Slow Down In Pictures?

RTMP is ideal if you require low latency, though in recent years it has become outdated and as it is based on Flash, it may lack support within some browsers and devices.

Despite these disadvantages it is ideal to use RTMP as a transport stream, it can be transcoded into other formats such as HLS which can be distributed more easily.

HLS is supported on desktop browsers, smart TVs, and both Android and iOS mobile devices. HTML5 video players also natively support HLS, in comparison with HDS and RTMP. The HLS is the safest protocol today for scaling live streaming to larger audience.

Coming to the features, the HLS standard also supports adaptive bitrate streaming. The one major drawback is with the latency. The latency can be relatively high. But, there are methods for reducing HLS latency.

RTMP used to be the de facto standard for live streaming. Many CDNs offer delivery that scales to the masses. RTMP, however, does not take into consideration that broadcaster and viewers might have internet connections that aren’t always up to the task of transferring the stream at full speed.

Smartphones and web browsers are also unable to play back RTMP natively; Browsers used to depend on a flash plugin for playback, which has been phased out over the last couple of years.

https://rtmp-server.com/rtmp-vs-hls/

Why do we appear to be regressing in streaming technology ?

told you all this would happen in the 3 sec delays thread

You did indeed.

Now then, I was watching on Amazon so hadn't tried to watch video on here so went to try it out.

First thing was I not required to respond to a request to install Flash.
The picture then appeared, moved slightly but then froze.

This was using Microsoft Edge but has been repeated using Microsoft Explorer
However, pictures working using Firefox and no issue on my iPad or Android smartphone.

Will do some speed checks later, but looks like the Betfair picture advantage has been lost, now on a par with B365.
Their pictures work on Edge and Explorer.

It’s happened. Safari did it in June, Firefox will do it by 2017, and now Chrome has officially announced they will do it, too: they’re blocking flash by default in favor of HTML5. If your photography website runs on Flash, it may be time for a change.

The latest company to jump on the “Flash must die” bandwagon is Google, who announced earlier this month that Chrome will begin blocking flash in favor of HTML5 starting with Chrome 53 in September. But they’re far from the first.

In June, Apple announced that the version of Safari that comes on macOS Sierra will block Flash by default.

And just last month, Firefox—which had blocked all versions of Flash ‘temporarily’ last year because of some security vulnerabilities—vowed to block all Flash content by default by 2017. Like Chrome and Safari, Firefox will require that visitors approve Flash websites on a case-by-case basis.

The fight against Flash started 9 years ago when Steve Jobs declared war on the software. It’s been a long and protracted battle, but (if you’ll allow an editor to editorialize for a moment) I can’t wait until Flash is left bludgeoned on the floor in some deep dark corner of the Internet. If you haven’t switched to HTML5 yet, now is the time.

If Flash is being outphased everywhere (is it?), the horse racing people will eventually get these same types of new streams we have, no?

yup

My streams aren't working at all. Excellent. Loads up, shows one picture. Then error message saying "not available".

Managed it on a different browser but lagging badly. This is a potential huge reduction in service.

Also to everyone, let Betfair know if you are unhappy with the streams. They don't read the forum!

Allow a few days for things to settle down, they only made the switch today and let's compare notes on browsers being used.

Stop, play, "Sorry, connection to this stream is unavailable. Please try loading again", Reload, play, volume on.

6 buttons I have to press to refresh a stream which is lagging and well behind Flash, which was a simple double click.

Terrible streams. Freezes a lot so you miss a second her and then, then it catches up where it should be. Using Chrome.

freezing/lagging in Chrome and Opera (desktop). Also tested on laptop (Chrome), same thing but about 2-3 secs faster. Stream doesn't fall behind, but instead it freezes and catches up so you miss things.

Stops more times than a bus.

Hope this is just some form of teething problems and/or test. Otherwise horse racing going to be an absolute drag.

Horse racing not affected for now (according to their statement). But maybe in the future if Flash is being phased out.
They did the test in mid-July they have been aware of this change since. They say they will try to make to make this change work, but not sure how much they can do with what they're being sent by their provider.

But maybe in the future if Flash is being phased out.

Adobe is ending support for Flash at the end of next year, so eventually it will have to follow suit. Plenty of time to get this right yet, but this is Betfair we're talking about.

But how much can they do if they're being sent poor quality from the provider?

Had to turn off all my streams on main computer because they were making the whole computer sticky. Streams now on computer2 only.

Not having any issues with the Cilic stream, I am only watching only that at the moment. So maybe it's a matter of how many streams you have up. Will keep an eye on this.

Streams are so hit and miss. Sometimes I'm not having issues with them being sticky/jumpy etc, but I'm watching the Townshend/Cirstea stream and nothing else and that one is all over the place.

Since this issue arose, I've adjuted to just using my Bet365 account to watch the streams; though it's more limited and I'd rather use the Betfair pop outs. Anyway, today Bet365 has adjusted my balance to 0.00. Anyone else had this issue?

