More on video

Fri Sep 18 23:23:15 UTC 1998

> Just did a story on this yesterday...
>
> http://www.nwfusion.com/news/0917starr.html
>
> 'Net braces for Clinton testimony
>
> By Sandra Gittlen
> Network World Fusion, 9/17/98
>
> In London, the BBC's online venture is also gearing up. BBC Online has
> capacity for 20,000 concurrent videostreams, said marketing editor
> Keith Roberts.

Err, 10K license but that doesn't g'tee there's enough b/w for it.
If it was a 28K stream that'd be 280M, we have around 145M total
for this. If it was just a 5K speech service it'd be nicer.

Speaking to a number of ISP & large users the other week there
were conflicting opinions on this:

ISP   - Multicast doesn't scale, will cost too much to roll out,
        doesn't have an obvious pricing model and so on so we're
        not going to do it. Plus b/w will be so cheap it we won't care
        (assumes the Telcos pass on that low cost)

Users - this is crazy, we should have multicast we can't keep
        burning so much b/w sending the same packets down the
        same wires

> The BBC has some experience with this sort of massive
> demand.  Last August, the still nascent BBC Web effort was hard hit by
> mourners seeking footage of Princess Diana. Although the site did not
> crash, it did slow down, Roberts said.

Yeah but I cheated and had 8 ISP's, RealNetwork & AOL
help out by rebroadcasting our stream.

> The BBC hosts its own RealPlayer video and audio servers separate from
> the main site's Web servers. "That way, if there is enormous pressure
> for video and audio, the Web servers for the site will not be
> affected," he said.

True the News web servers are on a seperate link but the Real servers
share with other services...

brandon