We need a better way of presenting Digital Events [2020]

[DieH@rd]

We really need to find a solution for viewing these types of events in much better quality.

If the event was premade [like this one was], I'm all for distributing encrypted HQ footage over the net few days in advance [go wild, 15GB+ per hour], so PC and console users can automatically decrypt it just in time and play it back as the the event is streamed on the usual online places.

 

[PSman1700]

We really need to find a solution for viewing these types of events in much better quality.

If the event was premade [like this one was], I'm all for distributing encrypted HQ footage over the net few days in advance [go wild, 15GB+ per hour], so PC and console users can automatically decrypt it just in time and play it back as the the event is streamed on the usual online places.

With this COVID19 going on, much more viewers where to be expected. They probably favoured a lower quality one then a crashing one. 4K material was available on a non-livestream directly after.
One could argue not having a livestream though? Just upload the whole thing to YT in 4k60 at the highest bitrate possible? Wonder if it mattered any to the average joe, impressions where good to the general public anyway, i think most liked the graphics etc.

 

[Jay]

One could argue not having a livestream though? Just upload the whole thing to YT in 4k60 at the highest bitrate possible? Wonder if it mattered any to the average joe, impressions where good to the general public anyway, i think most liked the graphics etc.

Was it actually a live stream?
All seemed pre recorded to me.

 

[PSman1700]

Was it actually a live stream?
All seemed pre recorded to me.

Lol, that would be dumb. They actually had the 4k material available? I watched it on a 1080p tv (wasn't home) and thought it looked nice anyway lol.

 

[MrFox]

Was it actually a live stream?
All seemed pre recorded to me.

Even if they prerecorded it, it was still streamed so that everyone see everything at the same time, and social media react to the same things one at a time. Otherwise you'd get some people immediately looking at the end of the clip, and show the console and Horizon clips over an hour before the rest are trying to watch it and comment in real time. Coverage becomes a little more sane if it's a worldwide stream, and it involves social media much more like an E3 live event.

 

[PSman1700]

Even if they prerecorded it, it was still streamed so that everyone see everything at the same time, and social media react to the same things one at a time. Otherwise you'd get some people immediately looking at the end of the clip, and show the console and Horizon clips over an hour before the rest are trying to watch it and comment in real time. Coverage becomes a little more sane if it's a worldwide stream, and it involves social media much more like an E3 live event.

Makes sense.

 

[JPT]

I see everybody goes on about the stream should have been in 4K, if we just look at fidelity and quality, I agree.
Out of all the millions of people that watched the stream live, how many of those have the equipment and internet access to view a 4K stream live?
What would the fallout be if 30% had serious buffering etc? Youtube up/down scale of speed/quality seems to be a hit n miss. Very often when I look at packet captures of streaming videos services, you are still not getting 2160p, 1440p or 1080p even if you set the quality setting to max. If you tally up the data from the captures, you can see that it might keep sending you 720p anyway.

 

[BRiT]

I completely agree. The stream quality on the two gaming digital events we had were not the best. The latest one was down right horrible, it looked like a low bitrate sub 720p stream at times.

YouTube and other platforms need to mix in the two main features of Live Streaming with the quality of prerecorded HD or UHD and ability to distribute it to all their CDNs. Add in a feature of going to a live stream after the reveal event to keep the "its live!" excitement.

1. Unlock at specific time
2. No ability to advance forward

 

[BRiT]

Lol, that would be dumb. They actually had the 4k material available? I watched it on a 1080p tv (wasn't home) and thought it looked nice anyway lol.

It was prerecorded and the moment it ended all the 4K videos were available.

 

[London Geezer]

I see everybody goes on about the stream should have been in 4K, if we just look at fidelity and quality, I agree.
Out of all the millions of people that watched the stream live, how many of those have the equipment and internet access to view a 4K stream live?
What would the fallout be if 30% had serious buffering etc? Youtube up/down scale of speed/quality seems to be a hit n miss. Very often when I look at packet captures of streaming videos services, you are still not getting 2160p, 1440p or 1080p even if you set the quality setting to max. If you tally up the data from the captures, you can see that it might keep sending you 720p anyway.

Actually, the problem wasn’t necessarily that it was 1080p. The problem is that it was such low bitrate and so unstable that at times it looked closer to 360p with massive compression artifacts and blurring.

