Proposed Standard Would Address Video Buffering 118
Lucas123 writes "Sony, SanDisk and several other technology providers have formed a group and proposed a standard that would use predictive software to pre-load content onto mobile devices in order to preempt buffering issues due to bandwidth bottlenecks, which industry experts say will only worsen over time. 'Intelligently coordinating content delivery in advance to local device storage lets consumers enjoy their video, games, periodicals, books and music when they're ready,' said Susan Kevorkian, a research director at IDC. The proposed standard also raises the question: do we really want Amazon downloading everything it thinks you want to your tablet?"
Sony? Standard? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Better than RealPlayer.
Re:Sony? Standard? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
That was what I was wondering. I could see an advantage to loading content that you know you'll need in the near future at times when the network is relatively quiet, but loading content that you might need seems to be a bad idea. It's sort of like leaving your AC on even though you've got your windows open because some of the cold air will settle near the floor.
Re:Sony? Standard? (Score:5, Insightful)
Cost and availability of bandwidth varies extremely much depending on where you are and by what way you're connected. I recently bought Fifa 11 for my iPhone (1$ sale on valentine's day, massive bang for the buck) and it was 800 MB+, way more than my 500 MB/month quota. There is an unlimited plan but it costs hellishly much and the phone doesn't let you download apps over 20 MB via 3G anyway. Was that a problem? No, because i downloaded it over my wifi which is hooked up to a 25 Mbit line with no quota.
While it is in range of my wifi, I wouldn't mind if it loaded up on content I'd want to watch. I just don't think there's any automated system intelligent enough - or rather clairvoyant enough - to actually be useful. I could see it for stuff I was subscribed to, like "When there's a new episode of the Simpsons and I'm on wifi then automatically predownload" sort of thing but not in general. That is, if such a service existed.
Re: (Score:3)
When there's a new episode of the Simpsons and I'm on wifi then automatically predownload" sort of thing but not in general. That is, if such a service existed.
I thought iTunes did that? My flatmate made it sound like that's what happens on his iTunes/iPad combo anyway..
Re: (Score:2)
I thought iTunes did that?
I live in Norway, we got zero video on iTunes of any kind.
Re: (Score:2)
To the ignorant people who design corporate content systems (and even a good portion of freeware content systems) the network is just another bottlenecking bus to get to the other side of.
They have no concept, much less care, about the ramifications of chewing up network resources. In some ways it's a cultural reflection: we live in an age where you can get away with being very selfish. Heck, most "online generation" people I meet cannot even hack verbal duplex it in a face-time conversation once there ar
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds great, push ads over a metered slow mobil connection.
This may be a crazy idea (Score:3)
Howsabout this: Provide more bandwidth than a Dixie cup on a string and then buffer a bit for safety when the user actually selects content.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
I guess when I said I wanted fiber, I should have been more specific.
Re: (Score:3)
See, now that's just insul;ting and uncalled for. They reached the level of Pringle's-can-with-piano-wire, far surpassing the old Dixie-cup-on-a-string model nearly 18 months ago. Credit where credit is due, please...
Re: (Score:2)
That's only because the string broke and they had to replace it anyways. After break the string 20 times the knots holding it back together had ultimately shortened the range below levels they considered acceptable.
How they knot the piano wire when it breaks will be interesting.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Everyone in the U.S. is already paying 2 or 3 times that realistic sum based on what's available in other countries and what they pay for it.
Re: (Score:2)
Will do, as soon as you're ready to provide more realistic pricing plans than "Unlimited! (except when we decide it isn't) for just $30! (for one device only.)"
Intelligent delivery in advance lets consumers... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
You have a 'data quota'? What kind of a 3rd world country still has those...
"Data plan for 3 or 4G mobile networks" sounds better to you?
Even on the tubez, do you think is better to have unlimited but QoS-es traffic or a limited traffic quota with no QoS?
