What's up with Twitch (in general)?

[Seegtease]

I'll start by saying where I live, getting faster than 5-6mbps is pretty much impossible. I've tried, and they claim the lines simply won't support it. That pretty much means Twitch is unusable to me, totally.

What I don't get is how they handle data. My friend was streaming, and he's limited to 2mbps upload speed. When I was viewing the bandwidth requirements of his stream, it worked out to be about 9-12mbps.

You'd think if the most he can send out is 2mbps that I'd be able to watch it with 5mbps download. What do they do to the data to make it so much larger (I'm sure I'm misunderstanding something), and is there anything I can do to make it usable?

(Also, because he's not a partner, I didn't have the option to lower the resolution, but on other streams that do allow it, unless I lower it to cell phone level, it still has to buffer pretty often)

[Azortharion]

Twitch considers 3500 bitrate to be all you need for 720p60 or 1080p30, with higher bitrates being "OK" for partners (allowing them 1080p@60 with say 4500 bitrate).

Normal users can use higher bitrates, but it's likely to be unstable (anything above 3500 bitrate is, supposedly, considering that the max speed that most ISP's seem to be able to push on streaming services is like 3.5 mbps; http://ispspeedindex.netflix.com/usa). Even so, Twitch considers anything above 5000 or 6000 (can't remember which) to be "abuse of the system", and that (at least some years ago) they had "considered penalizing excessive bandwidth usage". Don't think they ever went that route.

And why would they, when you can't feasibly push more than 3500-4000 as a non-partner, anyway.

[Seegtease]

Only 3500 is required to watch videos at 1080p30?

Well, I have 5mbps, so why am I unable to watch any videos without buffering every 4 seconds? Something doesn't seem right there.

I was talking about watching videos, not uploading my own. I can't even seem to do that.

[Artorius]

Only 3500 is required to watch videos at 1080p30?

Well, I have 5mbps, so why am I unable to watch any videos without buffering every 4 seconds? Something doesn't seem right there.

I was talking about watching videos, not uploading my own. I can't even seem to do that.

Most "5mb" connections have around 600kbps download band.

It's impossible for a twitch stream to require 9-12mbps as you say, but 1 ~ 1.3 seems right.

So, there might be a misunderstanding here. Do a a speed test, if it returns you 5mb at the download test then you're downloading at around 600kb/s.

[Seegtease]

I did check my speed, and I do get those speeds.

I looked at the video stats of several videos (if you right click on a stream and click on video stats, you get this info), and they all ranged from 900-1200 Kb/sec (not kbps, but kilobytes/second). All of them required buffering nearly constantly and were unwatchable. This includes my friends video, and he says his upload is capped at 2mbps.

Why, if he is limited to 2mbps upload, and I have verified that I have 5mbps download, am I unable to watch his stream?

[Azortharion]

Only 3500 is required to watch videos at 1080p30?

Well, I have 5mbps, so why am I unable to watch any videos without buffering every 4 seconds? Something doesn't seem right there.

I was talking about watching videos, not uploading my own. I can't even seem to do that.

It can be done with as low as 2500. It won't look as good as 3500, and 3500 won't look as good as 8000 (which is what YouTube recommends).

Should be noted that it's not just about download speeds when watching streams. When you do a speedtest, it automatically finds the best, ideal server do the test from. This can be hundreds or even thousands of miles away from the server that you're watching the Twitch stream for. So, it is as much about distance and quality of the connection as it is about raw speed.

With that said, it is still quite strange, but not unheard of.

[Seegtease]

Well, my friend is about a few hours drive away.

The question is, though, why would it look better? How can his feed be any higher quality than his upload allows? And as long as my download exceeds his upload, why can't I watch it smoothly? And why, when I right click his stream and look at video stats, does it say his stream is going at 1200Kb/sec (not kbps, Kb/sec)? How could it possibly require that much if it's only coming from a 2mbps upload (which would be about 250Kb/sec in reality)?

The fact is I can't watch ANY streams at all, it's not just his, but I'm using his an example because I know his exact upload speed.

[Leyre]

is a rather weak adc

[Sinist]

Well, my friend is about a few hours drive away.

The question is, though, why would it look better? How can his feed be any higher quality than his upload allows? And as long as my download exceeds his upload, why can't I watch it smoothly? And why, when I right click his stream and look at video stats, does it say his stream is going at 1200Kb/sec (not kbps, Kb/sec)? How could it possibly require that much if it's only coming from a 2mbps upload (which would be about 250Kb/sec in reality)?

The fact is I can't watch ANY streams at all, it's not just his, but I'm using his an example because I know his exact upload speed.

You are confusing decimal and binary notation. The capital or lower case K makes little difference (its 1000 vs 1024). The thing you need to pay attention to is the case of the letter b. b = bit and B = byte.

Twitch shows the number as kilobits, which in reality equates to 112-150 KB which you should be able to watch without any problem.

It sounds like your ISP is throttling your data for video streams.

[Seegtease]

Huh. For some reason, I thought Kb/sec and Kbps were different notations.

Well, this makes it even more confusing. I really should be able to watch stuff, I watch netflix and hulu all the time.

- - - Updated - - -

Update: So to test that, I decided to look at youtube streaming services, and everything was loading and streaming without a single buffer. I went back to twitch right after, and everything was needing to buffer every 2-4 seconds.

Is twitch just utter crap?

[Denpepe]

Huh. For some reason, I thought Kb/sec and Kbps were different notations.

Well, this makes it even more confusing. I really should be able to watch stuff, I watch netflix and hulu all the time.

- - - Updated - - -

Update: So to test that, I decided to look at youtube streaming services, and everything was loading and streaming without a single buffer. I went back to twitch right after, and everything was needing to buffer every 2-4 seconds.

Is twitch just utter crap?

I think you are looking to much into things, it can be that you or your streaming friend just have a bad routing to the twitch servers, or twitch itselves don't give him enough bandwith cuz he's a nobody to them, it could be your provider who throttles twitch streams or you have an oversaturated node, there is more to the internet then your friends upload and your download that define what results you get.

Did you try pinging the twitch servers to see if there is a connection problem there?

[Seegtease]

I think you are looking to much into things, it can be that you or your streaming friend just have a bad routing to the twitch servers, or twitch itselves don't give him enough bandwith cuz he's a nobody to them, it could be your provider who throttles twitch streams or you have an oversaturated node, there is more to the internet then your friends upload and your download that define what results you get.

Did you try pinging the twitch servers to see if there is a connection problem there?

Interestingly enough, I used command to ping twitch.tv, and the request timed out 4 times. Every other site pings just fine.