And I also have to wonder about the time of day when customers are requesting to watch the stream of content from Netflix or Hulu for example. if the backbone is really busy with a lot of other traffic, including lots of other high-definition streams of content for other people, I would imagine that this could affect the quality of the Netflix, Hulu Etc stram and it's picture quality. Although the specifications and conventions allow for the most popular of content to be saved locally at the edge of an ISP, I do believe Hollywood has been doing everything it can to prevent that, and so most often we're getting even the most popular requested movies and programs far away from the original server at AWS or wherever it may be and possibly suffering some degree of picture quality.FWIW: The black issues I've seen lately on Amazon have actually been with GOT which we have been rewatching in preparation for the final season. Given that isn't an Amazon original, I am not going blame that on Amazon. It looks about the same on HBO Now.
Everything on Netflix should be encoded to a standard, but, given the number of devices out there, it means they have something like 120 possible encodings per show. Their use of VP9 on devices that support it should provide the best quality at the lowest bandwidth, but clearly, YMMV.
Nope Hollywood is not trying to prevent CDN's from doing the job they are designed for, in fact Hollywood supports the design of CDNs. The real problem is ISPs that restrict the bandwidth at the peering points and refuse to host caching servers inside their networks instead of forcing traffic to cross the peering points for all users. The large ISPs (Verizon, ATT, etc.) see this as a way to force the content providers (Dish, NetFlix, etc.) to pay extra to prioritize the traffic. This is also one of the reasons the ISPs should not be able to own content providers as you can bet the ATT will make sure HBO traffic has priority while not granting priority to competitors traffic, kind of how ATT is using HBO to drive subscribers away from Dish. This is on of the most contentious issues when it comes to Network Neutrality. Not going to argue the pros/cons of NN as that will quickly become a subject for the PIT.. Although the specifications and conventions allow for the most popular of content to be saved locally at the edge of an ISP, I do believe Hollywood has been doing everything it can to prevent that, and so most often we're getting even the most popular requested movies and programs far away from the original server at AWS or wherever it may be and possibly suffering some degree of picture quality.
Thanks for the additional information. I do recall Hollywood initially being against it, but I think it's pretty clear that Hollywood has gotten over its initial Terror (they always overreact) to see caching as an advantage. I agree with you no doubt the ISP's want to make money on this and therefore are against the caching. makes perfect sense.Nope Hollywood is not trying to prevent CDN's from doing the job they are designed for, in fact Hollywood supports the design of CDNs. The real problem is ISPs that restrict the bandwidth at the peering points and refuse to host caching servers inside their networks instead of forcing traffic to cross the peering points for all users. The large ISPs (Verizon, ATT, etc.) see this as a way to force the content providers (Dish, NetFlix, etc.) to pay extra to prioritize the traffic. This is also one of the reasons the ISPs should not be able to own content providers as you can bet the ATT will make sure HBO traffic has priority while not granting priority to competitors traffic, kind of how ATT is using HBO to drive subscribers away from Dish. This is on of the most contentious issues when it comes to Network Neutrality. Not going to argue the pros/cons of NN as that will quickly become a subject for the PIT.