Re: (Score:2)
The former. Proper QoS does absolutely nothing when there is bandwidth available, and it prioritizes light, latency-sensitive and interactive traffic over bulk downloads when there is competition. Even with "no QoS", routers and switches eventually have to choose a packet to drop when queues fill up, so this choice is a false dichotomy.
Maybe you're thinking of "Evil/Stupid QoS" which p
Re: (Score:2)
No, I actually expect my 3/4G plans to be without data quotas...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
If the CRTC's speed matching ruling ever comes into force, I'll be happy...
Re: (Score:2)
Not sure if you're being sarcastic, but while capped connections are common in North America (especially for mobile connections), a lot of third-world countries still have unlimited plans. Usually relatively slow (in the under-3mbps range), but unlimited.
A: Because it breaks the flow of a message (Score:2)
Q: Why is starting a comment in the Subject: line incredibly irritating?
Re: Wow, you really should have (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Q: Why is this so much less irritating? (Score:2)
A: Because the breaking of flow is not what's irritating; it's the fact that you're posting it out of order.
Oh, and PS, we get it already! [google.com.au]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, so the problem is your reading. Gotcha. Tell me, do you also read the book before title as well?
Re: (Score:2)
Q: Why is starting a comment in the Subject: line incredibly irritating?
Correct again, Watson. You win $1,000,000.
Bandwidth caps & charges (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Bandwidth caps & charges (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Do you work for Sony or SanDisk?
If he worked for Sony, you wouldn't have been allowed to read it.
Download the damn thing (Score:4, Informative)
Back in those days when I had a crappy internet connection, I downloaded all video files. Sure, I had to wait some time until it was done, but at least I didn't have to wait every 10 seconds while watching the video. It's much cleaner, you can fast-forward, go backwards, watch the whole thing a second time, with no delay whatsoever. And no Flash.
I never really understood why video sites don't have a download option. It would make watching videos over a small internet connection so much better. (Then again I guess they don't want us to leave their site and watch videos without their annoying ads)
Re: (Score:3)
You could always just wait for the video to buffer all the way, which is like downloading (only it's nonpersistent, so you have to download it again if you want to watch it some other session).
Re: (Score:2)
didn't have to wait every 10 seconds while watching the video
Yeap, chop the moaning and it becomes totally anticlimactic.
Also, I wonder how "intelligent" this pre-fetching will be? I mean, even for a simpler problem, the ISP-es landed us in bufferbloating [wikipedia.org]; if this miraculous "intelligence" is to be ran/pushed by content providers but supported by telcos/ISPs, I'm sure we'll finish much worse.
Re: (Score:2)
That's what I always thought. Then we put streaming videos side by side with downloads and we saw roughly 10x as many people wanted to stream the video compared to downloading. So now we focus our effort on streaming when it comes to video.
I certainly prefer downloading for the reasons you describe, but I find myself streaming when I see it is an option and I know that the streaming mechanism is something reasonably decent (ie, I won't have to keep pausing for buffer).
Re: (Score:3)
That's obvious. If you download the video, you see the adverts once. If you stream it, you see new adverts every time you watch.
Re: (Score:2)
On a moderately related topic, I really really wish that YouTube changed the default behavior of maximizing a window. If I buffer the whole clip, why in the world would I want to start buffering again in a higher resolution if I go full screen? Then, once it automatically switches, I have to 1)wait for the video to buffer enough to start playing, 2)switch the resolution back to the one I buffered in, 3
Re: (Score:2)
Huh?
If I let a youtube video buffer and then click fullscreen, it is still buffered. But if you change the resolution (i.e. going to the HD version of the vid rather than the standard), of course it will have to buffer it again - it's a different video!
This is the same for me on many browsers & platforms. What browser/platform/plugin are you using??
