Not sure what these "delays" or buffering problems are exactly, unless mainly
people who have heard horror stories and take them at face value. It should be
easy enough to test streaming on any PC or tablet, to see if your ISP service
is adequate. My main problems, when I was using ADSL, was with ads that had no
available stream for 1.5 Mb/s. Those were super annoying, constantly freezing,
buffering, playing for a few seconds, and freezing again. CBS and Yahoo were
careful not to do that, but ABC had issues. Always just the ads. The main
program always ran flawlessly. That ad problem went away with the higher speed
broadband service.
The buffering issues I've seen, on occasion, only happen with our Roku box, on
certain programs, on occasion. I don't think it's the Internet per se, or our
ISP. It's just specific servers out there. But honestly, using the .com portals
of the TV networks, there are very few problems, although yeah, NBC seems to
have some issues on some of their on demand content. I'd say, Amazon and
Hulu/Yahoo, even when I had ADSL, were consistently excellent. They are really
run by professionals.
It will be up to the popular portals, I think, to make sure they keep up with
the increasing demand, over time.
Bert
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http://www.tvtechnology.com/business/0011/42-plan-to-spend-less-than-20-on-streaming/282653
42% Plan to Spend Less Than $20 on Streaming
OTT customers are a frugal bunch
January 31, 2018
By Jon Lafayette
A new survey found that 42% of adult consumers said they'd be willing to spend
a maximum of $20 per month on streaming subscription, according to Phenix, a
real-time video solution provider.
The study, conducted online, would mean that a big share of people would be
limited to one or two streaming subscriptions per person.
Phenix's Future of Streaming Report found as many as 40% of Americans don't
plan to live stream this year. A big reason for resistance to streaming is
delays or buffering, with 12% of those saying they'd be more likely to stream
live content if latency wasn't a consistent issue.
"This year, we saw everyone from platforms to networks to franchises heavily
invest in streaming technologies. Even though the industry significantly
advanced in 2017, claims of offering real-time capabilities are false and it's
because of major latency issues, especially at scale," said Stefan Birrer, PhD,
co-founder and CEO of Phenix. "'True-live' has the potential to be such a key
differentiator this year that original content is going to take a back seat to
it, despite original content investments from tech giants like Apple and
Facebook. In fact, consumers are already feeling a case of 'content fatigue' so
platforms need to worry less about churning out a new show every week and more
about providing consumers with what they want - live streamed content that's
truly live.
The top subscription choices for consumers who want to live stream content in
2018, according to the study, were: Netflix (60%), YouTube (48%), Facebook
(38%) and Amazon (37%).
Less popular were Hulu (25%) and Twitter (12%).
"Right now, most platforms that provide 'live streaming' capabilities offer
either scale or speed, not both. Yet, offering both is the only way to create a
real-time experience, as well as the only way for it to be a market
differentiator this year and beyond. Once achieved, providers will be in a
better position to win more subscribers and reach untapped audiences," Birrer
said.
The study was conducted online by YouGov, with 1,128 adult participating Oct.
25 and 26.
This article originally appeared in Broadcasting & Cable.
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