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wilbur55555
Known Participant
June 13, 2012
Question

Problem with MLB.com IS NOT SWARMCAST!!!

  • June 13, 2012
  • 1 reply
  • 2253 views

I have been maintaining a thread documenting my testing of the problem with MLB.com.  http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1010015?tstart=0  In response to my complaint that the thread is being ignored, Chris Campbell, who I actually find polite and helpful, posted this:

Sorry Wilbur,  I didn't mean to ignore this thread.  I thought I had communicated that we found the MLB problem wasn't due to Flash Player, but instead attributed to a technology that MLB is using called SwarmCast.  It looks like Flash Player is responsible, but that isn't the case.

http://forums.adobe.com/message/4440073#4440073

I appreciate your detailed responses, but my video team is telling me that this isn't something we can fix (since we don't own SwarmCast.)  Is there an action item you'd like to see us respond to?

Chris, because you are still ignoring that thread, you missed this detail:

I am having the same problem even when what you are calling "SwarmCast" is not running.

I realize that my posts are long and daunting to read.  However, they contain a wealth of information and are worth taking the time over.  Especially, the last several I posted with screen shots should be particularly interesting.

So you know, what I think is that there is an interaction between Flash player and the MLB container that is choking off the video data stream.  My evidence is that when a game exhibits the pausing and spinning circle problem, the associated browser gets bad results from MLB's speed test, but another browser does not.

Could you please consider not giving up on us MLB.com subscribers?  The problem is NOT SwarmCast (actually NexDef) and my posts on that thread clearly show that.

Thanks.

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    1 reply

    chris.campbell
    chris.campbell
    Legend
    June 13, 2012

    I'm not ignoring the thread, really.  But with the release of 11.3 and the large amount of Firefox data coming in, I have had to adjust my priorities.  I will forward your findings on to our video team for their review.  Please be aware though that not everything is done client side.  While you've disabled swarmcast/nextdef on your machine, that might not mean that it's removed from the equation depending on what is being done on the server.  I do appreciate your attention to detail, hopefully someone on the video team will be able to diagnose what is going on from your thread.

    Chris

    W
    wilbur55555Author
    Known Participant
    June 14, 2012

    Hi Chris, thanks for your reply.  I understand how busy you guys are with all the issues related to Firefox and your new Flash version.  Please understand the level of frustration here too.  Sorry if my replies have sounded tense or annoyed.

    I understand your statement and realize that the SwarmCast technology probably exists on the server side as well.  However, the MLB guys have stated point blank on their forum that NexDef is intended to solve the problem of rendering good resolution over slow connections, and isn't needed on fast ones.  That probably means that there is some sort of request issued from the client to initiate the NexDef support in the stream at the server side, but I have no way of knowing for sure short of sniffing packets, which I'm not bothered to do.  Too much like work to do for free. 

    I hope we can get to the bottom of this.  As a baseball nut living on the other side of the planet, MLB.com is the fix a baseball junkie needs.  Baseball is virtually unheard of here in Thailand, unless you count bonehead Brits calling it "big boys' rounders".   

    Yes, the Euro football tournament is being shown here and we get some of the top tennis as well (on Astro Supersport from Kuala Lumpur), but this just doesn't cut it for me.  I need my baseball.

    If you're a sports fan, you understand. 

    Thanks again for your response.  I'll keep testing. 

    BTW, please note that you can put someone on the development team in touch with me directly if you want, or pass along specific tests to run.  While I am not a video guy, I AM a 30+ year software guy, and will be able to work with these folks, in their own language besides. 

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