Re: (Score:2)
Vista 64, Chrome 9.0.597.98 and Adobe Flash 10.2.something. The browser doesn't seem to matter, as I have had this issue for years and only recently started using Chrome over Firefox. Same problem with Opera 11.01 and current flash. Internet Explorer... well apparently I don't even have flash configured for IE. Going t
Re: (Score:2)
got a link to a youtube vid that does this? Maybe I have just been lucky in that the times I fullscreen a youtube vid, it's only available in one resolution...
Re: (Score:2)
Or I'm missing something.... I'll be back
Ahh... now it looks like it's only videos embedded on other sites that do it. That would probably explain my account settings not being applied. I guess I can't really blame YouTube for that. I would have sworn that I also had this happen on youtube.com directly, but either A) YouTube changed their behavior or B) human memory can be flawed. Pride makes me want to think that someone at Google read my post on here a
Re: (Score:2)
That is why download from streaming video sites when I can like Orbit Downloader in Windows. Some sites, like Hulu, won't work though. :(
Re: (Score:2)
It it's some kind of Java-based thingy, then all bets are off. You might find something that will save it, or you might just have to use a screen capture program if you really want it.
I don't think I could press "print screen" 30 times a second.
Have a seat over there (Score:5, Insightful)
do we really want Amazon downloading everything it thinks you want to your tablet?"
It's all fun and games until you visit 4chan and get something preloaded you don't want.
Re:Have a seat over there (Score:5, Funny)
After you prepay for that privilege of course.
Re: (Score:2)
You mean, previlege?
More like (Score:4, Funny)
FTFY
Bad idea. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
I am thinking they already do something like this to save on MAN / WAN bandwidth.
Re: (Score:2)
What they REALLY need is an intelligent distributed proxy system at every call tower where hits are tallied by region/state/nation, in that order, & pre-distributed accordingly-- pushing it to every device is just fucking retarded.
Hmm a geographically distributed caches of content according to what is most heavily being requested. What do they called that again..... a CDN!!! *sigh*
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, maybe Microsoft should update their task manager to distinguish between
-in use by programs
-in use as cache or superfetch (which is similar in purpose, only superfetch tries to guess in advance what you want).
-unused
That would clear up the confusion. For a company that is otherwise so good at marketing, not showing this distinction seems a big fail. I could go on about other shortcomings in Task Manager, but that would be offtopic...
Oops... (Score:1)
According to one of the linked articles they do that... scratch the above remark :-(
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
What you're missing is that Superfetch doesn't just 'hand memory over to programs', it has to actually load data from disk. That ties up your disk, which slows down the entire machine for anything else you might happen to be using for at the time, provided that involves at least some disk access (i.e., pretty much anything).
I don't mind having to wait a short time for an application to launch when I (first) ask for it to launch. I definitely do mind having to wait for the application to load while I'm in
Re: (Score:2)
Download Accelerator!!! HD. (Score:1)
Re:Download Accelerator!!! HD. (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually some of those download accellerators were pretty clever. They downloaded the HTML for all the sites that a site linked to. So for instance while I'm reading a story on the NYT all of the linked stories start downloading. It isn't perpetual motion, it's just anticipation.
Similarly if Netflix wanted to start downloading all of the episodes to a Miniseries that I start watching while I sleep so that I can watch them in HD even with a slower connection... all the more power to them.
In fact my two 2TB HDDs are mostly unused. If they want to download all of my recommended Netflix movies but dynamically delete them when I need more space.. again all the more power to them if it doesn't interfere with my normal browsing.
There is a lot of time while I'm at work where my internet connection could be going full tilt caching my potential entertainment. In fact it doesn't even have to cache all of it--just enough so that there is no buffering.
Re: (Score:1)
...if Netflix wanted to start downloading all of the episodes to a Miniseries that I start watching while I sleep so that I can watch them in HD even with a slower connection... all the more power to them. In fact my two 2TB HDDs are mostly unused. If they want to download all of my recommended Netflix movies but dynamically delete them when I need more space.. again all the more power to them if it doesn't interfere with my normal browsing. There is a lot of time while I'm at work where my internet connection could be going full tilt caching my potential entertainment. In fact it doesn't even have to cache all of it--just enough so that there is no buffering.
