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| Edited By: Sreejiraj Eluvangal |Source: DNA |Updated: Mar 17, 2018, 03:20 AM IST
If the telecast of Ramanand Sagar's Ramayana sounded the bugle for TV in India, IPL III seems to have done the trick for internet television in India.
Google's Youtube, which left no stone unturned in publicizing that it will stream IPL matches live on youtube, seemed to have got more that what it wished for - the feed crashed as more than 8 lakh people logged on to watch the first live cricket match to be streamed online.
"IPL on YouTube a farce. Not streaming. Had YouTube not anticipated technical glitches for an event of such magnitude?" twittered Glasgow-based 'branding enthusiast' Simrat Sawhney. Deepthy Menon from Brighton made use of the occassion to ask Lalit Modi as question :"Mr.Modi, what is the point of publicity around live IPL telecast via Youtube, if all we see is a blue screen saying technical problems??" she asked.
The problem seems to have been one of sheer scale -- even the most popular videos spend months before hitting the million views mark. IPL, on the other hand, was at 0.9 million simultaneous viewers, leading to 'break off' problems for a large number of users. Some, however, continued to watch the transmission uninterrupted.
In its own way, Youtube did try to ensure a smooth reception, cutting down the speed requirement of the feed to almost half of the 600 kilobits per second speed that most videos are streamed on. With the stream coming in at 350 kbps, some of the high-speed broadband users were disappointed as well. "Bad quality livecast of IPL from Youtube. Not high resolution enough for high bandwidth users," complained Singapore-based management consultant Abhishek Mittal.
However, internet broadcast was definitely not without its first-day converts. Besides the ability to whine publicly instead of just swearing in front of a TV, fans also noticed the lack of annoying advertisements in the feed. "Youtube IPL channel is showing better coverage than the TV, though much delayed.." techie Anshu Prateek twittered.
Some chose the occasion to remind their friends about the virtues of good, old fashioned TV. "Ha ha I told you so people.... IPL on Youtube was a bad idea ....... please join us at Saagar's," twittered Abhishek Narayanan, obviously to his miffed friends.
