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455 Tb of live streaming were transferred during the Olympic Games Rio 2016

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Re: 455 Tb of live streaming were transferred during the Olympic Games Rio 2016

#61

Post by edpichler »

liquidise wrote: post #2

> Globo.com only had rights for streaming the content to Brazil... with peak of 433K simultaneous users This is a neat writeup but the bigger point here is highlighted by the opening statements. While i get the massive revenue channel the olympics provides, i can't help but feel that the media stranglehold over the events has gone too far. The olympics represent one of the only instances of global unity through compe…

Meanwhile, CBC of Canada broadcasted all olympic games for free. They had peak of 27 simultaneous channels transmitting competitions with excellent quality.

Anyone with a Canadian IP could watch, I personally used a VPN because I don't have TV cable here in Brazil.

Re: 455 Tb of live streaming were transferred during the Olympic Games Rio 2016

#62

Post by niftich »

zbobet2012 wrote: post #60
ejcx wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly the distinction I'm talking about. Doing it live is way harder than moving static content out to all the leaf nodes once per day and serving it to a geographically small region. Adaptive bitrate has nothing to do with the point I'm making that, AFAIK, twitch has the most "live" eyeballs out of anyone and there are special engineering challenges there.

Well, no Twitch isn't the largest. NBC/Comcast moved several orders of magnitude more of live video for the last olympics, and those numbers went up substantially this year+. Live presents interesting challenges yes, but in some ways it is easier than VOD from a scale perspective. In live all users are watching essentially the same content++, so it is nearly perfectly cacheable in memory. That means you don't really…

I'm actually not sure what's more intriguing or impressive -- the fact that the [streamer for high-profile event] spins up so much infrastructure and machinery for a duration of 2-3 weeks and then spins it down until the next high-profile event two years later, or someone like Twitch who does it on a smaller scale, but 24/7.

Though in my mind, the illusion or appearance of 'pop-up streaming' takes the award. I wonder, how much streaming infrastructure and instrumentation and code can someone like NBC reuse between two successive olympics (two years apart)?

Re: 455 Tb of live streaming were transferred during the Olympic Games Rio 2016

#63

Post by jaredklewis »

rakoo wrote: post #50
liquidise wrote: post #2

> Globo.com only had rights for streaming the content to Brazil... with peak of 433K simultaneous users This is a neat writeup but the bigger point here is highlighted by the opening statements. While i get the massive revenue channel the olympics provides, i can't help but feel that the media stranglehold over the events has gone too far. The olympics represent one of the only instances of global unity through compe…

> As a lover of capitalism this all leaves me conflicted. I don't want to go on a tangent but this is the exact contrary of Capitalism, it's a monopoly: as a consumer I can't make a choice, there is no market.

I feel the word monopoly gets way overused. "There is only one company with a train from Town A to Town B! It's a monopoly!" Probably not, as if there are other viable ways to travel (car, bus, plane, boat), then there are substitutes.

The olympics are no different. As a form of entertainment, there are countless substitutes. If the Olympics are boring, people won't watch. Even as a form of international cooperation, there are many substitutes that compete with the Olympics for the time, money, and attention of nations.

There is a market.

Re: 455 Tb of live streaming were transferred during the Olympic Games Rio 2016

#64

Post by wlesieutre »

foota wrote: post #55
rakoo wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a lover of capitalism this all leaves me conflicted. I don't want to go on a tangent but this is the exact contrary of Capitalism, it's a monopoly: as a consumer I can't make a choice, there is no market.

Would you go on a tangent with me? Monopoly is completely in-line with capitalism, consumer choice is only guaranteed in a happy capitalist state.

A lot of the things people like to attribute to capitalism are really aspects of a perfect market. More off a convenient fiction for framing Econ 101 discussions on than something that actually actually exists. In some cases useful as a first order approximation.

It's the economics equivalent of frictionless spherical cows in a vacuum.

