Directv Now adds DVR cloud

[harshness]

I really like the new guide and I am hopeful, after a few months, a large increase in DVR size will be included at no extra cost.

A larger free DVR capacity seems to be well off the table given the statements. Centralized DVR is relatively expensive to deliver as it turns a community viewing experience into an individual viewing experience. This is difficult for both wired and wireless delivery when most everyone needs a private stream to support pause, rewind and fast forward even if they're all watching the same program.

 

[Mike1096]

A larger free DVR capacity seems to be well off the table given the statements. Centralized DVR is very relatively expensive to deliver as it turns a community viewing experience into an individual viewing experience. This is difficult for both wired and wireless delivery when most everyone needs a private stream to support pause, rewind and fast forward even if they're all watching the same program.

Definitely won’t be free. Larger yes. But you’ll pay.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[ncted]

A larger free DVR capacity seems to be well off the table given the statements. Centralized DVR is very relatively expensive to deliver as it turns a community viewing experience into an individual viewing experience. This is difficult for both wired and wireless delivery when most everyone needs a private stream to support pause, rewind and fast forward even if they're all watching the same program.

For Live TV trick-play, I can see the challenge, although I don't see it as insurmountable. For cloud DVR, I can't say I see what is hard about it, especially for a company like AT&T who has network POPs in the vast majority of the nation in which to place their CDN boxes for this purpose. It is essentially what Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, etc. do, and they all seem to work fairly well.

 

[Ronnie-]

I really like the new guide.

What did they change with the guide? If I recall, it was pretty decent before.

 

[harshness]

It is essentially what Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, etc. do, and they all seem to work fairly well.

It is a matter of scale. When even the technophobes have to stream their content, bandwidth requirements are going to be much, much higher and it is going to come in pretty big waves. Alternatively, transport controls (aka "trick play") will have to be turned off and you've lost a key DVR feature.

I'm far from being a technophobe, but I typically don't stream more than three or four hours of content a week. If I streamed all of the 12-15 hours of TV I watched, that would be four to five-fold increase in bandwidth.

 

[stmcld]

What did they change with the guide? If I recall, it was pretty decent before.

On my Apple TV, when I now go to a program, it gives me info on that program. Didn't before.

 

[ncted]

It is a matter of scale. When even the technophobes have to stream their content, bandwidth requirements are going to be much, much higher and it is going to come in pretty big waves. Alternatively, transport controls (aka "trick play") will have to be turned off and you've lost a key DVR feature.

I'm far from being a technophobe, but I typically don't stream more than three or four hours of content a week. If I streamed all of the 12-15 hours of TV I watched, that would be four to five-fold increase in bandwidth.

Netflix has almost 60 million subscribers in the US, and they have built their infrastructure to handle way more than that. Seems like it wouldn't be that hard to build something to handle the ~25 million AT&T has. While streaming caused some peering points to congest a few years ago, it hasn't been much of a problem lately. Where do you expect to the see the bottleneck?

 

[tigerfan33]

On my Apple TV, when I now go to a program, it gives me info on that program. Didn't before.

Does it have a video window while viewing the guide?

 

[stmcld]

Does it have a video window while viewing the guide?

Hmmm, you think I would remember that. But, I don't. I think so.

 

[RandallA]

Does it have a video window while viewing the guide?

It doesn't on a FireTV and DirectvNow Beta app. It displays the guide and you can hear the sound but no video window. As far as Info goes, when you're viewing the Guide you can now see the Info for the program, you couldn't see it before. Again this is on a Fire TV which I know is still in Beta and the official app has not been released.

 

[harshness]

Netflix has almost 60 million subscribers in the US, and they have built their infrastructure to handle way more than that. Seems like it wouldn't be that hard to build something to handle the ~25 million AT&T has.

I'm not convinced that we're comparing apples to apples here. Everything Netflix casts has been painstakingly compressed to the nth degree with stream speeds for every need while DIRECTV will presumably still be delivering content that is compressed on the fly. While Netflix can switch from one bitrate to another pretty easily since several are available, DIRECTV Now presumably would have to try to make the content available at several bitrates on-the-fly or suffer skipping.

