4 ms·

Just HBO NOW, not HBO GO. HBO NOW has been really disappointing. Their service cannot handle the load when popular episodes get released, and often the quality

Just HBO NOW, not HBO GO. HBO NOW has been really disappointing. Their service cannot handle the load when popular episodes get released, and often the quality of streaming is much lower than what could be supported by end users' connections.

colechristensen 10y ago
I have never had any such issues with HBO Now. Maybe it's more of an ISP peering issue. (That is, if you get Internet access through your cable company, I bet they open the floodgates for HBO Go and not so much for HBO Now)
- yincrash 10y ago
  Trying to watch Game of Thrones at release time on release night is mostly a nightmare, and I'm glad I didn't try and organize viewing parties because they would have been failures. The HBO NOW subreddit[1] is full of unhappy threads, and at least on one occasion, the error message presented was definitely indicative of an overloaded server[2]. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/HBONow/ https://www.reddit.com/r/HBONow/ [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/HBONow/comments/4ow6eb/anyone_else_getting_a_massively_unresponsive_site/d4g1jcs https://www.reddit.com/r/HBONow/comments/4ow6eb/anyone_else_...
  - tantalor 10y ago
    Yes the server was overloaded, but the service in question was their authentication service, not video streaming. Too many people were trying to login at the same time.
    - yincrash 10y ago
      It gave me that error even after logged in. Whatever they do to validate your session token every time you try to watch a video also goes through that server. If it keeps you from watching videos even after logged in, it doesn't matter that it's not the video server itself.
      - tantalor 10y ago
        It does matter... because this discussion is about the relative merits of MLB's video service, not HBO's shit frontend. The fact that Game of Thrones didn't work is not MLB's fault.
        yincrash 10y ago
        The authentication server is clearly MLB's software. If you check the stack trace, it's com.bamnetworks which is them.
        tantalor 10y ago
        Yep, you're right! Good catch. Here's an exception I captured, [Unexpected Exception] [com.bamnetworks.registration.types.exception.UnexpectedRegistrationException] Caused by [java.util.concurrent.RejectedExecutionException: Task scala.concurrent.impl.Future$PromiseCompletingRunnable@213cefb1 rejected from java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor@78721c64[Running, pool size = 2000, active threads = 2000, queued tasks = 5000, completed tasks = 5842]]" And looks like com.bamnetworks owns the MLB.com android app, https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bamnetworks.mobile.android.gameday.atbat&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bamnetwork...
- cheeze 10y ago
  I don't think so. Tested on multiple connections (including symmetric gigabit with great peering, and 0 issue with HBO GO) but HBO NOW is... garbage. Their video player wouldn't go fullscreen for a while on any of my or my girlfriends computers.
  - colechristensen 10y ago
    Besides a minor UI bug in their video player which I didn't really care about, I've never had a single issue with HBO Now. (Including GoT on release night)
lotso 10y ago
Why is HBO Now and HBO GO run on different services? Really curious about this.
- gabbo 10y ago
  Hard to say for sure, but since HBO Go is tightly coupled to cable companies - I would guess its distribution model is as well. I can imagine a cable operator centric replication model for Go, where HBO doesn't handle customer delivery at all. Instead their library would be replicated from HBO to {Comcast, Cox, TimeWarner, ...}. Each HBO Go customer ID would be assigned a "master cable operator" responsible for their delivery and managed centrally, but HBO would feed customers links to operator-local content replicas. In the common case, customers access HBO Go from within the operator's network so transit is free and HBO is totally out of the data path (just catalog/user interaction/etc.). But the service can still easily support remote access by going over the public internet. The benefit of that model is HBO controls the catalog and most of the user interaction, but doesn't need to build/provision/pay for a CDN which scales with # of total HBO subscribers across the entire world (and guarantee reliable connectivity from their CDN to every customer). They just need to replicate their library across a few tens of cable operators who are able to keep everything local. Plus the entire sales/marketing/billing models are completely different too. Thinking about it from HBO's perspective it makes a million kinds of sense if you have the majority of your customers paying for you via the broadcast cable subscription model. OTOH, with HBO Now there is no cable operator in the picture so they can't make that optimization and now have to build something which looks more like Netflix.
  - zerohp 10y ago
    HBO Go doesn't stream from the operator that you sign in with, it streams from nearest node. I am temporarily living in a place with Time Warner cable but I sign in to HBO Go with an Xfinity account. The stream comes from Time Warner. However, if I watch through xfinity.com, it comes from Comcast (and the bitrate is much lower).
    - gabbo 10y ago
mikedouglas 10y ago
The load issues were prior to (and sparked) the switch to MLBAM.
- yincrash 10y ago
  According to the Verge's article at the release of HBO NOW, it's been MLBAM for HBO NOW since its launch. http://www.theverge.com/2015/8/4/9090897/mlb-bam-live-streaming-internet-tv-nhl-hbo-now-espn http://www.theverge.com/2015/8/4/9090897/mlb-bam-live-stream...
_asummers 10y ago
The NHL service had similar issues last season, especially at roll out. I love the MLB service, but NHL left a great deal to be desired.

