電視的豐滿理想遭遇網絡帶寬的骨感大綱

During the World Cup games, many of us broke away from the workday to catch the emotional matches. At my office, like at many other companies large and small, we played the games’ live streams from the ESPN app on a big projector. Sure enough, the lag has been bad, as demand has swamped the servers. WatchESPN was outright crashing during theU.S.-Germany game last month.
世界盃期間，我們中的許多人都在工作日抽身去看那些令人激動的比賽。和許多大大小小的公司一樣，我們公司也用大投影儀通過ESPN客戶端來收看實況轉播。延遲很厲害，這是一定的，原因是需求讓服務器不堪重負。上個月美德大戰時，ESPN的服務器乾脆崩潰了。

I’m guessing nobody is really surprised, given, as some might recall, the Oscars livestream crashed; HBO Go fizzled during the True Detective finale and Veronica Mars movie backers couldn’t get their free digital downloads on time.
我猜沒有人真的感到意外，因爲可能還有人記得，奧斯卡頒獎典禮的網絡直播就崩潰過；《真探》（True Detective）大結局時，HBO的客戶端也不能正常使用；《美眉校探》（Veronica Mars）電影版的擁躉同樣無法順利進行免費下載。

We’re used to these delays. The Internet literally can’t handle the amount of TV we watch; the idea behind “TV everywhere,” where television broadcasters provide viewers with access to online content via live or on-demand, may be impossible with our current infrastructure.
我們對這樣的延遲已經習以爲常。互聯網確實處理不了我們觀看的大量電視節目；“電視無處不在”的意思是電視臺以直播或點播的方式向觀衆提供在線內容，但現在的基礎設施可能無法實現這樣的想法。

Netflix NFLX -1.00% takes up about 30% of home Internet bandwidth in North America, and data from Procera estimates that anywhere from 6% to 10% of the online streaming service’s subscribers watched at least one episode of House of Cards Season 2 in its first weekend. Yet House of Cards doesn’t have nearly as many viewers as a moderately successful TV show. A total of 4.6 million people watched the premiere of USA’s Suits, for example, which for a series, is an impressive but not gargantuan hit (but one of my personal favorites!). And that’s not even broadcast, it’s cable. A highly anticipated episode of How I Met Your Mother could pull in close to 11 million n such viewership, it seems the Internet literally cannot handle television.
奈飛（Netflix）佔據了北美約30%的家用互聯網帶寬。網絡數據統計機構Procera估算，《紙牌屋》（House of Cards）第二季播出的首個週末，6%-10%的奈飛用戶至少觀看了一集。不過，這樣的觀衆規模還趕不上一般成功的電視節目。比如說，美國電視網（USA Network）的《金裝律師》（Suits）首次播出時的觀衆人數爲460萬。這樣的觀衆規模對一部電視連續劇來說已經很可觀，但還算不上火爆異常（不過這是我最喜歡的電視劇之一）。此外，這部電視劇甚至沒有以無線形式播出，只是進入了有線電視網絡。《老爸老媽的浪漫史》（How I Met Your Mother）中備受期待的一集可以引來近1100萬觀衆。考慮到這樣的收視規模，互聯網似乎真的沒辦法承載電視。

Because it takes up that whopping 30% of home Internet bandwidth, Netflix is disrupting traditional “peering” structures whereby two or more networks, which are required to be connected at a hardware level, exchange traffic for free. The networks that Netflix connects to are sending significantly more traffic to their peering partners than they’re receiving in return. The extra traffic forces many of these last-mile providers to either spend money to upgrade their infrastructure, or their users will suffer from a degraded viewing experience.
由於掌握了高達30%的家用互聯網帶寬，奈飛打破了傳統的對等直聯結構，也就是兩個或多個網絡在硬件層面連接在一起，免費交換數據。奈飛連接的網絡向對等網絡發送的數據遠遠超過了從對方那裏接收的數據。這些多出來的數據迫使許多這樣的“最後一哩”服務供應商升級自己的基礎設施，否則，用戶的收視體驗就會打折。

Earlier this year, Comcast CMCSA -0.69% and Netflix signed a paid peering agreement designed to improve Netflix’s performance, but that doesn’t change the fact that we are consistently at the limits of bandwidth when it comes to streaming high-quality video. Sure enough, a few months later, images of Netflix error messages blaming Verizon for slow bandwidth started going viral online.
今年早些時候，康卡斯特（Comcast）和奈飛簽署了一份付費直聯協議，旨在改善奈飛的節目播出效果，但這個舉措並不能改變這樣一個事實。那就是，播放高質量視頻時我們對帶寬的使用總是處於極限狀態。可以肯定，幾個月後奈飛指責威瑞森（Verizon）影響網速的報錯信息截圖就會像病毒一樣在網上傳播開來。

I binge-watched the latest season of House of though my wife and I pay for an upgraded Verizon FiOS Internet package, every episode came through in painfully grainy quality. Every now and then, when the scenery barely moved, it would snap into much better focus, only to remind me how bad the viewing quality was. Obviously, as we later learned, the issue wasn’t Verizon to my house, but Netflix to Verizon.
我一集不落地看了《紙牌屋》的最新一季。儘管我和我妻子購買了威瑞森的FiOS套餐升級版，每集的畫質依然慘不忍睹。時不時地，每次畫面基本定格的時候，清晰度就會明顯上升，這隻能讓我想到畫面質量究竟有多糟糕。就像我們後來瞭解到的那樣，問題顯然不是出在威瑞森到我們家這個環節，而是奈飛到威瑞森。

The problem is potentially bigger: Cord-cutters like to talk about being free of the constraints of cable bundles, but the trend I’m seeing is that bandwidth deals could turn into bundles themselves. Imagine you move into a new neighborhood and have a choice of Internet service providers; before you select, you need to do some homework on who has deals in place with the video content companies you like to watch over the Internet.
問題可能會變得更嚴重：拒絕有線電視的人喜歡把擺脫有線電視套餐的束縛掛在嘴邊，但我看到的趨勢是，網絡視頻服務本身也可能以套餐形式出現。想象一下，你搬了家，可以在一些網絡服務供應商之間進行選擇；那麼在你做出決定之前，你需要先考察一下，看看哪些網絡公司可以提供你喜歡在線觀看的視頻內容。

We truly want “TV everywhere.” Yet when most people talk about problems with Netflix and its ilk, they’re talking about concerns that their subscription rates are going to go up or that some studio is going to pull their favorite movies from on-demand streaming. With theAereo U.S. Supreme Court decision, cord-cutters are now quickly hunting down their next best options. But as long as these bandwidth problems are as glaring as they are (and getting worse) we’re not going to make the strides we need, and the industry won’t be able to deliver the experience that consumers are hungry for. And judging by the fact that Netflix more than doubled its Emmy nomination haul this year, I’d wager they (we) are pretty hungry.
我們當然希望“電視無處不在”。然而，許多人談到奈飛等公司的問題時擔心的事情是收費上升，或者某些電影公司把他們最喜歡的電影撤出點播清單。隨着美國最高法院裁定網絡電視公司Aereo侵犯電視臺版權，拒絕有線電視的消費者現在開始迅速尋找次優方案。但只要這些帶寬問題一直這麼突出（或者變得更糟），我們就沒辦法大步向前邁進，這個行業也就沒辦法爲消費者提供他們渴望的那種體驗。奈飛今年獲得的艾美獎提名增加了一倍以上，我得說他們（也包括我們）的期待程度相當高。