Ah, fixed it. Seems I needed to refresh my balance. Even only moments after logging in.

Streams not working for me with Microsoft Edge or Explorer 11, but ok with Firefox.
That's on my laptop.

Have you compared with other devices, iPad or smartphone ?
They work well for me and are not impacted by the removal of flash as they didn't use flash in any case.

You can connect Betfair streams from your iPad to your tv if you want, B365 doesn't appear to transfer though.

Stream is probably 3-5 seconds slower than the old Flash ones

For me delay is 2 seconds slower, then it was before. Even with this delay betfair stream is better than 365. Is there any alternative?

Sep 5, 2019 -- 11:41AM, MasterW wrote:

For me delay is 2 seconds slower, then it was before. Even with this delay betfair stream is better than 365. Is there any alternative?

Yeah, going on averages that is what I have as well.

It's a mess. Do you bet as much with these new streams or less? I do less because I'm fairly dependant on streams not being too far behind. The freezing also doesn't help because it means I can't trust the streams to have a stable picture. I find the streams to be slightly more stable now compared to the first days of the new streams but also slower. So I wonder if they tried to do something to keep the delay as short as possible when they switched to HLS, but then gave up on this when it resulted in other problems. And now we're stuck with slow streams.

All in all, we're having less stable pictures with longer delay compared to the flash ones.

Are you getting your pictures through your desktop or laptop ?
Stability not an issue via tablet or smartphone, they weren't using flash, thus no chance.

Desktop and laptop.
Streams (US Open) have definitely become slower for me in recent days.
Never used tablet or smartphone, were they always slow then?

When you state that streams have become slower, how are you measuring this?

Prior to the recent change, Betfair laptop pictures were the fastest freely available.
In tests that I conducted, the gap between Betfair laptop and iPad was around seven seconds.

In a test I conducted following the recent change, this gap reduced to around five seconds.
One interpretation of this change is that the laptop pictures have slowed by around two seconds.

In the same test, B365 laptop pictures were around four seconds slower than Betfair laptop pictures.
There was a further one second delay with B365 iPad pictures, making them similar to Betfair iPad pictures.

My android smartphone experiences similar speeds to my iPad.

The test was made using a US Open match, and would require to be repeated from both the US Open and other tournaments.

Tablets and smartphones were already not using flash.

With Apple devices, this was a choice determined by Steve Jobs many years ago.
With Android devices, this was a choice made for other reasons, possibly predicting the demise of flash, possibly for stability reasons.

Try the Amazon Prime one minute behind test

Indeed. However, their pictures are around twenty second less slow on a tablet versus a smart tv.

When you state that streams have become slower, how are you measuring this?
Best test for me is always to put a bet in the market and try to cancel it after a point is finished on my stream, a first serve had been missed etc. With the flash streams for US Open I was able to. Right when they switched to HLS streams I was occasionally able to but most of the time it would get taken just before I try to hit cancel, so it was close. In recent days, they've been taken with good margin.

My previous tests also including a comparison of scoreboard updates which are summarised below (previously posted on a seperate thread) :

Scoreboard
The Betfair scoreboard via my laptop is totally unreliable, and can be discounted.
The Betfair scoreboard via my iPad is reliable, but slightly behind B365 on my laptop.
There appears to be no difference between the B365 scoreboard on my laptop and iPad.

Conclusion : B365 offers the slightly faster scoreboard.

The scoreboard updates are almost certainly driven by a link to the device operated by the chair umpire.
The alternative would be to believe that a different human is making updates based on observation either at courtside or via a stream.

If you observe the reliable scoreboard updates versus the pictures, the scoreboard consistently updates before you see the point end.
What isn't consistent is the time delay which is no real surprise.

For this delay to be consistent would require consistent behaviours and reactions from umpires operating their devices.
That isn't happening any time soon for a variety of reasons.

For bet cancellation purposes, you really need to be reacting to a reliable scoreboard rather than pictures.

For bet cancellation purposes, you really need to be reacting to a reliable scoreboard rather than pictures.

Good point, but previously it was possible with pictures, for some events.

Right now on BT Sports, 3 channels at different events all showing live full HD tennis, a few seconds behind the live score.

We can only dream that Amazon Prime will reach 2019 one day...

The scoreboards are always slower at slams as there is a different data deal in place for slams than for normal ATP/WTA tournaments. The pictures are definitely slower this year but it is the slower scoreboards which are the bigger problem for bet cancellation purposes. And betfair have been experimenting with 3 second delays in certain tournaments in the last month or two which makes hoovering even easier for the fastest guys.

Looks like they fix it. Right now I see Cias-Gianessi (Betfare not list this match for trading) and the picture slower less than 1 sec than 365 scoreboard, so it's like it was with flash version.

for me it is faster now

WTA streams are terribly slow now. But no freezing etc.
How have the ATP Metz streams been for you guys this week? Earlier this week they've been very fast and stable, but today they are still very fast but lots of freezing etc.

