Status: Buffering… Buffering… Buffering… …
I’ve been watching quite a lot of television on the web since I put my DirecTV service on hiatus for the summer.
Thus far, I think the winning implementation for delivering on-demand television to the web is Move Networks. The shows (sometimes) available from my local Fox station are next to flawless and really enjoyable experience.
In contrast, the worst experience by a wide margin can be found on CBS’s “innertube”. The CBS television experience features hundreds of “Buffering… Buffering… Buffering…” waits between random akamai/doubleclick errors* and dozens of CBS web server-based “slow script”** errors. When did Akamai and Real Networks begin to suck so much?
And what is up with the web television commercials that have the audio cranked to 11? One word for you web television services: “NORMALIZATION”. Seriously, the audio on some of these commercials is at least three times louder than your programming content. Computer users should not have to leap to their volume controls in an attempt to prevent their speakers from being destroyed every time a commercial starts streaming.
I can’t wait until web television/IPTV content aggregators decide to apply some quality control to their products. This industry technology left the experimental stage more than ten years ago.
Peer-to-peer television holds great promise, but the most popular solutions all seem to require Microsoft Windows or Intel CPUs at this time. I wonder if Broadcast TV would have been as popular if NBC programming was limited to General Electric TV sets and shows on ABC were only compatible with RCA sets?
Web Television has a long way to go.
* “RealPlayer: Connection to server has timed out. You may be experiencing network problems. rtsp://a1770.v219276.c21927.g.vr.akamaistream,net/ondemand/7/1770/21827/v7201400/
cmscomstor.download.akamai.com/8605/_!/g2demand/entertainment/primetime/bigbrother8/
rebroadcast/ep05/bigbro805d.rm?auth=daEcObMbEb.dwbkaWb1cLbncHaadMcsddai-bgOq2X-buy-EaEncVlg&aifp=v07201400”
** “A script on the page CBS.com - Innertube http://www.cbs.com/innertube/player.php?cat=140205&vid=&format=&auto=1 is making Safari unresponsive. Do you want to continue running the script, or stop it?“