[opendtv] Re: Netflix's Move Onto the Web Stirs Rivalries
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2010 08:12:22 -0500
At 3:39 PM -0600 11/29/10, Manfredi, Albert E wrote:
Let me start by saying this, to put things in their proper perspective:
I've already noticed that rate adaptive streaming servers or not, my
1.5 Mb/s broadband connection is getting to be marginal at best. It
won't be long before it simply will not keep up with servers, and
will have to interrupt and buffer all the time (as opposed to just
occasionally). So where is all this huge improvement you claim for
H.264, Craig? What I notice is, 1.5 Mb/s USED to be just fine for
streaming media when I first got connected, and now it ain't. This
the the reality.
I agree that streaming has always been possible, however, the quality
has been steadily improving over the past decade. As we are
discussing, there are MANY contributing factors; I forgot to mention
hardware based decoding in client PCs, which has made it possible to
use modern codecs like h.264.
1.5 Mbps is adequate for SD quality; it is clearly not sufficient for
HD, which today is typically delivered at a bit rate of 4 Mbps or
higher depending on frame rate and complexity.
There is nothing surprising in these pieces you URLed, Craig. Yes,
they went to H.264 and they went to AAC audio to improve
(marginally) quality at lower bit rates, but this doesn't mean that
streaming wasn't possible before. It just means that quality can now
be better, in principle, at a given bit rate. The most significant
point is that broadband connections improved to the point that the
higher quality streaming could actually be used. And streaming media
are CONTINUING to demand higher bit rates, as time goes on.
Understood. In order to compete with the HD channels delivered by the
MVPDs, it will be necessary to have a broadband service that can
sustain 4-10 Mbps for 720P (and 1080@24P).
So, take a close look at the last part of that paragraph. Even a 1.5
Mb/s broadband connection today is not capable of keeping up today's
so-called HD streaming media over the web. Do you still wonder why
Netflix couldn't make their stuff work in 2003? If your premise was
true, and the article's premise, then this much better quality would
have been possible without requiring higher broadband rates than
initial broadband speeds. But that's just NOT THE CASE.
Most of what Netflix delivers IS NOT HD. This is EQUALLY true for
their DVD service and their Internet streaming service. You can get
Blu-Ray DVDs from Netflix, but most of their disc inventory is
standard DVD which is just 720 x 480P. You can get very good 24P SD
at 1.5 Mbps with h.264.
Channel Adaptive streaming techniques have contributed to performance
improvements in several areas:
Channel adaptive techniques were possible from the very start of
this. I'm talking, the early to mid 1990s. They were built into
RTP/RTCP from the start. I'm not saying that these techniques
haven't been tweaked over the years, that server software hasn't
improved. Of course, they have. I'm just saying, you and the author
of the article are simply not seeing the elephant in the room!!
We can't miss you Bert!
;-)
Certainly, if the receiver is upgradeable to H.264, that's the
preferred choice.
Not just preferred but cheaper. MPEG-2 license fees were too
expensive for broad distribution in PCs.
Far more reasonable license fees were negotiated to make using h.264
economically feasible for PCs and mobile devices.
But even your 30 to 50 percent improvement over MPEG-2 (which by the
way is mostly a measure of quality and not a can/cannot do
criterion) pales in comparison to the really significant improvement
in this equation. Roughly an increase of more than 6.5X in the
average broadband connection from 2003 to now, let alone the
increase for dial-up users which is close to 100X, and who were then
still the majority and are now a rarity.
This discussion has been about improvements in quality over the past
decade. h.264 is a significant factor for Internet streaming that was
not available in 2003 when Netflix first tried to start a streaming
service.
Nobody is arguing that the availability of higher speed broadband
service is not ALSO a major factor. Clearly it is a necessity if the
Internet is going to compete with the dedicated video networks
operates by the MVPDs. And it is equally clear that this is now what
is happening, and the MVPDs are very concerned.
Big picture: If the vast majority of Internet users can only get
dialup or low speed broadband, the servers will be transmitting low
quality streaming media. Even if rate adaptive, the servers will
only provide quality to a level they feel is going to be used by
most receivers. When the majority of Internet users have broadband,
and the average speed (according to the piece you URLed) is 5 Mb/s,
the streaming media servers will gradually ramp up quality levels.
These servers now negotiate with devices to determine the type of
stream to be served. The negotiations take into account the
connection speed, codecs available in the target device, and for paid
services, the level of quality that is being purchased. For example,
all the brouhaha about Apple not supporting Flash video turned out to
be a non issue - the servers simply deliver an h.264 stream instead
of a Flash stream.
It is also important to note that this is not about continually
increasing the bandwidth used to deliver content to various screens.
It IS about the optimization of the streams for the capabilities of
the target devices. It makes no sense at all to deliver a 1080P
stream to a 3"- 4" display on a smartphone.
In this respect, a broadcast system may need to offer multiple
streams to satisfy the needs of different classes of devices. And
this is exactly what is happening with broadcasting in the U.S. The
primary channels are increasingly HD with multiple SD sub channels,
and a chunk of the available bits dedicated to the MHP service, which
is optimized for small mobile screens.
So, the fact that you had broadband early on, and yet you only
noticed an improvement subsequent to getting broadband, proves
nothing more than the servers hadn't yet accommodated higher speed
broadband. Not that they COULDN'T. They didn't, because it wasn't
worth their while.
Clearly I wasted my time educating you about the improvements that
have taken place over the past decade.
Nothing new here...
Regards
Craig
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