HBO Go Crashes During True Detective; Live Streaming Fails Again
By Philip Swann
TVPredictions.com
http://tvpredictions.com/tvone031014.htm
Washington, D.C. (March 10, 2014) - HBO GO's streaming app crashed last
night during the live airing of True Detective, leaving an untold number
of viewers unable to watch the series finale.
The premium channel, which airs live events on HBO GO, admitted the
problem on its Twitter page after numerous users began tweeting
complaints during the show's 9 p.m ET time slot. It's unclear how long
the outage lasted, but The Wall Street Journal reports it could have
been up to two hours after the one-hour show began.
HBO attributed the outage to a heavy online demand to watch the True
Detective series finale which revealed the season one murderer. "Due to
overwhelming demand for #TrueDetective, we've been made aware of an
issue affecting some users. Please try again."
However, there were no reported problems with HBO's broadcast on cable
and satellite systems and HBO Go's snafu is just another in a long line
of failures when companies try to stream live events.
Just last week, ABC's streaming telecast of The Academy Awards went
black, ruffling the feathers of numerous viewers. During last month's
Super Bowl, there were reports of problems with the live stream, and
when it began working properly, it was 20-30 seconds behind the regular
broadcast. And last year, DIRECTV's live stream of its NFL Sunday Ticket
package was so erratic during the first three weeks of the season, the
satcaster had to issue a public apology.
The live streaming business has suffered other issues as well, including
crashes when consumers try to order pay packages from companies such as
the WWE.
Dish revealed last week that it's contemplating launching a pay TV
service over the Net that would be entirely separate from its satellite
offering, a business that is being considering by several other
companies including DIRECTV, Verizon and Sony. The prospect has
generated several articles suggesting that Net TV could soon replace the
traditional TV service from cable and satellite.
But the crash of HBO Go -- which some called HBO No on social media
sites last night -- should be another cautionary note to viewers who
have become hooked on streaming services such as Netflix, which does not
air live events. (And even Netflix has frequent 'rebuffering' events.)
While streaming can provide more viewing choices, its reliability,
particularly during high-demand, live events such as the season finale
of True Detective, is highly suspect.
The industry's streaming infrastructure is simply not ready for prime time.
Any viewer who relies solely on a streaming service for television is
all-but guaranteed to be disappointed -- if not totally outraged -- when
trying to view a must-see live program. That's why companies that launch
Net TV services that are intended to be someone's sole TV service could
be walking into a disaster.
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