Comments on: Skyfire puts mobile video on a bandwidth diet for carriers http://gigaom.com/2011/10/11/skyfire-puts-mobile-video-on-a-bandwidth-diet-for-carriers/ Wed, 19 Jun 2013 03:35:29 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Tony Havelka http://gigaom.com/2011/10/11/skyfire-puts-mobile-video-on-a-bandwidth-diet-for-carriers/#comment-663861 Wed, 12 Oct 2011 14:59:55 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=419206#comment-663861 “Will a compressed video be considered worse than a video that is only delivered in a choppy and fragmented fashion?”

No, I believe it will be the same. Both situations are not beneficial for the end user or the video provider.

There are many ways an OTT provider can determine the current maximum bitrate the user can handle and deliver the appropriately compressed stream. Delivery topologies like HLS and even a simple bandwidth monitor could help in determining the optimum bitrate to deliver to the viewer.

OTT provider should also have a robust player in their app that can both automatically and manually switch between all available bitrates so that viewer can optimize their viewing experience.

By wresting control of the viewing experience away from the Viewer and Provider, the carrier negatively impacts the entire value proposition between the Viewer and Provider.

Carriers should work with providers by creating an Encoding Guide. This way providers know which bitrates to encode and send when a user is requesting from their network. This puts control of the viewing experience back to where it belongs.

]]> By: Dilip Andrade http://gigaom.com/2011/10/11/skyfire-puts-mobile-video-on-a-bandwidth-diet-for-carriers/#comment-663689 Tue, 11 Oct 2011 22:01:29 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=419206#comment-663689 The problem is that most OTT video services cannot, or at least do not, have a full picture of the end user’s situation. There are differences between someone connecting via wi-fi and via HSPA, even if they have the same device.

The point of such a service isn’t to compress everything that the user sees, but instead to determine if the stream going to the user is appropriate for the user’s device, the user’s connection and the bandwidth available in the connection to the user.

Will a compressed video be considered worse than a video that is only delivered in a choppy and fragmented fashion?

]]> By: Tony Havelka http://gigaom.com/2011/10/11/skyfire-puts-mobile-video-on-a-bandwidth-diet-for-carriers/#comment-663651 Tue, 11 Oct 2011 19:27:00 +0000 http://gigaom.com/?p=419206#comment-663651 Shouldn’t optimizing the video feed for each platform and network be the job of the OTT video service? The video service has access to masters that can be properly compressed to support many different bitrates and topologies.

I would hate to have compressed videos to a 512KB H264 stream to support a mobile platform and then have the carrier further compress it. The image quality will be severely degraded detracting from the overall enjoyment of the video by the viewer. All the blame on the poor video quality will fall on the video provider and not on the carrier where the blame, and customer service calls, should go.

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