That would all be great... on a desktop or media center computer. What I really don't get is how anyone, even Sony, could possibly think this is a good idea for mobile. By the time you get around to watching any of those cached videos, your battery will be dead (which may be the only thing that will save you from exceeding your bandwidth cap, if any, by several orders of magnitude).
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah but my phone isn't busy while I sleep, it's plugged in and I bet Cell Phone companies aren't worried about tower overload since everyone is more spread out in their individual homes (hopefully on wifi nonetheless).
I only just finished filling up my 32GB Zune player with music from Zunepass. It took me about 3 years of selecting songs I wanted to listen to. With a subscription service like Zune it really makes sense to just fill the device to the brim and then delete unlistened to music.
If it takes wh
Re: (Score:2)
"If they want to download all of my recommended Netflix movies but dynamically delete them when I need more space.. again all the more power to them if it doesn't interfere with my normal browsing."
Ideally, that is precisely what all of this is about--honest intentions to better serve the customer.
What worries me more is the sort of abuse that can come from the same mechanics. From the summary:
"The proposed standard also raises the question: do we really want Amazon downloading everything it thinks you want
Reinventing a wheel? (Score:1)
Talk about old stuff. TiVo has been around for many many years.
Also there are already good standards for doing this: RSS + torrent.
News at 11, another useless company tries to patent and grab money for a technology that has been on the market for years.
Suitably, slashdot verification word is "corpses"; they're dead, stop whipping them.
Re: (Score:1)
We can't do this with existing standards? (Score:1)
Surely this has already been solved dozens of times before?
An example - use RSS and bittorrent. RSS feeds from content providers specify what to fetch (and could include any pertinent metadata like size, synopsis, etc) Retrieve the actual content via bittorrent - Throttle/pause transfers (or use QoS in the device) to handle the "idle time transfer" part of the deal. Heck, you might even relieve some of the bandwidth pressure this way by p2p downloading fr
Focus on the wrong platform (Score:2)
Mobiles? Why not address buffering issues on fixed lines?
Oh wait, I forget the real world has great infrastructure, and not controlled by a telecoms [hellkom.co.za] monopoly [internetworldstats.com]. :'-(
downloading vs uploading rule of thumb (Score:1)
You upload *to* something. You download *from* something. Got it?
They just keep trying and trying (Score:1)
This is just disguised PUSH tech. WE DON'T WANT IT!!!
Really. We don't want content we may or may not use sent to us on our tab. Much, much better to PULL what you want, when you want it. Better for you because it will probably be cheaper. Better for the network because it is more efficient. Even better for content providers because they can tally downloads knowing that they were actively requested (and most likely consumed) by users.
Get with the program! One of the great things about the internet is that it
Oh, pirates may love it (Score:1)
Usually, you have to order stuff (and pay for it) to have it sent to you. With this scheme, I can see some clever hacker buy a few episodes of some show, then wait for the rest to "preload" and copy them out of the storage. Unless the content providers have a smart encryption/decryption scheme this time (good luck with that ;-)
skeptical (Score:2)
Predownload everything you will read? Yes! (Score:2)
do we really want Amazon downloading everything it thinks you want to your tablet?
If Amazon can predict with high accuracy the stories that a user will read/watch that day, then preloading them absolutely makes sense. Especially for the use case where the device has morning wifi access, but is then going to be limited by 3g/gprs or disconnected for much of the day, or where the device user turns off wireless to save battery power. There are a bunch of tools that already do this for ebook readers - e.g. Calibre can prefetch stories from hundreds of feeds and load them up ready for the day
You can't wait a few seconds? (Score:3)
I don't get this. People can't wait a few seconds for buffering? A few seconds for some data from some computer that is probably hidden in a data centre somewhere, thousands of kilometers away to get turned magically into a signal that is then transported to you over the biggest computer network ever created by humanity, then it is beamed somehow to you no matter where you are - walking down the street, sitting in your car at traffic lights, or lying in bed.