colechristensen 10y ago

I have never had any such issues with HBO Now. Maybe it's more of an ISP peering issue. (That is, if you get Internet access through your cable company, I bet they open the floodgates for HBO Go and not so much for HBO Now)

yincrash 10y ago
Trying to watch Game of Thrones at release time on release night is mostly a nightmare, and I'm glad I didn't try and organize viewing parties because they would have been failures. The HBO NOW subreddit[1] is full of unhappy threads, and at least on one occasion, the error message presented was definitely indicative of an overloaded server[2]. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/HBONow/ https://www.reddit.com/r/HBONow/ [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/HBONow/comments/4ow6eb/anyone_else_getting_a_massively_unresponsive_site/d4g1jcs https://www.reddit.com/r/HBONow/comments/4ow6eb/anyone_else_...
- tantalor 10y ago
  Yes the server was overloaded, but the service in question was their authentication service, not video streaming. Too many people were trying to login at the same time.
  - yincrash 10y ago
    It gave me that error even after logged in. Whatever they do to validate your session token every time you try to watch a video also goes through that server. If it keeps you from watching videos even after logged in, it doesn't matter that it's not the video server itself.
    - tantalor 10y ago
      It does matter... because this discussion is about the relative merits of MLB's video service, not HBO's shit frontend. The fact that Game of Thrones didn't work is not MLB's fault.
      - yincrash 10y ago
        The authentication server is clearly MLB's software. If you check the stack trace, it's com.bamnetworks which is them.
        tantalor 10y ago
        Yep, you're right! Good catch. Here's an exception I captured, [Unexpected Exception] [com.bamnetworks.registration.types.exception.UnexpectedRegistrationException] Caused by [java.util.concurrent.RejectedExecutionException: Task scala.concurrent.impl.Future$PromiseCompletingRunnable@213cefb1 rejected from java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor@78721c64[Running, pool size = 2000, active threads = 2000, queued tasks = 5000, completed tasks = 5842]]" And looks like com.bamnetworks owns the MLB.com android app, https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bamnetworks.mobile.android.gameday.atbat&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bamnetwork...
cheeze 10y ago
I don't think so. Tested on multiple connections (including symmetric gigabit with great peering, and 0 issue with HBO GO) but HBO NOW is... garbage. Their video player wouldn't go fullscreen for a while on any of my or my girlfriends computers.
- colechristensen 10y ago
  Besides a minor UI bug in their video player which I didn't really care about, I've never had a single issue with HBO Now. (Including GoT on release night)

lotso 10y ago

Why is HBO Now and HBO GO run on different services? Really curious about this.

gabbo 10y ago
Hard to say for sure, but since HBO Go is tightly coupled to cable companies - I would guess its distribution model is as well. I can imagine a cable operator centric replication model for Go, where HBO doesn't handle customer delivery at all. Instead their library would be replicated from HBO to {Comcast, Cox, TimeWarner, ...}. Each HBO Go customer ID would be assigned a "master cable operator" responsible for their delivery and managed centrally, but HBO would feed customers links to operator-local content replicas. In the common case, customers access HBO Go from within the operator's network so transit is free and HBO is totally out of the data path (just catalog/user interaction/etc.). But the service can still easily support remote access by going over the public internet. The benefit of that model is HBO controls the catalog and most of the user interaction, but doesn't need to build/provision/pay for a CDN which scales with # of total HBO subscribers across the entire world (and guarantee reliable connectivity from their CDN to every customer). They just need to replicate their library across a few tens of cable operators who are able to keep everything local. Plus the entire sales/marketing/billing models are completely different too. Thinking about it from HBO's perspective it makes a million kinds of sense if you have the majority of your customers paying for you via the broadcast cable subscription model. OTOH, with HBO Now there is no cable operator in the picture so they can't make that optimization and now have to build something which looks more like Netflix.
- zerohp 10y ago
  HBO Go doesn't stream from the operator that you sign in with, it streams from nearest node. I am temporarily living in a place with Time Warner cable but I sign in to HBO Go with an Xfinity account. The stream comes from Time Warner. However, if I watch through xfinity.com, it comes from Comcast (and the bitrate is much lower).
  - gabbo 10y ago

mikedouglas 10y ago

The load issues were prior to (and sparked) the switch to MLBAM.

yincrash 10y ago
According to the Verge's article at the release of HBO NOW, it's been MLBAM for HBO NOW since its launch. http://www.theverge.com/2015/8/4/9090897/mlb-bam-live-streaming-internet-tv-nhl-hbo-now-espn http://www.theverge.com/2015/8/4/9090897/mlb-bam-live-stream...

_asummers 10y ago

The NHL service had similar issues last season, especially at roll out. I love the MLB service, but NHL left a great deal to be desired.