Web video: No blockbuster this

Eric Lai

SAN FRANCISCO: San Mateo-based Keynote Systems, a consultant group

specializing in performance on the Internet, has created an index measuring the

quality of live audio and video streaming at 20 popular Web sites. The average

score: a dismal 1.87 out of 10, with 10 denoting near-DVD, broadcast quality.

That means listening to music as if being underwater, or watching a video

clip as nausea-inducing as the shaking camera shots used in the movie, The Blair

Witch Project.

"You'll notice the jaggies, (and) people want to watch their

entertainment without jagged edges," said Martin Marshall, analyst at

Silicon Valley technology research firm, Zona Research.

The top broadcaster in the study, MTV Interactive, scored a 3.46 out of 10.

Other high-rated sites were Barnesandnoble.com for audio e-commerce, WUSL-FM 99

in Philadelphia for broadcast radio, and CNBC.com for financial audio.

Keynote admits the scale is a bit stacked against the Web broadcaster, or

Webcaster as they are being called, because the highest possible score a

Webcaster could get is around 6.0, which is about the same quality as a home

video. One video clip, however, would only fill about a quarter of a computer

screen and unlike a videotape, it would tend to pause and start again without

pressing a key.

"That annoys the hell out of people," said Matt Parks, a product

manager at Keynote. "The scores are relatively low because Web surfers are

used to flipping on the TV or listening to audio CDs. By setting a very high

bar, it gives the industry something to drive forward to."

Webcasters are taking all sorts of measures to make watching the Net as

pleasurable as watching TV. Internet service providers are laying fiber-optic

cable for broadband networks to the home, which will speed the delivery of

pictures and make them appear less jerky. Broadband connections are widely

expected to be commonplace by 2004.

RealNetworks Inc., for instance, unveiled an improved software player on

Monday that would allow surfers to download CD-quality music at only 64

kilobits-per-second.

Most modems can send and receive at 56 kbps, while a broadband connection

such as DSL or cable modems transmit around at least 300 kbps.

Still, another problem exists - video streams can get bogged down not just at

the "last mile" to the home user, where faster modems and digital

lines speed streaming, but they also can bottleneck at many other locations on

the Internet and at the broadcaster's own server.

For instance, users downloading high-resolution video and finding the picture

still appears grainy are probably experiencing "packet loss," which is

usually due to overloaded networking equipment at Internet service providers,

Parks said.

Another common problem - waiting a long time for a song to start playing -

can be compounded if Webcasters send their streams from a few, powerful

computers, rather than have the song sent from a large number of less powerful

server computers located near users, Parks said.

Keynote estimates that one in 10 businesses already stream video or audio

from their sites. For them, Keynote offers a service that lets companies track

the quality of the music and video when it arrives at the consumer. This data

can be used by companies to negotiate so-called "Service Level

Agreements" with Web hosting companies or ISPs to ensure that video-quality

is as good as promised - or their money back.

Still, the Web is improving in responsiveness. Two years ago, it took an

average of seven seconds to download a single Web page from a popular American

Web site. Today, it takes about three seconds, according to Keynote.

(C) Reuters Limited 2000.