 

[ncted]

I'm not convinced that we're comparing apples to apples here. Everything Netflix casts has been painstakingly compressed to the nth degree with stream speeds for every need while DIRECTV will presumably still be delivering content that is compressed on the fly. While Netflix can switch from one bitrate to another pretty easily since several are available, DIRECTV Now presumably would have to try to make the content available at several bitrates on-the-fly or suffer skipping.

That is why I was saying Live TV is a challenge, but cloud DVR should be easily doable. I consider the DVR streaming to be roughly equivalent to the Netflix model. In working with transcoding services from AWS and Brightcove, it is pretty straightforward to setup your transcoders for the bitrates you want to serve, and it all just happens automatically.

 

[Jackonearth]

Not everyone has convenient OTA access to locals so those people (and those who don't want to wire an antenna around) need an alternative that meets that need.

I would expect someone who travels to know that.

The TiVo in particular can be a real bearcat if you don't also have always-on Internet access.

If you don't have internet for a Tivo, then OTT TV won't work very well either.

 

[harshness]

I consider the DVR streaming to be roughly equivalent to the Netflix model.

That is your right, but I'm not sure it makes sense in the real world.

In working with transcoding services from AWS and Brightcove, it is pretty straightforward to setup your transcoders for the bitrates you want to serve, and it all just happens automatically.

Straightforward in no way implies cheap. If the DVR content is "recorded" at high bitrates, the delivery is still real-time and may have to adjust based on available bandwidth. While Netflix or Amazon may add a dozens of hours of content a week, DIRECTV introduces hundreds of hours per day. If they record multiple bitrates in the DVR, that's maybe double the data.

 

[harshness]

If you don't have internet for a Tivo, then OTT TV won't work very well either.

OTT doesn't demand always-on Internet service but a TiVo DVR kinda begs for it.

 

[osu1991]

OTT doesn't demand always-on Internet service but a TiVo DVR kinda begs for it.

Not really unless you want skipmode data each night for prime time. Guide data and time/date are only checked every 24-27hrs. There is 7-10 days of guide data saved so the TiVo really only needs Internet once a week.

 

[ncted]

That is your right, but I'm not sure it makes sense in the real world.Straightforward in no way implies cheap. If the DVR content is "recorded" at high bitrates, the delivery is still real-time and may have to adjust based on available bandwidth. While Netflix or Amazon may add a dozens of hours of content a week, DIRECTV introduces hundreds of hours per day. If they record multiple bitrates in the DVR, that's maybe double the data.

Look, the DVR problem has already been solved by a number of companies, including Brightcove, Akamai, and others a long time ago. It is really just a matter of scaling up the transcoders. A thing, mind you, that DirecTV already does for its satellite operation as so much content has to converted from mpeg2 to mpeg4. Adaptive bit-rate encoding in real-time exists today, in the real world.

 

[harshness]

It is really just a matter of scaling up the transcoders. A thing, mind you, that DirecTV already does for its satellite operation as so much content has to converted from mpeg2 to mpeg4.

DIRECTV's satellite channels come to them mostly in MPEG4 format except for OTA sourced locals. Everything is adaptively multiplexed (as opposed to individually compressed) and frosted with Forward Error Correction for uplink.

It is one thing when your viewers are enterprises with fat pipes to the Internet and something quite different when they're streaming over wireless or through a DSL line.

 

[ncted]

DIRECTV's satellite channels come to them mostly in MPEG4 format except for OTA sourced locals. Everything is adaptively multiplexed (as opposed to individually compressed) and frosted with Forward Error Correction for uplink.

It is one thing when your viewers are enterprises with fat pipes to the Internet and something quite different when they're streaming over wireless or through a DSL line.

Deliver Broadcast TV-quality Live Streaming Video| Akamai

 

[harshness]

Existence of the technology doesn't guarantee that it is scalable by perhaps an order of magnitude.

Judging from the literature I've seen, Brightcove's live streaming offering is actually Akamai. It seems a little like putting all of one's eggs in one basket.