I can wait a few seconds; I spend them thinking "...how the fuck!@? This is awesome!@#"
Re: (Score:2)
Did you go to sleep in 1996 and just wake up?
Re: (Score:1)
That guy is awesome! [wikipedia.org]
This is not the video buffering your looking for. (Score:2)
I predownload everything I want to watch.
I don't bother downloading stuff I don't want to watch, unless I'm getting something for someone else.
I don't watch commericals or have stuttering.
I typically get 720p of everything.
anyways, when it said video buffering, i thought we were talking about video buffering.
Low Bandwidth (Score:2)
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a US Postal Service delivery truck full of Bluray Discs.
My wife and I occasionally watch Netflix streaming, but the quality is terrible, so we usually just plan ahead and get the Blurays delivered.
We get 3 at a time, and it takes a day for the movies to get to us. So, if a BRD is 50GB, that's 150GB/24 hours, which is well beyond the point where our ISP would say we've exceeded our "unlimited" usage plan and turn us off anyway.
Ob (Score:2)
No, especially if they're going to delete it without warning: slashdot passim [slashdot.org]
"experts"? (Score:2)
Do these experts happen to work for big telco/cable?
Zipf's Law (Score:2)
Zipf's law (i.e., the power laws found in media choices) means that this won't work as well as a naive calculation might indicate. Yes, you can save some bandwidth by preloading the next "Harry Potter" movie or whatever, but people's tastes are sufficiently variable that you will never be able to pre-load everything that everyone wants to watch (or even that some individual wants to watch), and so you still need enough bandwidth to supply everyone as if there wasn't preloading. It may be worth doing, but it
Who pays for the Bandwidth? (Score:1)
And who pays for the downloading of all that stuff that may never be used?
Mobile devices can switch off memory that isn't used, but if the device is constantly full of clutter, the device can't power off that memory.
Amazon downloading everything to your tablet (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I downloaded a paper I needed to read from the arXiv the other day. After I had downloaded it *from* the arXiv, it better have gone *to* my HDD, or I won't be able to read it. Would you say that as I downloaded it from the arXiv, I simultaneously uploaded it to my hard disk? I hope not, because that usage is completely ridiculous.
Both download and upload have both an input and an output, so from and to are both appropriate to use with either action.
That quibble aside, I agree that the direction is quit
SanDisk (Score:1)
"Storage technology companies propose increasing the amount of storage required on mobile devices"?
This is horrific. (Score:2)
Provider's are dropping unlimited access left and right. It's simply indefensible to propose a technology that would quietly consume bandwidth based on a presumed future request for information.
Quit sending HD video to iOS devices, for a start (Score:2)
Youtube is practically unusable on my iPod Touch because it seems to always grab the HD version of a video and I have to wait 5 minutes while it buffers a 2 minute video. If I browse youtube.com in Safari, I have the option of picking the SD version and can start watching it right away.
99% of the time, I'm not watching a documentary on Costa Rican rainforests. More likely, I'm trying to show my kids a funny video of a cat licking it's own butt or something else that plays perfectly in low-res. The option of
Great excuse (Score:1)
avoiding the real issue (Score:1)
How about solving the real problem first: bufferbloat
Is another term for this "buffer bloat"? (Score:1)
Sounds Good To Me... (Score:1)
Ahem. (Score:2)
"uploading", Surely?
Re: (Score:2)
"uploading", Surely?
The way I learned it, back in the BBS era, 'download' doesn't automatically mean 'a transfer from a local to any remote system'. A download occurs from a 'big' system to a 'small' system, and uploading is the reverse. A server being 'big' compared to a workstation, and a workstation being 'big' compared to a removable device.
Popular usage of the term may have changed, but the original poster's usage would be consistent with that.
Re: (Score:2)