 

[iroboto]

I see everybody goes on about the stream should have been in 4K, if we just look at fidelity and quality, I agree.
Out of all the millions of people that watched the stream live, how many of those have the equipment and internet access to view a 4K stream live?
What would the fallout be if 30% had serious buffering etc? Youtube up/down scale of speed/quality seems to be a hit n miss. Very often when I look at packet captures of streaming videos services, you are still not getting 2160p, 1440p or 1080p even if you set the quality setting to max. If you tally up the data from the captures, you can see that it might keep sending you 720p anyway.

not that I have a bone to pick with any one in particular; but man I kept hating on the whole, we don’t need 4K, we just need graphics. Welp, you got graphics at 720p and no one was impressed.

Go to the 4K stream they said; there must be some acceptance that 4K is next gen.

 

[JPT]

It was prerecorded and the moment it ended all the 4K videos were available.

Actually, the problem wasn’t necessarily that it was 1080p. The problem is that it was such low bitrate and so unstable that at times it looked closer to 360p with massive compression artifacts and blurring.

not that I have a bone to pick with any one in particular; but man I kept hating on the whole, we don’t need 4K, we just need graphics. Welp, you got graphics at 720p and no one was impressed.

Go to the 4K stream they said; there must be some acceptance that 4K is next gen.

But in these corona times, youtube and netflix downgraded their service to help the internet from breaking.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/24/tech/youtube-video-quality-coronavirus/index.html

Could this also be a reason, why Sony choose not to stream 4K to millions of people at the exact time? I assume that stuff went from CDNs and what not. But still.

Edit
I seem to remember Netflix did it to, looks like just EU
https://variety.com/2020/digital/ne...ronavirus-bandwidth-lower-quality-1203541678/

 

[BRiT]

I thought they stopped that practice in most places by now or never implemented them in the US. AFAIK, YouTube only changed the "default", but if you had it set to anything other than "automatic" your choice would not be overridden.

 

[milk]

not that I have a bone to pick with any one in particular; but man I kept hating on the whole, we don’t need 4K, we just need graphics. Welp, you got graphics at 720p and no one was impressed.

Go to the 4K stream they said; there must be some acceptance that 4K is next gen.

4k is important on videos to counter the loss from compression. If I could get 1080p uncompressed footage, I'd bet it look cleaner than youtube's 4k.

 

[arhra]

I completely agree. The stream quality on the two gaming digital events we had were not the best. The latest one was down right horrible, it looked like a low bitrate sub 720p stream at times.

YouTube and other platforms need to mix in the two main features of Live Streaming with the quality of prerecorded HD or UHD and ability to distribute it to all their CDNs. Add in a feature of going to a live stream after the reveal event to keep the "its live!" excitement.

1. Unlock at specific time
2. No ability to advance forward

YouTube has most of that already with their "Premiere" feature, but it's limited to 1080p for some reason.

 

[Arwin]

They clearly explained why this was 1080k at the moment though right? Because of Covid etc they didn’t have the resources to extensively edit a 4k video, iirc.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

They clearly explained why this was 1080k at the moment though right? Because of Covid etc they didn’t have the resources to extensively edit a 4k video, iirc.

Video is also being heavily slowed by plenty of network providers, I'm not talking about what YouTube, Netflix and Amazon Prime or doing, or folk's ISPs (although many are taking action), but for that video to reach users it crosses a bunch of network infrastructure and that it can slowed - resulting in QoS protocols kicking in and lowering quality. Whilst my internet has always been rubbish, and I've noticed no deterioration, I have friends who have (had) really goods connections and they've noticed that video calls have dropped in quality.

I think folks forget that the pressure of video and voice calls on the internet is tremendous. I used to attend many meetings in person with anywhere between 3 and 20 people and now for those meetings to happen, all of us need to consume network bandwidth. People who used to see family and friends and still can't, are consuming network bandwidth talking to them online. It's not a lot individually but scaled up across the internet connected world? Yikes.

 

[iroboto]

4k is important on videos to counter the loss from compression. If I could get 1080p uncompressed footage, I'd bet it look cleaner than youtube's 4k.

It's a good point, but in my experience, it doesn't.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

It's a good point, but in my experience, it doesn't.

Yup. The source material will set the hard point for maximum quality, but high bitrate 1080p will often look better than low bitrate 4K. It's a complex problem. You can easily use more bandwidth for a 4K stream and get a worse picture than 1080p. Smart algorithms only go so far, especially when the network quality is variable.

 

[BRiT]

Because of Covid etc they didn’t have the resources to extensively edit a 4k video, iirc.

Right, the actual stream would have been fine had it actually been 1080p delivered. Instead it was low bitrate sub 720p, at times it looked like a 480p blurfest. That is what I am saying they need to improve. That is what everyone must do better on when presenting these entirely prerecorded "events".