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RE: Report on Streaming Issues To: Dana Healy From: Patrick Cook July 2, 2019 Recently it's been brought to our attention that some viewers are experiencing excessive buffering when watching archived city meetings from our servers. We believe we have identified the issue and are proceeding to implement the solution. We expect the affected meetings to be updated this week. Background For live streams we have been consistently streaming meetings at about 3Mbps. We continue to do so and have not had any reports of issues with the live streams. For recordings, however, we changed the quality earlier this year. Prior to February 2019 the meeting archive server could only handle files less than two gigabytes in size. We used a 2Mbps setting for recordings to keep the size of the resulting files under that limit. Even so, if a meeting ran long we would need to transcode the file at an even lower bitrate to keep it under the 2MB size limit. The resulting video files had poor visual quality and it was our desire to improve that. In February we updated the archive server so that it was able handle larger files. Subsequently we started putting the higher quality files (10-12Mpbs,) that were recorded for cable channel playback, directly on the archive server. In doing so we seemed to have gone too far the other direction, having files with a bitrate to high to stream effectively to everyone. Solutions The solution we are implementing is to transcode the high bitrate meeting files from earlier this year with lower bitrates (4Mbps.) We are then replacing them on the server. Earlier last month we also set the recordings to use lower bitrates as well. This should solve the majority of problems with buffering. Some slow Internet connections may still experience some issues. As we move forward we are working towards implementing adaptive bitrate streaming. This will allow the viewers device to automatically adjust the quality, and thus the bitrate, up or down depending on the connection speed. We do not have a timeline as to when this may be offered at this time. Streaming and Cable Channel Quality as it Relates to Production Equipment The nature of streaming to the internet allows us to assert great control over the resolution and quality of the stream, regardless of the source. As such, even though the current equipment Arden Hills at city hall is standard definition (SD) we have been up-converting the signal when we web stream it. Similarly, installing high definition (HD) equipment won’t automatically make the streams larger. It will, however, improve the quality even if we keep the bitrates lower. It will also improve the quality on the cable channel, even though the cable channel is still SD. “Quality in, quality out.” It also will allow for us to use the entire screen on newer TVs as the old SD equipment has an aspect ratio of 4:3, causing black bars to be placed on the sides of the picture to keep geometry correct when viewed on a new TV. HD equipment utilizes a 16:9 aspect ratio, the same as modern television sets. PC/pc Arden Hills Falcon Heights Lauderdale Little Canada Mounds View New Brighton North Oaks Roseville St. Anthony North Suburban Communications Commission North Suburban Access Corporation 2670 Arthur Street Roseville, MN 55113 Phone: (NSCC) 651-792-7500 (CTV) 651-792-7515 (Fax) 651-792-7501 www.ctvnorthsuburbs.org