Dan Rayburn – StreamingMediaBlog.com

Streaming Media East Conference to Feature 20 “How-To” Sessions

Dan Rayburn | Thursday April 26, 2012 | 12:06 PM | Comments (2)

We heard our attendees loud and clear. They said "talk less, show more" and at this year's Streaming Media East show, we're making that happen. We've added a fourth track devoted solely to "how-to" sessions. Plus, several others sprinkled throughout the program. The how-to sessions include:

How-to: Technical Setup of Live Streaming Production
How-to: Choosing an Enterprise-Class Video Encoder
How-to: Encoding Video for iDevices
How-to: Social Video, Techniques to Make Your Videos Go Viral
How-to: Video Player Development Across Multiple Screens
How-to: Low-Cost, Live Captioning for Webcasting
How-to: Comparing & Configuring Live Streaming Encoders
How-to: Optimizing Video for HTML5 and Flash
How-to: Enterprise Video Case Studies
How-to: Device Demos, Battle of the $99 Streaming Boxes
How-to: Encoding Video for HTML5
How-to: Multi-Bitrate and Multi-Screen Streaming With Flash Media Server 4.5
How-to: Adaptive Live Streaming to Any Device From a Single Encoder Stream
How-to: Building an HTML5 Video Player
How-to: Device Demos, Battle Of The $99 Streaming Boxes
How-to: Best Practices for Planning A Content Curation Strategy

Plus – Monday's Preconference Workshops:

Streaming Media Delivery – Servers and Clouds
Encoding for Flash, Mobile, and HTML5
Live Webcasting from Soup to Nuts
Planning Online Video Deployment for HTML5 and Flash

You can find out more about all of our sessions here and use the discount code of DRF01 to get a full conference pass for under $500.

Filed in Conferences & Events | Permalink | Comments (2)

Hands-On Review: D-Link’s MovieNite Streaming Player Not Worth Buying

Dan Rayburn | Monday April 23, 2012 | 12:06 PM | Comments (26)

Over the weekend I picked up the new D-Link MovieNite streaming media player, a $48 box developed in conjunction with Walmart and sold exclusively in their stores and via the Walmart.com website. Of all the streaming media devices I have reviewed and tested, I don't think I've ever told readers not to buy something, until today. For what is suppose to be a very simple player aimed at a non-techie crowd, this player falls far short in just about every category and is not worth the money.

The player supports 1080p video streaming and has 802.11n WiFi, 10/100 ethernet port, HDMI out and composite video connections. The player only supports content from Netflix, Vudu, YouTube and Pandora and has no support to play back local content via USB and no slot for any kind of memory card. While some of those shortcomings would be just fine for someone who only wants to use it to stream movies and TV shows from Netflix and Vudu, I'm afraid even those simple tasks are painful with this player.

The box supports 802.11n, yet no matter what I tried I could not get it to connect to my WiFi network. Another issue is that the name of WiFi networks are cut off, with my network only showing up as two letters in the name, out of seven. Putting in a call to D-Link's tech support number was no help as they couldn't solve the problem. My router sits ten feet from the box, has ten other devices that can connect to it via WiFi, yet the D-Link player kept telling me it could not connect to the network. D-Link support had me reset the box over and over again, with no luck. They then asked me to wait on hold for at least 30 minutes while they "called headquarters", but I declined to wait. On a side note, I know that most companies these days outsource tech support calls to foreign countries to save money, but trying to diagnose a tech issue, with someone who does not speak English fluently, is never a good user experience.

Hoping my WiFi issues were just a software problem that could be resolved with a firmware update, I tried to update the box under the maintenance option, but was given an error message of "Memory space is not enough for upgrade! Do you want to reboot now?" So if you can't download updates for the box, I'm not sure how D-Link expects to ever add fixes and features? For my last option, I actually broke out the printed three page Quick Install Guide in the box, but that was useless. But I did get a good laugh when step three told me not to plug in an ethernet cable if I wanted to use WiFi as the "on-screen setup wizard will allow you to configure your wireless settings". Now I get what they were saying, but if this box is really targeting non-techie's, step four should not be telling you to plug in the power supply when step three is talking about an on-screen setup wizard.

Giving up on trying to connect the box via WiFi I plugged in an ethernet cable which saw my network right away. Since the box only supports four content services, the remote has dedicated buttons for Netflix, Vudu, YouTube and Pandora. The bad news is that the software interface for this box is slow and buggy. Netflix takes nearly twenty seconds to load and videos take much longer to start up when compared with the Roku or WD TV Live player. D-Link does have a note on their website saying that they have released a product software update that resolves issues with streaming content from Netflix, but they don't say what issues they are fixing and there is no way to force download the update.

