Fan Network Rant

[Nizerifin]

No, I forgot the trailing Hz on the sampling rates I am not confusing anything. I have not encoded or uploaded any Cavaliers shows. The only shows I uploaded were Beverly, MA and Columbia, SC and will be doing Salem, VA. I am very competent at my job. Brightcove changes the files. Today I am uploading 44.1KHz audio to try and save space on the upload.

You keep putting the focus on the sampling rate, but essentially the sampling rate is just the number of samples of info per second. In this case, 44.1. This has nothing to do with how much information is in each sample which thus determines the quality.

CD quality bitrate is 1411 KBps

What you uploaded is either 16 KBps or 48 KBps (depending on which show you look at). These are both extremely low.

I'm not blaming you for any of this, although I am a bit confused as to why you think that the sampling rate is determinant of the quality. This has become very technical and I'm not sure that most people can even understand what it all means.

I'll try to simplify:

Regardless of who is to blame, the audio quality is very low.

[Granny Smith]

I have watched this thread with great interest. I will offer some help to you as I have intimate knowledge of the situation involved in this as we are a provider of some of these VOD videos as well as corps content.

I can tell you the following:

#1) DCI IS NOT throttling bandwidth at any point. They are committed to quality.

#2) DCI HAS NOT specifically decided to not record certain corps and not post them to the VOD section.

#3) The quality of the video and audio I can assure you is of great quality. I uploaded Beverly personally in (SD) quality in widescreen. The audio bitrate was 48khz which is better than CD quality at 44.1khz. The video was down-converted to 2500Kbps bit rate instead of the standard 25Mb bit rate. These files I am dealing with are better than 6GB a piece. They must be converted to something that can actually be uploaded through the network. It would take days to upload (1) video at full resolution.

#4) IT IS NOT THE CAMERAS BEING USED. I have (5) people on the road at all times, all with matching HD Cameras. We are capturing great quality video and audio. I know for a fact that the DCI crews are using Canon XL1 cameras which are very good SD cameras.

#5) In terms of upload times I can not speak for everyone only myself. In the case of the Beverly, MA show I had to fly the tapes back to Louisville and encode them for upload. They were up and ready for viewing by 5pm the following day. I am currently uploading Columbia to brightcove. These things take time. Some people have the gear to encode on-site, I do not, I have to get tapes and bring them in and re-encode them for upload. It does take time. Columbia ended last night at 10 or so. I met the corps in Orlando at 6am to start the encoding process. As we only have laptops on the road encoding takes a little longer. So based on what I am seeing right now Columbia will be ready by this evening - less than 24 hours after the show.

#6) Everyone has a right to have their opinion on how this situation should work. However, those people that say they can do it faster are not on the road day in and day out working very hard for DCI and these drum corps. Internet connection is very hard to come by out on the road, specifically fast upload speeds. I can honestly tell you that anyone with better ideas to please let us know what they are because, I want it to be faster, I want it to be better, I want you to be happy.

#7) I have watched all the streaming videos on brightcove and I am able to get video bitrates at a much higher quality than some are reporting here. You should also realize that brightcove decides which version of the video that receive. There are 4 different versions of the Holy Name performance in Beverly 468k up to 1500k in video quality. I don't know how you are getting your video but I am able to see all 4 versions.

As far as the website uptime and other issues. I can't speak towards that as all I know is the video.

I hope that helps some of your concerns.

Tim Snyder

Box 5 Productions

Tim, thanks for the post. These kind of things are very helpful!

For an old fogey like myself, all of this Khz and megabits and stuff makes my false teeth hurt. But, I can tell you that I have pretty good eyesight and hearing for an old kook. That being said, I think the quality of what I'm seeing on FN is pretty poor. This isn't meant to be a personal attack on anyone, but just an observation. I watch online videos all the time and these are at the bottom of the scale in my humble and tired opinion.

As far as ideas (since you asked). There's this lady friend of mine who has a new-fangled video camera that is high definition and it records right to one of those little chip thingies. I watched her the other day take some video, then put that chip thing in her computer and she uploaded it right to YouTube. It even uploads fast as we have about 2.5 Megabits (does that mean anything?) upload speed.

I thought the quality of her video on YouTube was way way better than on FanNetwork. She didn't have to do any of that stuff you're talking about with tapes and encoding and whatnot. Right from her camera to the internet. Slick.

I think that camera cost her less than about $600 or so she told me.

Now...if you're going to put this video onto a DVD then it's probably not that great a camera, but since it's only going onto the internet, then who cares? Put one of these on a tripod at the top of the stadium, hook up a decent microphone to it and after every show put another chip in it while you upload the previous one to FanNetwork.

[Robin80]

You keep putting the focus on the sampling rate, but essentially the sampling rate is just the number of samples of info per second. In this case, 44.1. This has nothing to do with how much information is in each sample which thus determines the quality.

CD quality bitrate is 1411 KBps

What you uploaded is either 16 KBps or 48 KBps (depending on which show you look at). These are both extremely low.

I'm not blaming you for any of this, although I am a bit confused as to why you think that the sampling rate is determinant of the quality. This has become very technical and I'm not sure that most people can even understand what it all means.

I'll try to simplify:

Regardless of who is to blame, the audio quality is very low.

Look, I am not putting anything on anything. If you want to know the bit rate at which my files are uploaded: I can tell you that.

