Panther247 Board

ESPN is set up for it. This is the genesis of ESPN3. They sell the rights through internet & cable providers already. This is my skepticism on how the B1G Network will get the projected revenue for NYC & Balt/DC markets. Younger people especially are just not buying cable and using Hulu for TV, NetFlix for movies to replace HBO and select an internet provider who is aligned with ESPN3 (http://espn.go.com/espn3/xboxproviders) and they have almost everything that cable has for much less.

This is also why it looks like the ACC with the ESPN deal may be ahead of the curve.

I wonder (b/c I don't know) if that is due to ESPN or the internet itself and it's inconsistency [speed and wired vs wifi]? On their video panel is a "gear" looking thing and we can usually get the quality of video desired by adjusting the video there. At least this is the case with videos on Pitt's website. I just found this out last week so I may be WAY behind the times!

Thats not ESPN...that's AT&T, Comcast or whoever your ISP is.

Comcast provides the pipe....ESPN provides the content.

Actually, it's everyone's fault. Nobody is going to dedicate the bandwidth needed to run a full HD stream from ESPN at this point in time. And truth be told, ESPN isn't broadcasting a full HD feed anyway.

In fact, it's going to be a fairly long time until enough equipment is upgraded, fiber is run, servers, switches, boxes, your computer, etc... in order to deliver full HD feeds over the internet with any type of quality and consistency. It's not the same as cable TV.

Typical depreciation on an ISP/cable network is 10 years. They just don't throw equipment away because something better came out.

HD feeds are bandwidth hogs. You need 20Mbps or more to run as smooth as a live HD feed on your TV. Your ISP isn't guaranteeing you this and your router, computer, and video card probably can't handle it anyway.

If it's not ESPN to blame .. then explain this:

a. Pitt basketball game on ESPN3 the other day was running at near-HD quality the entire game .. and mostly at the highest level of quality (as per the "bars" which indicate quality in the lower right of the screen).

b. Division II football playoff game on ESPN3 the same day .. at the same time of the day (saturday night) .. was blurry at the lowest quality for 90% of the game. There were a few moments where it'd clear up to perfect quality .. but quickly revert back to fuzz.

This is not isolated. I've observed this over several years. So it leads me to believe the blame goes on ESPN and/or the location of the broadcast .. i.e. the pete.

-- both of the games mentioned above were broadcast from a location of equal distance (about 300 miles) from where i currently reside.

13 dl .. 12 ul

WOuldn't it stand to reason that watching replays would offer different results than the original? In fact, if it's my internet speed that is to blame then quality would vary according to what my connection is doing. But the truth is when i watch a replay the quality varies the same as it did when i watch the original feed. THerefore it's been recorded that way. It's ESPN or the location. Not my internet.

Very few people have dedicated bandwidth since you don't have a dedicated line. Ultimately, your sharing bandwidth resources somewhere. Either your neighbors or back at the central office where most of the switching equipment is oversubscribed, meaning that it could never handle switching the amount of bandwidth it's supposed to be providing.

All ISP networks are oversubscribed. Typically, they oversubscribed by somewhere between 10:1 - 100:1. For example, you an 99 of your neighbors might have 10Mbps connections, but are connected to a switch back at a sub station or central office that has a capacity of 100Mbps. In theory, you are allotted 10Mbps, but if you are all using more than 1Mbps at the same time there is an issue.

TV channels are multicast everywhere over the network. When you go to channel 2, you join that multicast stream. They know exactly how much bandwidth is being used by the channels they multicast.

When you watch content like ESPN3, it is being requested by you and is being delivered to you. This type of traffic is problematic for networks as there can be so many separate streams being requested across their network and it's hard to plan for. PPV and On Demand are similar, but they try and distribute the content servers closer to the homes to eliminate this traffic from traversing their entire network.

Internet feeds are a different animal though. It's why I keep saying it's going to be a while before we're there.

Just tested a couple of different streams on ESPN3. There seemed to definitely be differences in quality between events. Pitt vs Howard topped out for me at 4 out of 5. Pitt vs Duquesne full 5 bars in quality. Some live streaming pool event was at 5.

I'm not sure what the issue is. Probably a combination of things.

BTW, here's and article I found about ESPN's direction for ESPN3.

It's not COmcast .. otherwise the quality wouldn't vary with different games AND also with replays. The replays and the various games would vary only according to your internet connection at THAT MOMENT IN TIME .. which should have a UNIQUE pattern. But the patterns are repeatable and vary according to location, game and even within each game. Simple logic.