To get the update on the box D-Link says to "reboot it by powering it off and then back on, wait for the update message to appear, and select ok." Problem is I don't get that message when I reboot it and I have no way to know if that means I already have the update or not. The entire user-experience with this product was not well thought out and it's a really poor interface. I don't know why this box is so slow, but there is a lot of lag time with the software and the box froze on me twice, forcing me to pull the power plug.

Overall, there is nothing to like about this box and consumers would do far better spending $30 more for a Roku HD. And if 1080p isn't required, you can get a Roku LT for the same price as this box, which will also give you hundreds of content channels, instead of only four. The only advantage D-Link's MovieNite box has over Roku is their support for YouTube, something Roku is still missing for some unknown reason.

While I could understand D-Link and Walmart's desire to want to put out a really cheap streaming box in the market for those who just want to stream Netflix and Vudu, it's really pointless when every connected TV, Blu-ray player and streaming box already has Netflix on it. This box really doesn't fill any void in the market and isn't worth buying.

Filed in Devices (Xbox, Roku, TiVo etc.) | Permalink | Comments (26)

Data Shows Video Accounts For 60% of MSO and ISP Traffic, 50% Of That Comes From Netflix

Dan Rayburn | Monday April 23, 2012 | 12:01 AM | Comments (1)

In a recent discussion with transparent caching provider Qwilt, the company shared with me data from some of their ISP and MSO customers in the U.S. and Europe. At one major MSO in the U.S., 60% of their traffic comes from video content. Netflix makes up 50% of that traffic and also leads in total viewing time.

And from a major ISP in Europe (see charts below), Netflix become the second largest online video service in the UK in under three months. While the BBC iPlayer has the second largest online video volume in the UK, they are currently migrating their platform to HTTP from RTMP which is the reason you don't see them in the top sites graph.

While these numbers should not come as any surprise to those who talk to MSOs, ISPs and carriers, it is further evidence that transparent caching solutions and licensed and managed CDN platforms are starting to play a very crucial role with those who own and operate the last-mile networks.

We'll be discussing and hearing directly from MSOs and carriers on this topic at the Content Delivery Summit next month.

Filed in Content Delivery | Permalink | Comments (1)

Video News Roundup From Day Two Of The NAB Show

Dan Rayburn | Tuesday April 17, 2012 | 12:17 PM | Comments (0)

Here are all the releases I have seen so far this morning from day two of the NAB show. Will add to them as I get more. Here are all the releases from day one.

Filed in Conferences & Events | Permalink | Comments (0)

Netflix’s CEO Is Trying To Use Net Neutrality To Deflect The Real Issue, Competition

Dan Rayburn | Tuesday April 17, 2012 | 12:01 AM | Comments (4)

On Sunday, Netflix’s CEO took to his Facebook page to complain that Comcast isn’t being fair when it comes to net neutrality principles. His argument is that Comcast’s Xfinity TV streaming app on the Xbox 360 doesn’t count towards consumers monthly bandwidth cap, yet services like Netflix and Hulu do. While it’s a nice try on his part to drag net neutrality in the subject and get people all worked up, he’s simply trying to deflect away from the real issue at hand, which is the competition Netflix is facing from Comcast and others.

For their part, Comcast says Xfinity does not count towards consumers 250GB cap per month because the Xbox 360 acts as an additional cable box for your existing cable service. No matter which side you take, the point that is being missed is that today, Comcast’s cap doesn’t matter. Comcast has said that less than 1% of their customers go over their 250GB cap each month. And based on Reed’s own post on Facebook, a one hour show takes up about 1GB of data. That means a user would have to consumer 250 hours of video a month, or 8.3 hours per day, encoded at 2.5Mbps in order to go over their cap.

Netflix could back up their argument by saying how many of their customers use Comcast and what percentage of them go over their cap, but of course, they won’t say. Because if they did, the real numbers would be so small it would not reinforce their argument. When was the last time you heard Comcast customers complaining their cap was “too small”? Almost never. And those that have gone over their cap, the vast majority of them never get charged overages. Just look a the comments on chat boards like DSLreports.com and others. Comcast has a cap in place so they can enforce it if they need to, for those that abuse the service, but most users who have done 300GB or 350GB a month haven’t been charged overages at all.

If Comcast does not raise their caps over time as consumers use more data, then that could be an issue and could affect a larger percentage of subscribers. But the fact is, today, the cap is not impacting the market or keeping content owners like Netflix from growing. Caps are something consumers in the U.S. don’t like as Americans don’t like being told they can’t do something. They want all you can eat for a fixed cost, which is evident by how well Netflix has done in signing up subscribers for a flat fee per month.

