No doubt, Craig will feel vindicated by the title of this piece. But he should
read it carefully.
Here's the first point:
"'The whole reason you go to a CDN is because you can handle the traffic
whether it spikes,' explains Rayburn. The CDN, or content delivery network, is
the third-party company used by services like Sling TV to send you the live
video you requested. They're also built to handle spikes of all sizes; just
look at last year's Olympics, which transpired glitch-free, or even the WWE
Network, whose Wrestlemania 31 live stream last week went off without a suplex.
(WWE, notably, piggybacks on the infrastructure of similarly glitch-free MLB.)
So let's stop blaming the servers. **If there's such a thing as a critical mass
of streamers, we haven't found it yet**."
The problem appears to have been:
"He's talking about the many Sling customers who sign up for just one streaming
event and then cancel their subscriptions immediately afterward. 'So Sling has
to decide how much money it has to put in place... Everybody's always making
the cost versus quality trade-off on the internet. That's what you do.' It
doesn't make much business sense, in other words, to ramp up operations to
handle the kinds of numbers you're only likely to see a few times a year."
So, in spite of the title, read the article and you'll find no mention of
anything more dire than this. A problem with Sling itself. In this one
scenario, it seems pretty clear that IP multicast, at least in those few ISPs
that were in trouble, would have avoided the excessive congestion.
But do read the excellent good comments.
Bert
-------------------------------------
http://www.wired.com/?p=1763076
Brian Barrett Gear
04.07.15
The Internet's Clearly Not Ready to Stream Big TV Events
Saturday night's college basketball matchup between Wisconsin and Kentucky was
the most-watched Final Four game in 22 years. Unless, that is, you were one of
a thousand or so Sling TV subscribers who instead got to witness a sputtery
mess. It's the latest in a string of high-profile streaming failures, and it
won't be the last. Being a cord cutter in 2015 is great-until there's something
you actually need to watch live.
The Final Four lapse recalled similar recent outages, notably last spring's
stunted Oscars stream for ABC, and Game of Thrones' season four premiere
collapse for HBO Go. The only thing all three have in common? They're among the
first real tests of how the streaming age handles appointment television. So
far, the results aren't promising.
According to a mollifying Sling TV tweet, the culprit in this case was "extreme
sign-ups and streaming," which sounds like a gaggle of wakeboarders gumming
things up. Sling TV CEO Roger Lynch corroborated in a statement, citing "an
unprecedented combination of new customer signups and high levels of
viewership," two factors that "stressed our systems." So, yes, the hiccups were
largely due to an onrush of Sling enlistees. But not in the way you might think.
Being able to access big, Twitter-friendly TV moments as they happen was
supposed to be the final shove into the streaming future.
By blaming overwhelming traffic for its struggles Sling is trying to convince
you that its only failure was being too popular, a prom king who can only
invite so many into his court. But according to streaming-media analyst Dan
Rayburn, that's almost certainly not what's actually going on.
"The whole reason you go to a CDN is because you can handle the traffic whether
it spikes," explains Rayburn. The CDN, or content delivery network, is the
third-party company used by services like Sling TV to send you the live video
you requested. They're also built to handle spikes of all sizes; just look at
last year's Olympics, which transpired glitch-free, or even the WWE Network,
whose Wrestlemania 31 live stream last week went off without a suplex. (WWE,
notably, piggybacks on the infrastructure of similarly glitch-free MLB.) So
let's stop blaming the servers. If there's such a thing as a critical mass of
streamers, we haven't found it yet.
What we have found, says Rayburn, is that a sudden influx of customers can
expose breakdowns in other parts of the ecosystem. Getting live television from
a camera to your iPad requires a tremendous amount of synchronization across
numerous moving pieces, from transcoding to authentication to tracking to
monetization to delivery. Any one of those parts can snag thanks to technical
glitches. Or, more often than you might think, to good ol' fashioned
cost-cutting.
"How many people signed up for Sling for 30 days just to get March Madness and
tried to cut it?" explains Rayburn. He's talking about the many Sling customers
who sign up for just one streaming event and then cancel their subscriptions
immediately afterward. "So Sling has to decide how much money it has to put in
place... Everybody's always making the cost versus quality trade-off on the
internet. That's what you do." It doesn't make much business sense, in other
words, to ramp up operations to handle the kinds of numbers you're only likely
to see a few times a year.
Ultimately, whether Sling TV-and ABC, and HBO, and a host of others before
them-was genuinely caught off guard or simply made a calculated decision not to
accommodate a user base that included a few March Madness passers-by ultimately
doesn't matter. The end result is the same: another black mark against the
future of television, as yet again, a number of people didn't get what they
paid for.
All of which puts potential cord-cutters in a difficult position. Being able to
access big, Twitter-friendly TV moments as they happen was supposed to be the
final shove into the streaming future. But it's those same events that the
streaming services are least-equipped (or motivated) to pull off. The Final
Four stream may have only affected a fraction of Sling TV viewers, but are you
willing to spend a minimum of $20 per month on a bet that you won't be one of
the unlucky the next time?
And that's before you even get to all of the other malfunctions that can and do
disrupt the streaming experience. Your router probably sucks sometimes. Your
ISP definitely does. And if they suck in the middle of next season's Game of
Thrones finale, you're going to regret that HBO Now purchase, whether HBO
executes a flawless streaming experience or not.
Sling is trying to convince you that its only failure was being too popular.
At least in Sling TV's case, help is apparently on the way, hopefully in time
for the service's launch of HBO Now later this year. A spokesperson tells WIRED
that the company has plans to update its apps "to improve stability and manage
the demand as we prepare for the launch of HBO," though it's not clear exactly
what those improvements entail. Or whether they'll be enough to handle the next
onslaught. At the very least, the service appears to have stood strong through
last night's NCAA championship game between Duke and Wisconsin.
The point is this: You have more opportunities to sever ties with your cable
company than ever. Sling TV and PlayStation Vue are here. HBO Now will be soon,
with an Apple-powered streaming service reportedly on its heels. Over-the-top
television has never been closer to finding mainstream appeal. But these
frequent flame-outs make it hard to embrace. You'd just as soon buy a shovel
that disappears whenever a blizzard passes through.
Look, nothing's perfect. Cable and satellite TV aren't immune from outages
either. But unlike those incumbents, internet TV finds itself most vulnerable
during its most important events. Until that's fixed, live streaming's going to
remain a dead end.
#dish
#sling tv
#streaming
#streaming tv
#Television
#TV
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