Live Streaming

[the montrealer]

what i wonder is where these streaming sites get their feeds. For instance, this myp2p.eu site sounds grand, but for the world snooker championships, will they be streaming bbc coverage, or do they have some other feed? For major sporting events in the us, a certain television channel will normally get the exclusive rights. So any feed on-line must originate from that channel.

hi cox orange pippin you can also check the following website for live video streaming of the worlds snooker champs 2010 www.channelsurfing.net i watched it live last year cheers leonard from canada

[the montrealer]

hi cox orange pippin you can also check the following website for live video streaming of the worlds snooker champs 2010 www.channelsurfing.net i watched it live last year cheers leonard from canada

hi here is another one for the china open next week yu have to download www.tvunetworks.com one download you click on sports and then go to channel 10007 ctv5 sports also you can view on channel 48732 shanghai sports and you can watch it live next week cheers leonard

[JoyBell]

Doesn't seem so ridiculous to me

Ah, but who is paying for it if it's free to you.

Someone has to pay for the data. Data costs are involved in sending the broadcast to the server, and then the data consumed in watching the stream can be extreme... multiply the download speed by each connected user and then you have estimated the bandwidth required to support the service.

Ok, so each user is theoretically paying for the download in their stream viewing, but the stream provider still has to pay for the backchannel (10-15%) in those downloads.

Bandwidth required... 300k/sec times 200 users = 60 Mb/sec.
Backchannel... 6 Mb/sec

Who's paying for this and how?

[Sarmu]

it's all p2p, you watch and upload at the same time.

[JoyBell]

it's all p2p, you watch and upload at the same time.

And this is an explanation of.... ?

[Sarmu]

Basically you are paying for the download of the stream (from other people) as well as you are paying for providing the stream to other people.

You get the stream from those that are watching the stream, so in theory the provider only needs to provide the stream to 1 person

[JoyBell]

in theory the provider only needs to provide the stream to 1 person

In theory this would be multicasting which no ISP uses because of security issues, so none of the streams available are multicast unless within an intranet (which you wouldn't access from the Internet).

So in reality the data usage is multiplied by every user watching the stream and it's back to my original question... why does everyone expect live streaming to be free when it costs so much to provide?

[Sarmu]

Sorry I dunno whats going on. It's just my understanding of the concept of p2p

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P2p_tv

[JanieWatkins]

any links, please

Hi. Yes!
go to www.esnooker.pl and from teh live scoring you will see links on tables 1-6 for live video as well

Under 19s start in the morning while the Team events has a day off

[ore]

why does everyone expect live streaming to be free when it costs so much to provide?

Well it has been available for free, so people expect the same afterwards then, maybe?

Yes ofc it is never entirely for free.. I almost believe by now "there is no free lunch".

Streams I was watching were from fromsport.com/justin.tv/ustream.tv and usually eurosport, eurosport player or BBC broadcast. Part of it is financed/granted I guess just by some 'good' people willing that those not having telly could see it too; and part of it increasingly is financed by those annoying adds that used to be around the streams, but now sometimes are on them or stop the stream with a request to register... so you could say the advertisers pay for it, and we those who watch for 'free' can't avoid seeing the adds; and we get compromised quality compared to paid eurosport player for example.

Actually some sort of 'official' streaming could be financed the same way as television channels are - by advertising. Wouldn't that way those who pay for commercials benefit by increased audience?
We don't have a tv tax in Lithuania as there is in the UK, and I don't think any of the pretty minor fee we pay for cable tv really reaches every channel's pockets (one could watch local tv channels with no cable, so no extra fees at all, just need a telly and antenna). So our televisions finance themselves entirely by advertising, they don't get any fees/taxes from the viewers.

Why oh why is BBC not selling their stream the same way as Eurosport sells Eurosport player?

[Forman]

Ah, but who is paying for it if it's free to you.

Someone has to pay for the data. Data costs are involved in sending the broadcast to the server, and then the data consumed in watching the stream can be extreme... multiply the download speed by each connected user and then you have estimated the bandwidth required to support the service.

Ok, so each user is theoretically paying for the download in their stream viewing, but the stream provider still has to pay for the backchannel (10-15%) in those downloads.

Bandwidth required... 300k/sec times 200 users = 60 Mb/sec.
Backchannel... 6 Mb/sec

Who's paying for this and how?

Why do you even care?

I'm just grateful that there are free live snooker streams on the internet.

I don't understand why you think anyone would waste their time worrying about who's paying to provide a live stream when they get to watch it for free?

[crush]

Hi. Yes!
go to www.esnooker.pl and from teh live scoring you will see links on tables 1-6 for live video as well

Under 19s start in the morning while the Team events has a day off

thanks for the useful link just one little prob, tried o push video button, but could not see video itself

[JanieWatkins]

thanks for the useful link just one little prob, tried o push video button, but could not see video itself

It's all running smoothly here but if you have a problem then go straight to ustream and get the stream from there - and ustream has a chat box too so you can chat to other fans watching the games

[JoyBell]

It's just my understanding of the concept of p2p

It's not p2p. Even if it was our ISPs wouldn't share the advantage. Free live streams do exist but who pays for it? In most cases I would expect that there is a sponsor involved who is advertised on the stream pages, and this is the grey area I was hoping to hear about because I doubt that there are many content banner advertisers.

[DandyA]

JoyBell,

Janie's feed (GlobalSnooker) is of course, all legit and above board and I'd have thought, mostly provided through love of the game rather than financial considerations ...

However, the free feeds of tournaments the BBC or Eurosport etc have paid for are not legit ... Ustream, Justin etc and even YouTube only get away with it because of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act in the US which states in effect "the website is not responsable or liable for any content provided by their users" ...

So these sites can stream or provide on-demand video of copyrighted material with impunity so long as a user provided it - ie they didn't provide it themselves ...

The question isn't how the distribution is being paid for ... that's really cheap and can be ad-supported or other ... the issue is whether the copyright holder is happy that the material they paid a lot of money for is being provided for free by unauthorised means ...

I doubt they are but it's a question of what to do about it ... having a huge enforcement department constantly scouring for illegitimate feeds is probably not the answer ... it could be a case of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em", ie use these feeds to provide a free distribution to increase your audience ...