Re: 455 Tb of live streaming were transferred during the Olympic Games Rio 2016

#65

Post by dexterdog »

Retric wrote: post #14
bdhess wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, I found video of Usain Bolt's 2016 100m in less than a minute of looking around on nbcolympics.com. Though I'd have to imagine that that content is geofiltered, since AFAIK NBC only has streaming rights within the US. NBC paid the IOC something absurd like $12B for exclusive US media rights for the games through 2032. Territorial broadcast rights agreements are a huge source of funding for the IOC. It's hard…

I completely skipped watching the Olympics in large part because of NBC which is terrible. So, I have some doubt that 12B is optimal for the IOC and it clearly sucks for the rest of US.

I watched more this year than ever because of the NBC app on Roku. I could watch any sport live or streamed later. No need to watch the Costas garbage.

Re: 455 Tb of live streaming were transferred during the Olympic Games Rio 2016

#67

Post by mattkrause »

robbiep wrote: post #51
liquidise wrote: post #2

> Globo.com only had rights for streaming the content to Brazil... with peak of 433K simultaneous users This is a neat writeup but the bigger point here is highlighted by the opening statements. While i get the massive revenue channel the olympics provides, i can't help but feel that the media stranglehold over the events has gone too far. The olympics represent one of the only instances of global unity through compe…

>'The olympics represent one of the only instances of global unity through competition left in the world.' What were the other ones that have presumably ceased to exist?

The World Cup is also probably pretty close too. Maybe Eurovision also (for Europeans under about 35, perhaps).

Re: 455 Tb of live streaming were transferred during the Olympic Games Rio 2016

#68

Post by ppereira »

jaredklewis wrote: post #63
rakoo wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a lover of capitalism this all leaves me conflicted. I don't want to go on a tangent but this is the exact contrary of Capitalism, it's a monopoly: as a consumer I can't make a choice, there is no market.

I feel the word monopoly gets way overused. "There is only one company with a train from Town A to Town B! It's a monopoly!" Probably not, as if there are other viable ways to travel (car, bus, plane, boat), then there are substitutes. The olympics are no different. As a form of entertainment, there are countless substitutes. If the Olympics are boring, people won't watch. Even as a form of international cooperation,…

Just like public utilities don't have a monopoly on the provision of power, because, hey, every home-owner can buy a diesel generator. With the level of substitution you are describing, you've made the word monopoly meaningless.

The regional broadcasters for the Olympics have a monopoly because of their economic power in setting the price for their good. Other than circumventing copyright or using a VPN, there is no competitor that will provide you with the Olympics for less money. Random youtube videos are not a substitute for watching an Olympics broadcast live.

Re: 455 Tb of live streaming were transferred during the Olympic Games Rio 2016

#69

Post by jamra »

ppereira wrote: post #68
jaredklewis wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the word monopoly gets way overused. "There is only one company with a train from Town A to Town B! It's a monopoly!" Probably not, as if there are other viable ways to travel (car, bus, plane, boat), then there are substitutes. The olympics are no different. As a form of entertainment, there are countless substitutes. If the Olympics are boring, people won't watch. Even as a form of international cooperation,…

Just like public utilities don't have a monopoly on the provision of power, because, hey, every home-owner can buy a diesel generator. With the level of substitution you are describing, you've made the word monopoly meaningless. The regional broadcasters for the Olympics have a monopoly because of their economic power in setting the price for their good. Other than circumventing copyright or using a VPN, there is no…

Public utilities are regulated, which require them to make their case in front of a judge for price changes.

Re: 455 Tb of live streaming were transferred during the Olympic Games Rio 2016

#70

Post by jamra »

jaredklewis wrote: post #63
rakoo wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a lover of capitalism this all leaves me conflicted. I don't want to go on a tangent but this is the exact contrary of Capitalism, it's a monopoly: as a consumer I can't make a choice, there is no market.

I feel the word monopoly gets way overused. "There is only one company with a train from Town A to Town B! It's a monopoly!" Probably not, as if there are other viable ways to travel (car, bus, plane, boat), then there are substitutes. The olympics are no different. As a form of entertainment, there are countless substitutes. If the Olympics are boring, people won't watch. Even as a form of international cooperation,…

So you're saying that the alternative for the Olympics, a international gathering of most countries on the planet, is comparable to let's say... watching a basketball game? I think your analogy is very inaccurate.
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