Downloading, streaming, pausing: how?

[Mr Gavoni]

Alright what I want to do is the following.

Let's imagine there is a website that broadcasts a live event, like a football match, by streaming it. Any website like those listed on RojaDirecta. I open the window with the video, and it plays: but my connection is slow, so it won't play continuously. There are constant, annoying interruptions.

YouTube can download videos while playing what's already been buffered, so you can start watching it immediately only if your connection speed is fast enough for the video's size; if not, you can wait until enough has been downloaded so you can then play the video all the way through without having to put up with its pausing for buffering.

Now: why can I not do the same with a live event on an internet TV channel? I don't care that I don't get to watch it perfectly "live": I can wait a couple of minutes, if that means watching it smoothly.

How can I do that? Any ideas? Elsewhere I was told it's rather difficult.

 

[Futurix]

Well, that's how it works basically - YouTube can cache video because it is prerecorded. This is very difficult to do for live video as that would introduce a big delay and it won't be strictly speaking live.

Either you will improve your connection or you will have to watch live events recorded, later

 

[snaky69]

Alright what I want to do is the following.

Let's imagine there is a website that broadcasts a live event, like a football match, by streaming it. Any website like those listed on RojaDirecta. I open the window with the video, and it plays: but my connection is slow, so it won't play continuously. There are constant, annoying interruptions.

YouTube can download videos while playing what's already been buffered, so you can start watching it immediately only if your connection speed is fast enough for the video's size; if not, you can wait until enough has been downloaded so you can then play the video all the way through without having to put up with its pausing for buffering.

Now: why can I not do the same with a live event on an internet TV channel? I don't care that I don't get to watch it perfectly "live": I can wait a couple of minutes, if that means watching it smoothly.

How can I do that? Any ideas? Elsewhere I was told it's rather difficult.

Youtube has the video on a server.

Your games are live. You can't put real life on a server and wait for your computer to buffer it.

Apart from paying for a faster connection, or watching the games after they happen, there is nothing at all you can do about it.

 

[Mr Gavoni]

Youtube has the video on a server.

Your games are live. You can't put real life on a server and wait for your computer to buffer it.

Apart from paying for a faster connection, or watching the games after they happen, there is nothing at all you can do about it.

Yes. I know that.

But the latter you mentioned is exactly what I want to do: watching games after they've happened, be it only a few minutes or however long it may take for them to get recorded. So I was wondering if any software could do that.

The point is that the connection is decent, because at times the games are streamed flawlessly. So the question is: whose fault is it, when the streaming proceeds haltingly? My connection at that specific time (evidence is against this), my ISP's antics (I'm ignorant on this), the streamer's ISP (same), or Keizer Soze?...

I'll try to make the whole thing a bit clearer.

Let's say that there is a concert playing live in the main square. Joe is there, and he's got a tape recorder and 60 tapes. The concert starts and he starts recording tape 1 for one minute. Then he stops recording on tape 1, sends it to Mr Gavoni, and starts recording on tape 2. And so on until the end of the concert, which lasts 60 minutes.

Mr Gavoni receives tape 1 and can start listening to it immediately; when he's done, tape 2 will be hopefully ready for him.

BUT he can also wait to receive tape 1, 2, 3 and 4 before he starts listening to the first one: just in case there are delivery complications from Joe's end, he's got stuff to listen to. So he can listen uninterruptedly to music that's been played no longer than a few minutes before. Not a live event, but almost.

Can anyone explain to me which link is missing in the structure I described, if we relate the concert to live streaming and the tape delivery to internet? Is there a Joe who can sit there and record - and send me the tapes?

Where am I getting this wrong?

 

[Mr Gavoni]

Well, that's how it works basically - YouTube can cache video because it is prerecorded. This is very difficult to do for live video

Why?

as that would introduce a big delay and it won't be strictly speaking live.

These are not problems: let's watch the events with delay. How big would that be?

 

[snaky69]

Why?

These are not problems: let's watch the events with delay. How big would that be?

Someone must record it for it to be uploaded. They'd have to have a way to segment and upload extremely fast for what you're asking to work.

How is that so hard to understand?