Football streaming on Twitter -- too many commercials and need to be able to filter tweets -- but like all new media, it will improve.

I watched a bit of Thursday Night Football on Twitter last night. You could watch a small screen with tweets as shown above or go full screen and lose the tweets. I watched it on a laptop with a large, high resolution screen and on a Mac with a 21-inch display and the video was smooth and looked good on both. That was the good news.

The bad news was the commercials. I am not a football fan, so do not know how many commercials a typical broadcast game has, but it seemed like Twitter spent more time on commercials than the game. I would be curious to see statistics on the number of minutes spent on commercials, commentary and game action on Twitter versus broadcast television.

I “cut the cord” years ago, so am used to paying Netflix and others for streamed content without commercials. If I am typical, Twitter will fail with this commercial-based business model. (The Motley Fool Web site says the ads did not pay off in the first game, which was streamed last week).

For a while, I watched both the TV broadcast and the Twitter stream. The Twitter stream was relatively delayed, but the lag time varied and they did not have the same commercials. I wonder how the commercial sales and revenue are handled.

Turning to the user interface – I did not time it, but it seemed like there about 20 tweets every thirty seconds. With that many tweets coming in, I think the best way to watch would be to go full screen during the live play and mute the audio and read tweets during the commercials -- not a good deal for advertisers.

I did not notice any obviously malicious tweets, so I assume there is some automatic or human filtering, but it would be better if they would let the user control the filtering. For example, to let one see only tweets from a selected group of friends or a selected group of experts like professional football players, sports analysts or professional gamblers.

But, lest I seem too negative -- this is their first try at streaming sports. All new media stumble at first, often copying what came before. The first movies were made by filming stage plays and there are many other examples from radio, TV, textbooks, online learning, etc.

Twitter is streaming the US presidential debates next -- let's see how they do on that.

A quick look at CBS All Access video streaming

The technical problems will be resolved, but I don't want to watch commercials, so I will pass.

Last week, CBS announce the availability of CBS All Access, allowing subscribers ($5.99 per month) to watch CBS TV shows online. You can stream episodes of CBS series using a browser or portable app and, in selected markets, you can watch live programs as they are broadcast. Broadcast episodes are available the following day for streaming.

I signed up, and streamed an episode of the Big Bang Theory as my first test. As you see below, I viewed it on my phone (a Nexus 5) and mirrored the screen on my TV set using a Google Chromecast.

The video quality was decent, but not super sharp and from time to time it jittered or the audio got a little bit out of synch. Still, it was definitely watchable. That was the good news. The bad news is that in addition to the monthly fee, you see tons of commercials -- before the program starts and at commercial breaks -- just like broadcast TV.

Next, I tried watching in the Chrome browser on my laptop. The picture quality was fine as long as I watched it in a small window, but, when I went full screen on my 15-inch, 1920x1200 pixel display, the quality was very poor, as you see below. (Click the image to see it in its blurry full size).

But wait, it got worse. After a few minutes of viewing, my (admittedly slow) laptop fan started running and the video stuttered and eventually froze. I restarted the video and watched the task manager as it ran. This is what I saw:

It was using about 3 GB of 8 GB of memory and the CPU load was highly variable around an average of about 50%. Then the CPU load jumped to 95-100% and stayed there, rendering the video unwatchable.

I'm not sure what caused the change of state -- perhaps it tried to raise the frame rate and and overwhelmed my laptop. I have an 802.11 ac access point, but the laptop radio is a/b/g. Perhaps it had exhausted an initial buffer, but there was not a noticeable pause for buffering when the stream started.

Next, I tried watching a live stream. The live stream is only available in certain parts of the country, but the small map on their site seemed to have a dot over Los Angeles, where I live. It may have been a temporary outage, but all I got was a message saying to wait:

I gave up after about five minutes of watching the little animated circle rotate.

My test went poorly, but the technical problems will be solved. I'm sure they will get live streaming working soon and improved video algorithms and my getting a new phone and a new laptop will take care of my quality complaints. But, even if the video is rock solid and high definition, I will not subscribe if they continue to run commercials.