Audio is encoded today at:

AAC Stereo Interleaved

44.100 KHz

96kbps

In order to upload a full resolution audio along with the video, the resulting file was 850mb, way too large for upload. So we have to downgrade in places to make this happen. Once it gets to brightcove I don't know how it is delivered to you.

tim

[Robin80]

Tim, thanks for the post. These kind of things are very helpful!

For an old fogey like myself, all of this Khz and megabits and stuff makes my false teeth hurt. But, I can tell you that I have pretty good eyesight and hearing for an old kook. That being said, I think the quality of what I'm seeing on FN is pretty poor. This isn't meant to be a personal attack on anyone, but just an observation. I watch online videos all the time and these are at the bottom of the scale in my humble and tired opinion.

As far as ideas (since you asked). There's this lady friend of mine who has a new-fangled video camera that is high definition and it records right to one of those little chip thingies. I watched her the other day take some video, then put that chip thing in her computer and she uploaded it right to YouTube. It even uploads fast as we have about 2.5 Megabits (does that mean anything?) upload speed.

I thought the quality of her video on YouTube was way way better than on FanNetwork. She didn't have to do any of that stuff you're talking about with tapes and encoding and whatnot. Right from her camera to the internet. Slick.

I think that camera cost her less than about $600 or so she told me.

Now...if you're going to put this video onto a DVD then it's probably not that great a camera, but since it's only going onto the internet, then who cares? Put one of these on a tripod at the top of the stadium, hook up a decent microphone to it and after every show put another chip in it while you upload the previous one to FanNetwork.

Granny, I would love to do those types of things, however, I don't do this enough for DCI to warrant investment in other gear for this venture even if it is cheap. I am only doing (3) shows this year and only did one last year. Its hard enough to maintain the (5) cameras we have on the road without the additional thought process of other cameras. And to be quite honest I think we may not do this type of business in the future.

tim

Edited July 10, 2009 by Robin80

[JayM]

Excuse me. I mean MBs and KBs, and I think you know that too.

Streaming media is typically measured in bits, not bytes, so you're either misinterpreting the data or you converted it to bytes and presented the information as bits. I'm not sure how I was supposed to know what you meant.

No, I forgot the trailing Hz on the sampling rates I am not confusing anything. I have not encoded or uploaded any Cavaliers shows. The only shows I uploaded were Beverly, MA and Columbia, SC and will be doing Salem, VA. I am very competent at my job. Brightcove changes the files. Today I am uploading 44.1KHz audio to try and save space on the upload.

What's the audio bitrate on the files you're uploading? Are you compressing the audio? I assume so. If you're compressing and then Brightcove is changing the files (compressing them), then we're getting transcodes, which isn't helpful at all. At this point, I'm not sure we care too much about the sampling rate; as long as we're getting >96kbps audio on our end, I doubt it makes too much of a difference. Now if lowering the sampling rate allows Brightcove (or whoever) to destroy the audio a little less, I'm all for it.

But as it is, something has gone awry, and I'm interested in knowing more.

[AlexL]

As a side note, those who suggested we take it to dci, i think this has proven, having a thread like this has allowed us to get input who has working knowledge of the process.

[ShortAndFast]

#7) I have watched all the streaming videos on brightcove and I am able to get video bitrates at a much higher quality than some are reporting here. You should also realize that brightcove decides which version of the video that receive. There are 4 different versions of the Holy Name performance in Beverly 468k up to 1500k in video quality. I don't know how you are getting your video but I am able to see all 4 versions.

This thread has made me think that something has gone wrong between BrightCove and Fan Network. I have a 5Mbps connection, so I should be able to see the top quality HNC video that Tim uploaded.

However, what I actually see in FN (right click and choose "Show Debug Info") is:

Rendition: 27638699_28436670001_2009-WC-5912-81500-holyname-beverly.flv

Dimensions: 480x270

Encoding: 499kb/s

Detected Bandwidth: Not able to detect

So, in fact, FN is sending me the lowest quality video it has.

I am sending a message to FN support, referencing this thread and Tim's post. I suggest that others do likewise if you are not getting an appropriate video speed for your connection.

[pags]

Granny, I would love to do those types of things, however, I don't do this enough for DCI to warrant investment in other gear for this venture even if it is cheap. I am only doing (3) shows this year and only did one last year. Its hard enough to maintain the (5) cameras we have on the road without the additional thought process of other cameras. And to be quite honest I think we may not do this type of business in the future.

tim

Now that would be unfortunate. I hope you're given the opportunity to continue providing what you have.

[pags]

I'm sorry but I work as a web designer too so if DCI is going to offer these kinds of services to the demanding and paying fans, they better step up. Regardless of their size in staff. If they can't handle it, hire someone who can get it done. So many excuses!

Or they could go the OTHER way and not offer anything, saving themselves the time, resources, and (apparent) aggravation...

Are you prepared to pony up the cash to pay for the full-staffed, full-time dedicated Web Content employment for DCI? The kind of people that you speak of cost money.

Edited July 10, 2009 by pags

[Tez]

Someone tell me what this means. When I click to watch an On Demand Video, the entire video loads in about 12 seconds. This goes for all of the On Demands this year. For the "On the Field" past finals videos, those all load in about 20 seconds. If the server has enough bandwidth to allow me to load these videos that fast, shouldn't they have enough to stream MUCH higher quality videos?