They keep freezing and jumping, it's painful to view.

Betfair streams now working in Microsoft Edge, was previously effectively a still picture.

Sound is annoying though, you hear everything twice

Four seconds behind stream on iPad which doesn't suffer from the sound problem.

wtf we live in third world now , remember when livevideo with australian open was near 1 sec from the fastest ones. It was 8 years ago

Indeed, quite bizarre to see regression in such matters.

This is what I wrote to my acc manager:
And some feedback on the streams since this is the first week after US Open and the usual events are offered. Unfortunately it's not good.
The ones I've kept an eye on this week are ATP Metz, ATP St Petersburg, ATP Challenger Columbus, WTA Osaka, WTA Guangzhou and WTA Seoul. All are worse than before, with the exception of St Petersburg which might be the same as before in terms of speed and stability. But that was already slow with the Flash streams.
ATP Metz and ATP Challenger Columbus are both fast (3-4 secs behind B365 scoreboard which is close to realtime from what I understand), but unstable: picture freezes etc. Bet365's pics for the same tournaments are significantly slower (4-5 secs) but completely stable.
For ATP St Petersburg and all the WTA tournaments the picture is stable (no freezing etc), but much slower, I've seen everything from 8-13 seconds behind 365 scoreboard. But mostly it's 8.
Compared to before no streams had any issues with lagging, tournaments like Metz and Columbus had a delay of 4-5 seconds, and the WTA tournaments a lag of 5-6 seconds. St Petersburg was probably the same.
So with the exception of St Petersburg, which was already much delayed with Flash, all those got worse either in terms of speed or stability, which means I need to keep an eye on scoreboard to be able to follow the match properly and have any chance of getting bets in between points and that's not good cause that means I can't pay proper attention to the actual tennis.
I know it was said before the switch from Flash to HLS that tweaks were gonna be done to reduce the delay but so far the results haven't been good as the streams are either more delayed or more unstable than before. Is there any chance we can get both fast and stable streams or does it have do be either or in this post Flash era?
*"Bet365's pics for the same tournaments are significantly slower (4-5 secs) but completely stable." By this, I mean 4-5 seconds slower than Betfair."

If you disagree with any of my findings or statements, or if you have anything to add, feel free to respond here, and I might mention it in future feedback. And it always helps when others are also complaining to Betfair. Doesn't have to be as long as what I wrote, just let them know that the new streams are a downgrade from before if that's what you think. And if you actually bet less because of this, it's very useful to mention that too. Because that's what they should be concerned about.

For me trading now is not possible, especially with atp challenger markest, which were my favourite. It's about 8 (EIGHT!!) sec delay than the old flash one streams, for me it's not comfortable at all, so I have to take a break from tennis trading. I'm curious what they are planning to do with horses in play markets, when the flash will terminate in the end of 2020. Horses are still in flash, but I cannot imagine how You can trade in play horse markets with this kind of delay... Hope they gonna change something, because it's a disaster for me.

It's affected me as well. Probably not as much as you, because most of my stuff is between changeovers and between points, but I did some stuff during points and that's just not possible with these delays. Good point about the horse racing. You should contact them and basically write what you wrote here if you haven't already, because you raise good points but they don't read the forum.

I wrote few messages via chat (I have no idea who work there...) and some of them told me that NOTHING change with streams, after I sent them attached screenshoots with different video player - the old one for flash and new one with hls, they admitted that they're TESTING new video player... well I'm not sure if there's any point of speak to them via chat...

I'm sorry to hear that, especially since you went through the trouble of attaching screenshots, yeah their live chat is useless most of the time.

Hope they gonna bring webrtc or something, otherwise I need to start learn how to trade cricket :)

ok so horses are going down from tommorow with hls streaming

Betfair Horse Racing
We have been able to find a resolution with our Live Video provider. Live Video has now been restored to the latency prior to the degradation at the beginning of the week. Apologies for any inconvenience caused over the past couple of days.
horse racing saved (for now anyway).

So why the fook cant amazon do this for tennis?

this is not an Amazon question. the question here is why can Betfair sort this for horse racing but not for tennis.

They change flash to hls and reduce in play betting from 5 to 3sec. This is not coincidence for me... just look at some tournaments tennis now, someone is way faster than any livescore...

And wta limoges was great example of this

It's blatant and we are powerless to it, disappointing in the extreme, but not unfortunately surprising.

Looks like Rio and Delray streams are back to old Flash speed and the streams aren't buggy. Shame about the change to 3 sec, so even if these streams are as fast as before those with fast feeds can still take your prices before a point has been completed on the stream.

Same with WTA Dubai.

I wonder who did get that famous questionary about 3 or 5 sec delay and answered yes . Maybe 2 ppl out of 2 :)
Thnx to Telstra i got fast pics not delayed but anything else has become weirdo

we need slower pic please betfair, give us livestream with 20sec delay and 1sec delay in play betting, this is what I dream everyday