We wanted to take some time this morning to update everyone on quality issues affecting Cathe Live since we moved the platform to Akamai:
Quality of the stream for recorded videos: This is our biggest problem and our top priority right now. The problem we're having with quality varies from nothing to severe depending on the device, app or browser you use. We are using HLS streaming for the first time on Cathe Live, but HLS is nothing new and is what most major broadcasters use these days. With HLS the video player will detect the highest bandwidth our system and device can handle and will send that stream to you. The quality problems you are seeing are caused by the players "auto-detect" erroneously switching from a high to very low bandwidth during the broadcast. This is something we currently think can be adjusted by Akamai, but we're waiting on their engineer's final analysis and report. We had a large conference call with Akamai and our developers and staff yesterday about this. Once Akamai finishes their analysis, which we expect to be done soon, Akamai will make tweaks to our "auto-detect" and system and hopefully, this will solve this issue. Temporary Solution: FYI: if you're using Chrome to view Cathe Live on your web browser you can click on the "settings" icon and instead of "auto" select something like 540p and your videos will probably play fine. It's only "Auto" that seems to be causing an issue.
Live broadcast crashing: This problem is not related to the move and actually started before we moved Cathe Live to Akamai. This is a very difficult problem to trace the root cause because it only happens when we do a live broadcast. Though we have tried several quick fixes the real cause of the crashes is probably because our server needs to have its "PHP" updated. Normally this would be very simple and easy to do, but because we have several legacy apps, like the Workout Manager, that can not yet run on the latest PHP it's not so simple to do.
We're close to being able to update PHP on our server, but I doubt this will be in time for tomorrow's broadcast. We also need to spend some more time tweaking the settings for our live broadcasts on the new platform, but our priority now has to be fixing the recorded videos first since this is how 98% of our subscribers watch and work out to Cathe Live. So for tomorrow's broadcast don't be surprised if things don't go well and make sure to have a Plan B. Your best option will just be to wait till we upload the recorded video later in the day.
No Audio: If you're not hearing audio on Cathe Live using the iOS app this caused by your mute switch on your iPhone being "on" or your "Mute Icon" being selected. Just turn mute off and you should hear audio on the app.
Fire TV: We have now uploaded a new version of Fire TV that solves the logout issue. We still have to fix the "add to favorites" feature. You can alternatively do this on your computer.
Quality of the stream for recorded videos: This is our biggest problem and our top priority right now. The problem we're having with quality varies from nothing to severe depending on the device, app or browser you use. We are using HLS streaming for the first time on Cathe Live, but HLS is nothing new and is what most major broadcasters use these days. With HLS the video player will detect the highest bandwidth our system and device can handle and will send that stream to you. The quality problems you are seeing are caused by the players "auto-detect" erroneously switching from a high to very low bandwidth during the broadcast. This is something we currently think can be adjusted by Akamai, but we're waiting on their engineer's final analysis and report. We had a large conference call with Akamai and our developers and staff yesterday about this. Once Akamai finishes their analysis, which we expect to be done soon, Akamai will make tweaks to our "auto-detect" and system and hopefully, this will solve this issue. Temporary Solution: FYI: if you're using Chrome to view Cathe Live on your web browser you can click on the "settings" icon and instead of "auto" select something like 540p and your videos will probably play fine. It's only "Auto" that seems to be causing an issue.
Live broadcast crashing: This problem is not related to the move and actually started before we moved Cathe Live to Akamai. This is a very difficult problem to trace the root cause because it only happens when we do a live broadcast. Though we have tried several quick fixes the real cause of the crashes is probably because our server needs to have its "PHP" updated. Normally this would be very simple and easy to do, but because we have several legacy apps, like the Workout Manager, that can not yet run on the latest PHP it's not so simple to do.
We're close to being able to update PHP on our server, but I doubt this will be in time for tomorrow's broadcast. We also need to spend some more time tweaking the settings for our live broadcasts on the new platform, but our priority now has to be fixing the recorded videos first since this is how 98% of our subscribers watch and work out to Cathe Live. So for tomorrow's broadcast don't be surprised if things don't go well and make sure to have a Plan B. Your best option will just be to wait till we upload the recorded video later in the day.
No Audio: If you're not hearing audio on Cathe Live using the iOS app this caused by your mute switch on your iPhone being "on" or your "Mute Icon" being selected. Just turn mute off and you should hear audio on the app.
Fire TV: We have now uploaded a new version of Fire TV that solves the logout issue. We still have to fix the "add to favorites" feature. You can alternatively do this on your computer.
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