I don't want commercials (but maybe you do)

Major content providers like HBO and CBS offering Internet service marks the beginning of the end for cable TV as we know it. Eventually, we will all cut the cord and get our video online, but regardless of the technology, we have four video business models:

I suspect that in the future, most of our viewing will be on demand and scheduled viewing will be mostly used for sports and other events. I can wait to see the current episode of Big Bang Theory until the day after it is broadcast.

When I asked my students whether they would pay $5.99 a month to watch CBS TV with commercials, they all said "no." When I asked if they would watch if it were free, but had commercials, they said "yes." Before the courts put them out of business, Aereo also showed us that there is a market for on demand local TV with commercials. My students are young and on limited budgets, but, as Netflix and Amazon Prime have shown, there is also a substantial market for paid, commercial-free video.

I've no idea what the prices of these video options will be in the future, but I doubt that we will be paying less after we cut the cord. Our ISPs are also our video providers, and, since we generally have only one or perhaps two ISP choices, I expect them to raise broadband prices to compensate for any lost revenue. We will end up with ala carte video and higher monthly bills.

But, that is the speculative future. For now, I will stick with Amazon, Netflix and Hulu Plus, and watch an occasional CBS program over the air with my trusty rabbit-ears antenna.

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Update 10/31/2014

There is a fairly long discussion of this post on Slashdot.

Yet another way to cover live events

Louis CK made a lot of money and made a lot of fans happy by producing his own video of a recent comedy show and distributing it on the Internet.

This evening, Bill O'Reilly vs Jon Stewart will be on stage at George Washington University for a political/comedy show.  If you can't or don't want to be there, you can still watch it on the Internet.

Nox Solutions will stream the event on the Internet, and for $4.95 this is what you get:

• You can stream the event up to three times, including the live stream
• After that, you can watch it on demand (for a limited time)
• You get a downloadable audio (mp3) file or downloadable high-definition video file (H.264 encoded in an MP4 container), which will be available at a later date. 
• You can watch it on any phone, tablet or computer and on your TV if you have a Roku, Google TV, Apple TV, etc.

They ask that you not redistribute and half the profit goes to charity.

You see the event where and when ever you want for $4.95.  Does that sound good to you? What other events would you like to see given similar terms?

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More versions are now available for download or streaming -- 240p, 360p, 540p, 720p and 1080p. The file sizes are 238 MB, 548 MB, 882 MB, 1.8 GB and 3.4 GB respectively. It seems like they could have produced the hi-def version faster, but in the case of an entertainment event like this, waiting a few days is not a problem. (They will improve their work flow and get hi-def versions out faster in the future).

Tour de France -- toward historical archives

Today is a rest day for the Tour de France riders, but what about fans? If you are watching the Tour online, you now have access to over 100 videos -- full stage replays, interviews, commentary, highlights, crash reels, etc.

At this rate, there will be over 200 videos by the end of the race. I do not know how long NBC will leave them online or whether someone will archive them (legally or illegally), but this is the sort of archive documentation future sports fans can look forward to. (I assume the footage is all copyrighted, which is fair even if the duration of the copyright is unreasonable).

NBC will also be streaming the upcoming Olympic Games. If this stuff remains available, it will be a treasure trove for fans, journalists, researchers, data miners and re-mixers. We are at the start of a new historical archiving era, and that includes sporting events as well as political and cultural events. (For an early example of the archiving of historical political data, see this account of the 1991 Soviet Coup attempt and its traffic archive).

During the Tour, the online coverage is only available in the US and the Olympic coverage will only be available to those who already subscribe to a cable, satellite or telco video tier that includes CNBC and MSNBC. After the events, the archive could be opened to all, with the cost covered by a reasonable access fee. Well, I hope that happens, but am not optimistic. Maybe NBC will surprise me.

While there is plenty of archive material to keep Tour de France fans busy on this rest day, one thing is missing -- Bob Roll and his commentaries. As you see above, he is still commenting during the broadcast coverage, but I have not seen him online. NBC -- let's get Bob Roll on the video site!