I’m toying with this idea and hoping to refine it with your feedback. This seems to have sparked some interest.
The problem with measuring bloat is there are variables – how fast is your connection? Is your computer doing something else at the same time? Are you sharing a wifi connection and someone else is downloading a video? Did you empty out your temporary files? How old is your computer? Were you targeted for a video ad or does the web site show ads only at certain times?
The one thing I can’t tell when you start a stream is when you actually start hearing the program. It isn’t always easy to tell if an ad when you connect is a prestream ad or just a normal radio ad.
So let’s say I create a calibration page first. Maybe 5 different streams – you click listen and there is another button to click as soon as you hear the actual stream. Based on that, I attach a relative speed to you. That enables me to then adjust future tests based on your particular situation and make things somewhat apples and apples.
Once calibrated, then you could wander around testing other streams and over time with multiple people independently measuring the load times, the data becomes fairly reliable.
So let’s say I calculate a bloat index – how do you see that as being useful?
I would use it to select a preferred feed for each block of the day. I would be most interested in designating those streams that do ads. I detest them – they are 4x the volume of the stream and you can’t mute them in some players. Other than for testing, I would prefer not to use those at all.
My favorites tend to be those that use WMP (Windoze Media Player). They don’t always start, however and I have a time telling whether it is a firewall issue or some form of bloat that kills the stream before it starts.
I wanted to tell you how impressive the work you have done so far is, Art. Truly an eye opener. Even if you suspect the bloat is there, it isn’t until now that we have had an expose into what it consists of. Thank you.
The somewhat non-intuitive icon
is the indication that the stream may have a prestream ad.
It’s of course dependent on being flagged in the database. On some of the pages, you can filter out stations that play streaming ads. By default, those with ads sort near the bottom.
It’s a bit tricky – whether or not you receive an ad is determined by the ad servers – do you look like a good prospect, do you live near the station (based on you IP address), how recently did you see an ad, what time of day / day of week is it, is there any ad in the inventory, etc…?…. So just because you didn’t see an ad doesn’t mean that stream doesn’t have prestream ads – I get “yelled” at a lot by my volunteers “No prestream ad!”, which is just wasted energy. If the stream ever played one, it is likely they will again. Only if there have been no ads for an extended period of time do I turn that off – and that’s even “Iffy” – just because I never see an ad doesn’t mean you don’t.