iPad Having Video Streaming Problem – Who to Blame?
Reports have been flying in from around the internet that the newly released iPad Wifi + 3G has a handful of streaming video problems. The first comes straight from iTunes, which is rather surprising to say the least. Users streaming video previews from iTunes will be treated to heavily down sampled versions over AT&T’s network. The same thing is going on with Netflix movies, which is a huge disappointment for me personally, I love the Netflix App on my iPad and that inability to stream anywhere is a major downfall.
The oddest problem of all, however, is ABC’s video player, which, instead of displaying down sampled movies, like the previous two services were displaying, ABC doesn’t play the video at all. It instead shows an eerily familiar message of, please connect to a Wi-Fi network to use this application. Cellular networks are not supported at this time.? Another reported problem is that the built in YouTube app strips resolution choices and also only offers down sampled versions of the video file users are choosing to watch. Personally, the YouTube application has enough problems for me on WIFI, with skipping video being the norm, and I usually do not get through a video without pauses and skipping issues.
It seems as if many people have been too quick to blame AT&T for the multiple issues presented above. First of all, the error message with the ABC video player does not come from the carrier, or even the OS, it comes straight from the app itself, meaning that ABC is the one blocking users, not AT&T. Secondly, most video streaming services tend to offer viewing options based on the bandwidth available on the current user’s connection. This means that if you have a strong connection at the time of viewing, the service will offer you a higher quality resolution for the video file. It is apparent that users reporting the problems with down sampled streaming video have been on weaker 3G connections, because iLounge’s tests showed no loss in quality of iTunes video previews or with Netflix.
The problem with the built in YouTube app, again, is with the app, not the carrier, as it automatically strips down the video to a very low quality. This is exactly what it has done on the iPhone/iPod Touch for a while, but people probably just have not noticed due to the much smaller screen on those devices. I used to be able to stream my iPhone on Youtube after about a minute of buffering on Edge, but the video was not good quality, I can only imagine what an iPad 3G with Youtube would do in my town with Edge, probably nothing.
I am hopeful that ABC will begin to support 3G connections with their video app, at least for the iPad, as many more users will be expecting to use the larger device for more multimedia functions than with the iPhone users. I hope that Apple will upgrade the iPad’s YouTube app so that it allows for viewing streaming videos at a higher resolution as well.