opinions on the new twitch.tv delay?

[Biggie]

So it's been almost a month that twitch has brought this new delay to improve the buffering (likely for those LoL or starcraft competitions that get them money) and I'm immediately seeing a difference in the total streaming experience. Back when the delay maxed at 10 seconds (which was pretty high itself) I would sometimes have hour long conversations with people; be it I was streaming or viewing something. I felt a certain connection with the people (in the least creepy way possible) and it was just a whole lot of fun. I was experiencing this game with someone else...in the comfort of my own home! Now I honestly feel as if there's no point. Waiting a minute to get a response is tiresome, and you really can't carry out a complete conversation. I feel as if I should just stick to playthroughs, which will save me a whole lot of time, and anyone can watch a series whenever they want. I think twitch really needs to fix this until someone else does and ruins their game. 

 

So what are your guys' opinion on this? Am I just an angry ranter mad cause I don't get what I want, or do you guys agree too?

 

 

[Kevinkt]

it ruins the fun with the viewer/streamer the chat is delayed and its like oh. he talking to me about somethingisaidawhile ago

[Biggie]

it ruins the fun with the viewer/streamer the chat is delayed and its like oh. he talking to me about somethingisaidawhile ago

I can't agree more. I think it's worse for the viewer. When you're playing the game you're at least doing something while you wait for them to write back, but when you watch it I feel as if I can just go watch a playthrough with better commentating and what-not. 

[WiiManic]

Its ruining it for me.

 

I watch smaller streamers, and they usually interact loads, with the delay they still do, but any time he ask like "oh how do i do X?" for example, you can try to help, but your instructions to turn around and go to wherever are now redundant as he only saw it 1 min later, and is now somewhere else.

 

You just can't keep up convos if there is a delay of far too long inbetween.

[Almercenary]

yeah, really annoying sometimes

[SMURG]

> makes live video feed system with instant messaging between both viewers and people in the video

> introduces an artificial delay between the video stream and the (no longer instant) messaging system



At what point did this make sense? If a subset of users are having trouble with their videos, have them lower their bitrates or something - or, apply the delay on a per-stream basis and make it optional. Why does the delay have to be a service-wide thing?

[Judahnator]

It really sucks, im not sure what is going on on twitch's end but i hope it gets fixed soon.

 

For the broadcaster though, I have been playing around with some alternatives. I am working on embedding a VLC stream on my website, and because it is directly from me to the end user it works great.

 

The one drawback to this is my bandwidth doesn't just get tight when more than a few users are viewing, it is HAMMERED FLAT. But if you have the bandwidth, it would be fairly easy to integrate that with something like IRC.

[Musikman]

I see the lag time dropping as network infrastructure improves because as it stands currently in the US (where Twitch is based) the network is poor and the ISP's aren't pushing for major upgrades and overhauls anytime soon. I also see improvement as Twitch grows in size but that's just my two cents.

[Biggie]

It really sucks, im not sure what is going on on twitch's end but i hope it gets fixed soon.

 

For the broadcaster though, I have been playing around with some alternatives. I am working on embedding a VLC stream on my website, and because it is directly from me to the end user it works great.

 

The one drawback to this is my bandwidth doesn't just get tight when more than a few users are viewing, it is HAMMERED FLAT. But if you have the bandwidth, it would be fairly easy to integrate that with something like IRC.

and how much bandwidth would that be? 

[Skyhawk Delta]

I feel that it should be up to the broadcaster to set the delay if that's the way Twitch wants to do things.  It ruins interaction on smaller streams.

[xXcorsairXx]

I find it dumb, and it needs to go away. You can barely talk to the streamer half the time about something that just happened.

[Guest]

A petition to get their attention clearly needs setting up.

[Biggie]

A petition to get their attention clearly needs setting up.

i was thinking the same. I think we need to just use adblock on them until they fix it. 

[zxcvbnmmssdh]

Especially giveaways through the chat are suffering because there is a minute delay between the time that they say what to do and the viewers actually hearing it.

[Biggie]

Twitch.tv now imposes stream delays of up to 60 seconds; unlike its much shorter delay prior to the update. Only a handful of twitch.tv streams garner large sums of viewers (in the 100's region). Twitch.tv claims that this delay will provide more stability to viewer's streams; however it comes at a cost that does not make up for its loss. Small streams thrive on user interaction between the viewers and the streamer, but with such a long delay that interaction is practically ruined. Twitch.tv has the capability of fixing this, as it had shorter delays, but insists that it is not a large concern. By signing this, we can demonstrate to twitch.tv the importance of a short delay and inform them that they will lose viewers in the long run if they do not fix the delay time. 

[Biggie]

^is that good?

[Lays]

To bad this doesn't fix the 13 year old remedial idiots that are 90% of the twitch chat

 

I don't ever use the chat but it is pretty messed up they did this

[Judahnator]

and how much bandwidth would that be? 

 

I did it from a 2Mbps up connection. I could support 2, maybe 3 viewers at the same time. As an experiment, i broadcasted to a friend with 10Mbps up and had viewers connect to him. WIth this i could sustain about 5 connections, maybe more but i didnt have enough people to help test it