today I wanted to try out the URL I found for streaming the BBC News TV channel with somewhat lower resolution.
It doesn´t seem to be in HD, which is good as it is doesn´t consume a lot of data this way.
The command I used was: firejail --disable-mnt --private mpv "http://ott-cdn.ucom.am/s24/index.m3u8"
It worked perfectly. Here´s a graphical summary of the main facts:
(You may have to open the picture in a new tab and enlarge it with “CTRL+ +” to better see the contents of it.)
And here´s a textual summary:
I was watching the TV channel for just a bit over 27 minutes
Data consumed was 341.71 MB (rx: 336.41 MB + tx: 5.3 MB)
I could watch the stream without any interruption. It went smoothly. Not even buffering effects could be noticed
But if you look at the last picture, which represents the download sector of my conky
you may notice that the streaming seems to be represented in chunks of data parcels.
No “continuous” straming, as it were.
But, as already mentioned, the reception of the programme was excellent. No interruptions whatsoever.
Now I was wondering: how could that be
Is some kind of buffering involved after all?
But it was a live stream. Wouldn´t this be a contradiction?
I fear I´m lacking the knowledge for interpreting the facts.
Yes, it (usually) works in chunks of data bursts.
I myself experimented with live streaming over my own VPS, so possibly avoid Youtube…
Problem was bandwidth, I could not serve to more than approx 40 watchers simultaneously, which is just too few…
With HLS the stream is split up into fragments, the longer a fragment is, the more data travels to watcher at once, and the longer the delay is.
The shorter the fragment, the smaller the chunks, the lower the delay, but also higher the risk of the next chunk not being received on time (so stutterings, bufferings happen).
Something on-topic for you:
Edit:
No contradiction. Even with Youtube the fact is, that a live stream can have up to 1 minute delay.
So imagine, OBS encodes the video/audio stream on my laptop in real time, the data is sent to Youtube ingest server. The packets have to arrive there.
Some buffering has to be done there, at least the amount of data for 1 chunk of the HLS needs to be collected, then put it into the HLS buffer.
Clients (watchers) grab those chunks, the server hast send them.
On the client side the chunks need to be concatenated, then decoded, played.
As long as there is always enough data on the playback buffer, you (the watcher) sees the stream totally contigous.
Whenever the buffer underruns for any reason: you see the buffering.
Assume, I send out a specific frame of a stream at 10:00:00 am, that specific frame may end up on your screen as late as 10:01:00 am.
But according to my experience usually the delay stays below 30 seconds.
yes, your eplanation helped a lot. Thank you so much.
O.K., that was my initial thought as well. Thanks for confirming it.
I see.
So one has to strike a balance between bigger and smaller chunks to obtain an optimum of “streaming quality”.
As few buffering instances as possible and a possibly low delay.
O.K., I didn´t know that.
I get that.
The only thing that strikes me as odd is the implication of the live stream.
A stream being totally contigous is one thing. It sees to the fact that no interruptions or buffering effects can be noticed.
But if a delay of 1 minute (or perhaps less) is introduced, how can it still be “live”?
I mean: If Big Ben strikes 1.00 pm on the hour it might be 1.01 pm when I hear it (or rather 2.01 pm in my place), right?
No big deal. I was just wondering about the background.
Because it is not prerecorded and the actors don’t have a chance to correct a mistake for example: it’s a live event
The delays are just due to techincal limitations.
Imagine a live broadcast transmitted from the Earth watched on a moon of the Jupiter, when their distance is at the minimum (approx 590 000 000 km).
The live broadcast is delayed there by 1966 seconds (approx half an hour).
Wouldn’t you stil call it live, if you would watch that on a moonbase there?
The example you provided (a Jupiter moon - earth) is excellent.
BTW: I admire your knowledge.
And yes, you´re right. I´d still have to call it live.
I have to admit I was thrown off the track by this one minute delay which may or may not be introduced.
Of course: if Big Ben transmits its chimes it has to be considered live, even if we hear them with a slight delay on the other side of the earth,.