If caps are such a big issue like some want to make them out to be, then consumers should be happy that Comcast is allowing them to stream more content from Xfinity TV, without it counting towards any kind of cap. Isn’t that what consumers want? To be able to stream more content and not have to pay for it? Of course Netflix will argue that this kind of tactic could lead to MSOs deciding which content get priority, which is what net neutrality is all about. But Netflix’s CEO doesn’t really care about Comcast’s cap, he cares about how this could impact his costs. I challenge Netflix to share data with the industry that shows a large percentage of their consumers are going over their caps. Where is the data to validate their point? To date, Netflix won’t give out any real details on the consumption of their service, other than to talk about high-level numbers like total minutes of TV shows and movies streamed in a quarter.

Bringing this back to Netflix’s argument that this is a net neutrality issue, if you look at what net neutrality is about, this is not it. Net neutrality principles say that all traffic originating on the Internet be treated equally. But streaming Xfinity TV on the Xbox 360 originates from within Comcast’s own network and not from the Internet. Netflix and others are confusing “neutral” with give Netflix a free way to access the Comcast network. Now I don’t agree that Comcast should charge more to CDNs like Level 3 just to turn up ports on their network, but this Netflix argument really has absolutely nothing to do with anything “net neutrality” related. It’s simply Netflix trying to deflect from things like their stock being downgraded, their churn getting higher and more competition starting to impact their growth.

When Netflix was flying high, with no competition, you never saw them whining in the market and their CEO wasn’t complaining on his Facebook page. The company was focused on making their service better and doing a good job with customer service. They should go back to focusing on those things again.

Disclaimer: I have never bought, sold or traded stocks in any public company ever. I have a FiOS triple play bundle with Verizon and am not a customer of Comcast. I have been a customer of Netflix for many years.

Filed in Content Delivery | Permalink | Comments (4)

Level 3 Expands CDN Capacity, Owning The Network Has Its Advantages

Dan Rayburn | Monday April 16, 2012 | 04:48 PM | Comments (0)

This morning Level 3 announced it had expanded the coverage and capacity of their content delivery network. While all CDN vendors are always increasing the reach and capacity of their networks, it's nice to see a vendor put out some real numbers for a change. Level 3 says it has increased its globally available CDN capacity to more than 5.6 Tbps, which is a little more than double the 2.15 Tbps capacity they had in late 2010. In addition the company also announced expanded CDN offerings into multiple countries in Latin America as well as locations in Saudi Arabia and Canada.

While CDN pricing has remained pretty stable in the market, a trend I expect to continue in 2012, there is no question that Level 3 has a distinct advantage over most of the other CDNs in the market since Level 3 owns their own network and has a lower cost of delivering the bits. At a time when their competitors like Limelight Networks are slashing their capex costs from around $40M last year, to about $25M this year, Level 3 is still able to spend more money on capacity while still having higher margins, thanks to owning the network.

Capex, space and power are cheaper for Level 3 and they run on a very predictable capex cost decline. Commodity servers, like the ones Level 3 users, as well as some other CDNs, decline at 20-30% per annum. The throughput is then what drives Level 3's cost of that capex on a unit basis. If Level 3 doubles the throughput of their servers they just halved that element of the cost. Since Level 3 has been very focused on a particular segment, broadcast and media and entertainment, the right sort of library and traffic actually improves Level 3's cost base the more they get, as in the case of Netflix.

Some have suggested that Level 3 is spending a lot of money to support Netflix's continued expansion, which is a bad business model due to Netflix having such a low price per Mbps sustained. While it's true Netflix's price is low, it's not as low as some think and the entire CDN business is about the economics of scale. Even with Netflix having a very affordable price, the rate of volume growth means that Level 3 can make money on their Netflix business. While some might want to debate this, Level 3 did go on record with me in 2010 to say they make money on their Netflix contract and would continue to do so, even if Comcast charged them more money for every port Level 3 turned up on their network.

Some still want to debate whether or not owning the network is an advantage when it comes the CDN business and I think we've seen enough evidence to show that it is. This should not be something that's debated in the industry any longer. Other data in the market confirms this and it is one of the reasons we have seen MSOs like Comcast and Time Warner build out their own CDNs. They have stated it is cheaper for them to keep the delivery in-house because they own the network, have a lower cost, and they get the added benefit of QoS and the potential to try and monetize the video via OTT platforms down the road.

On a side note, Level 3 also announced a deal with Conviva which bundles Conviva's CDN performance measurement tool with Level 3’s MediaPortal, allowing customers to get CDN performance analytics from a third party. Conviva is working with multiple CDNs on this offering, (Limelight also) so that customers can compare the network performance from one CDN to another.

Filed in Content Delivery | Permalink | Comments (0)

Video News Roundup From Day One Of The NAB Show

Dan Rayburn | Monday April 16, 2012 | 01:50 PM | Comments (0)

I’m not at the NAB Show this year, but here all the news releases I have seen so far today. I’ll add to this list as more news come in.

Filed in Conferences & Events | Permalink | Comments (0)