MediaPackage in Stockholm Region

Question

Hello,  
  
I'm trying the freshly launched MediaPackage in Stockholm Region.  
  
Everything seems to work with one curious exception. I've noticed that live streaming is somehow capped at 720 resolution on mobile devices.  
  
I've set a live stream up to 1080. On desktop the maximum resolution is reached, on tablet/smartphone not: the maximum resolution I get is 720.  
  
I've already tried to delete and recreate the MediaPackage Live Channel as well as its Endpoint and CloudFront distribution to no avail. The results are the same regardless if the m3u8 stream is played directly through its Endpoint/CloudFront distribution in Safari browser or via an HTML5 player.  
  
Video on demand assets work fine too. Full HD is reached either on mobile or desktop. Only the live feed is affected.  
  
In Frankfurt Region the MediaPackage Live channel with the same configuration and same MediaLive source works fine and I get HD (1080) resolution on both mobile and desktop devices.  
  
Am I the only one getting this issue?  
  
Thanks in advance.  
  
Regards.

Answer

Hello,  
  
Thank you for your enquiry!  
Are the mobile devices (tablets and phones) running the stream in a window/app that has a smaller resolution than 1080p ? Or is the device itself set to a resolution lower than 1080 ? I believe that the browser and/or players need an area higher than 1080p for them to play that rendition.  
  
Can the mobile devices play the sub-manifest directly if you point them at the 1080 sub-manifest instead of the main manifest ?  
  
Are the mobile devices and desktops on the same network when playing the streams ? Could it be a bandwidth problem ?  
  
Feel free to send me a direct message with the channel ARNs, including some time frames when you tested this, and I can take a look.  
  
Kind Regards,  
  
Alex

Answer

Hi Alex,  
  
thank you for your reply.  
  
I made further testing (same device and network). It seems that actually I can get the same results on both Frankfurt and Stockholm MediaPackage regions.  
  
I just have to wait a little more on Stockholm's region to get the same resolution.  
  
This is a screenshot caught in Safari – Desktop – Fullscreen – Frankfurt region:

This is a screenshot caught in Safari – Desktop – Fullscreen – Stockholm region:

The results are identical. So far so good.  
  
This is a screenshot caught in Safari – iPadOS – Fullscreen – Frankfurt region:

This is a screenshot caught in Safari – iPadOS – Fullscreen – Stockholm region:

Here the Stockholm's video is less defined (look at the far right vertical stripes – it's rendered as a gray box if compared with Frankfurt's region).  
  
After a while I finally get a resolution comparable with Frankfurt's region:

It seems just a little slower to reach the same definition.  
  
You're probably right that on mobile devices (inside a browser) the videos don't reach real full HD.  
  
Edited by: marcoklobas on Apr 25, 2020 9:53 PM

Answer

Hello,  
  
Thank you for your feedback!  
Interesting about the quality, as I did notice that the stripes you mentioned actually look like a grey box.  
Though EMP does not do any transcoding, so it shouldn't impact the quality on the output. I believe this could be originating in the encoder or the source that EMP is ingesting.  
  
Kind Regards,  
  
Alex

MediaPackage in Stockholm Region

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