Thanks for pointing that out.
I watch a lot of live streams using VPN. Football (for US readers soccer) streams are usually ~2 minutes behind live. So I can’t have livescore website open when watching
I’ve noticed the same thing when watching other sports. These days our TV is all streamed so there is a delay. It would be disorienting to be near Big Ben and be watching a live streamed event and hear the bell in real life before you hear it on the stream.
I use PIA, 3 year plan was appr 70€ so not too bad!
It works well, I’ve used PIA at least 6 years now. You can use it with a GUI on systemd init Linuxes, android, iOS (never tried) and even Firefox has a PIA app which I use when I need it with my OpenRC Gentoo. Of course you can use it also on cli. There’s OpenVPN and Wireguard.
Many routers can also be configured to use PIA OpenVPN if you like to have all traffic behind VPN.
History speaks for itself. Most of the free VPNs are out to make money by putting your privacy and personal information on the line. Those VPNs pose a major risk to you and your device; here I’ve listed some major risks.
Sell Your Data
Since they offer free services, they try to make money by selling your browsing and personal information to advertisers and third-party agencies.
Risks of Malware and Viruses
Many VPNs just load adware and malware into your device to steal your information and use it for their own benefit. So, I recommend you scan every free VPN before you install it on your device.
Poor Security
Not every service provider is out for your data; some are just unable to keep up with industry security standards because of a lack of money. Regardless, the fact is that they are not entirely safe.
Oh dear. That doesn´t sound too good.
Especially: Risks of Malware and Viruses. I don´t like it a bit.
However Proton VPN (even the free version) seems to be credited with good results.
No idea it that´s true…
Personally I don’t see how it would do that.
(Assuming I don’t install some proprietary client from that provider).
I don’t have a big experience with VPN’s, my wife uses one, when she is in home-office. The provider is her employer.
From my point of view using a VPN is just setup a special network connection, for that a client may be needed, but we have that in the Debian repo…
Of course, after connecting, some of the network traffic goes through the VPN server, so theoretically the provider has an infinite possibility to catch and sniff traffic, analyze, etc…
So data stealing is definitely possible.
But how would it load a malware into my Linux system?
I would not worry about that, unless the VPN provider requires to install a special (its own) client software.
Other than that, what can be a legal purpose to use a VPN?
I use it for watching streams. It’s legal here to watch if you’re not sharing the stream with anyone (like with Acestream). I still need it to block unwanted pop-ups etc.
I dont use a vpn, no real need so never been down that road.
Yes I am blocked by the BBC from some programming same with othef UK TV chanels but I dont mind as I get enough from other sources.
But my wife wanted a book for her kindle, she found it on line but could not down load as wrong country. My reaction was, just buy it from amazon pay the money (big spender me)
Her son, who also works in IT on linux server systems said just change your IP address, which he did so she got her book.
Guess this is using a proxy server.I understand what it is and how it works, but is this a better answer than using a VPN ?
So if in this case you set up a proxy to a UK server would you get better results
If you used a TOR browser, onion, would that be better or worse ?
Should this be a seperate question or topic for a foss article or are you all better qualified in this…
Most of the vpn suppliers do offer special client software., and you are basically using their vpn server.
The way businesses do it, setting up their own server, is much safer.
Why cant you setup your own VPN server in your own machine?
and,
VPN’s use tunnelling. I wonder if you could use ssh tunnelling directly? You would need an ssh server somewhere.
or,
I take it @Rosika wants to avoid geoblocking.
I thought you might be able to do that with a Tor browser, so I asked
" Yes, the Tor browser can help bypass geo-blocking by routing your internet traffic through a network of servers, hiding your IP address and location, making it appear as if you are accessing the internet from a different location."
So , yes it helps with that . So that is a much simpler solution, and is not subject to malware and data collection threats. Why not try Tor?
There are apparently some cautions to note if considering using Tor. Read this
Nothing, it seems , is free and clean and nice any more.
