome matches in the beginning of the week.
Cheers to JCIN and the Tar Crew. You have one person here that enjoyed the service you brought us.
I laughed so hard everytime you replied to a question about if someone was there.
I personally was waiting for someone to ask about someone that was in shouting distance of you. That could have gotten pretty funny. Efren won the 9 ball, hope you got some action off of your prop.
Oh and I vote Lutman/Cone as the most competitive match I've ever tuned into see. Anyone ever figure out how many total hours they played before Cone won the 3 ahead part after the long race was tied at the end?
The biggest problem for me with the stream is that nothing ever seemed to be on until 11-1am. For us working Joes on the eastern coast it just wasnt possible to get much value when all I saw Fri night was Julie Kelly warming up and Saturday night the feed was off when I logged in.
One thing I wish TAR would do is to setup an archive site whereby you could watch matches that occurred on the stream. This could be a good revenue source for TAR. The site could do PPV streaming that is charged per minute, a la carte, or buffet style all you can watch for a set price. One thing TAR doesnt seem to be doing (or at least they have said so on occasion) is that they are not recording everything that goes down on the feeds. This is a real shame and a huge lost opportunity for TAR. For all the events they have been too already, had they been recording everything, they would have hundreds of hours of high stakes pool matches in their archive to generate revenue with. I may or may not buy their live feeds in the future because the last few times I have, its more a donation to TAR than an entertainment purchase because I never get to see much. If they started an archive site I would be on there all the time checking out matches.
One thing I wish TAR would do is to setup an archive site whereby you could watch matches that occurred on the stream. This could be a good revenue source for TAR. The site could do PPV streaming that is charged per minute, a la carte, or buffet style all you can watch for a set price. One thing TAR doesnt seem to be doing (or at least they have said so on occasion) is that they are not recording everything that goes down on the feeds. This is a real shame and a huge lost opportunity for TAR. For all the events they have been too already, had they been recording everything, they would have hundreds of hours of high stakes pool matches in their archive to generate revenue with. I may or may not buy their live feeds in the future because the last few times I have, its more a donation to TAR than an entertainment purchase because I never get to see much. If they started an archive site I would be on there all the time checking out matches.
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.
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.
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I didn't buy into the streaming from TAR this year and the ONLY reason I didn't was that I get up at 5 in the am so I'm in bed by 9 inthe pm and there isn't squat going on (usually) for me to watch.
I'd love to PAY to watch a delayed stream from an archive.
What a great synopsis of internet streaming and how it all works. I feel like I just took a class in INTERNET 101. Thanks Spidey!
Thank you for the education! I will review my computer setup to see if I can improve my end of the deal.
The problem could be.....Cocobolo Cowboy. Using his 1963 UNIVAC on dial up. I think it could be sucking the whole system dry..
I have heard from Phx people that when he turns it on, the lights dim throughout the city.
But wait....the problem happened DURING the PPV also. I guess that rules him out.
Nevermind......My fault!!
I have heard from Phx people that when he turns it on, the lights dim throughout the city.
But wait....the problem happened DURING the PPV also. I guess that rules him out.
Nevermind......My fault!!
I'd like to add to Spiders list
Your own internet connection:
5) If you boot up your computer and a microsoft symbol comes up with the words 'Windows 98' underneath it. I hate to break it to you, but you going to have to fork out some cash for a new PC. It has had a good life, time for retirement.
Your own internet connection:
5) If you boot up your computer and a microsoft symbol comes up with the words 'Windows 98' underneath it. I hate to break it to you, but you going to have to fork out some cash for a new PC. It has had a good life, time for retirement.
People are talking about archiving videos. I do think this is a good idea. A free way to do it would be to record it through Ustream and make the videos private, then set up a page on the TAR site and make everyone use there user name and password from the PPV to access that content. The only problem is that I noticed that the stream can sometimes get screwy when you record direct to Ustream, sometimes its perfect though and sometimes its not, I cannot answer why.
Easy...what Beav did to u in the hotel room is deffinitely NPR.
The archive gets screwy because you're sending a stream of information (KB/s or Kb/s -- however you think of it) that goes into an chasm of darkness called the internet. While enroute from OTR to U-Stream, bits are late in transit (which might cause a pause) or lost completely (which could create a longer break).
Secondly, you're using shared servers and clusters with a company like U-Stream so depending on the date and time of day, you might have a server to yourself or fighting for system resources with a lot of other streamers. Now, the storage required is VAST to handle everyone's archives so they likely have SANs (Storage Area Networks) to handle the content. Therefore, instead of a fast-local hard drive--- the data is sent over a Gigabit network to a remote storage device.
All of this happens in real-time and the usage of the internet and utilization of the shared servers plays a part in how the final archive looks.
The reason why archived video looks good on Youtube and other similar services is because the video is stored locally on the user's hard drive---- no internet, super-fast writing of the data, and no shared servers or network congestion to deal with. Then, the "perfect" video file is uploaded and converted to a Flash video that could then be streamed as a service. Therefore, the final product looks "polished."
When you archive directly to a remote server------ LOTS can go wrong and it's seldom perfect. Think of it as making a photocopy of a mediocre photocopy.
Thanks bud, I did notice a loss of quality on the recorded clips but nothing too bad and they are decent to watch. Most of them that I have recorded to Ustream come out smooth, I would say more then 9 out 10 but you will have 1 here and there that is speeding up or down and pausing and all types of strange stuff.
I record here and there and just edited a video from the stream on Saturday of the one pocket, the quality is not that bad being pulled from Ustream, converted and then uploaded to Youtube. Here is the link to the vid from the weekend, don't forget to switch from 360p to 480p.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Glnogwh0Ipo
First, thanks to Justin and Spidey for taking the time to further explain. I think that will go a ways to helping some AZBers in a few ways. :thumbup:
What's your best idea as to where the hotel network let you down? I assume it was an unmanaged system? Was there an Amway convention in town? I never trust them barkin' nerds.
What's your best idea as to where the hotel network let you down? I assume it was an unmanaged system? Was there an Amway convention in town? I never trust them barkin' nerds.
Preacher's opponent was quite generous. Did he have to catch a plane?
I never paid any attn to the 360p vs 480p on the youtubes. Should someone always opt for the higher resolution when offered?
Preacher's opponent was quite generous. Did he have to catch a plane?
I never paid any attn to the 360p vs 480p on the youtubes. Should someone always opt for the higher resolution when offered?
His opponent was enjoying adult beverages, haha. I usually switch to 480p and it does sharpen the picture a bit. :smile: