Let me preface this with I do NOT want to know how to do this, nor advocating for the use of. I just want to know what the driver is under the following information.
I have never owned a Fire Stick or Box, Google, Apple TV, or any other streaming box myself. I do use 2 Chromecast devices though. Rest is Either integrated into the TV (Samsung's version or Roku)
A little background of me, which causes me this question that kinda eats away at me. I work for an ISP, I was on the install side for 3.5 years, prior to that I worked for DirecTV for 7 years until the AT&T buyout happened. 2 year gap in between those two that had nothing to do with tech.
So I was in it when satellite went from LNB to multi-switch to dual coax to DVRs, to using MOCA single coax to single coax to each DVR or Host/Clients.
When I went to the cable company, they already had integrated moca into their devices, and were licensing the actual TiVo software on their Host/Client systems. Satellite copied TiVo format and tried to improve upon it. (different discussion) So 7 years as satellite 2 year gap then cable ISP to present.
So, at that point I was installing CATV/HSD/Phone systems. At present a majority of our customers are HSD only (highspeed data)
Late 2017 is when I started the HSD installing. At that time I know about Plex and Kodi, HTPC stuff ect. (can't remember when I got first Chromecast) But I never jumped onto the Firestick or streaming box train. I actually don't know how many of them allow sideloading apps. I know the Firestick/box could Whenever that came along. Just never jumped into the Amazon ecosystem.
So over the course of time, I noticed alot of slow speed trouble calls, buffering issues, ect. I also noticed alot of them were Firestick related or insert no name streaming box here. I would speed test the connection at their modem and alot were no problem found.
So that is the point I started asking them to show me the problem, and they would get kinda cagey, about well their nephew (insert meaningless person here) gave it to them or they bought it off a friend ect. I would tell them I don't care what they were doing ect, I'd get the questions off is this illegal, will i get in trouble ect. I always said it's a grey area.
If they were straight up downloading copyright protected stuff, well that's a different conversation. (I read enough notes in enough accounts to know that DMCA violations were pursued by the Movie industry vigorously. I would see the movie name, date, time and copyright owner serving our company the DMCA notices) Those were usually older, before the streaming sticks came out.
OK if you got though all that, what I want to discuss is what is running under the hood of these apps? I seen enough instances of click on movie with several/ multiple sources to stream it from.
I did notice that the actual app, alot of different people were using were the same and it changed over time. ( I assumed due to the DMCA takedowns)
Know what I want to know is, since these were all app based, basically point and click for average joe to utilize, what really was/is going on under the hood there?
My guess is the apps were for the lack off a better term torrenting, under the GUI interface that whoever created. Am I on the right path here? Because that would explain the performance issues on less popular stuff, if there weren't enough seeders.
Or am I wrong and it's some sort of data base, that people would encode on their own, and upload to? Or even host publicly themselves? Another theory I would tell people is that it's possible whichever (insert what they clicked on here) didn't have enough upload bandwidth capacity that could be causing the buffering, Maybe being hosted on the other side of the world.
I know there were a few local people that made quite a bit of money off this, especially when the takedowns would happen and a new app would need to be sideloaded.
Are my theories correct? Or close to it? On what is going on under the GUI of these apps?
@JackMDS or @Perknose or @ElFenix to see if this is correct forum and/or will be allowed discussion.
I have never owned a Fire Stick or Box, Google, Apple TV, or any other streaming box myself. I do use 2 Chromecast devices though. Rest is Either integrated into the TV (Samsung's version or Roku)
A little background of me, which causes me this question that kinda eats away at me. I work for an ISP, I was on the install side for 3.5 years, prior to that I worked for DirecTV for 7 years until the AT&T buyout happened. 2 year gap in between those two that had nothing to do with tech.
So I was in it when satellite went from LNB to multi-switch to dual coax to DVRs, to using MOCA single coax to single coax to each DVR or Host/Clients.
When I went to the cable company, they already had integrated moca into their devices, and were licensing the actual TiVo software on their Host/Client systems. Satellite copied TiVo format and tried to improve upon it. (different discussion) So 7 years as satellite 2 year gap then cable ISP to present.
So, at that point I was installing CATV/HSD/Phone systems. At present a majority of our customers are HSD only (highspeed data)
Late 2017 is when I started the HSD installing. At that time I know about Plex and Kodi, HTPC stuff ect. (can't remember when I got first Chromecast) But I never jumped onto the Firestick or streaming box train. I actually don't know how many of them allow sideloading apps. I know the Firestick/box could Whenever that came along. Just never jumped into the Amazon ecosystem.
So over the course of time, I noticed alot of slow speed trouble calls, buffering issues, ect. I also noticed alot of them were Firestick related or insert no name streaming box here. I would speed test the connection at their modem and alot were no problem found.
So that is the point I started asking them to show me the problem, and they would get kinda cagey, about well their nephew (insert meaningless person here) gave it to them or they bought it off a friend ect. I would tell them I don't care what they were doing ect, I'd get the questions off is this illegal, will i get in trouble ect. I always said it's a grey area.
If they were straight up downloading copyright protected stuff, well that's a different conversation. (I read enough notes in enough accounts to know that DMCA violations were pursued by the Movie industry vigorously. I would see the movie name, date, time and copyright owner serving our company the DMCA notices) Those were usually older, before the streaming sticks came out.
OK if you got though all that, what I want to discuss is what is running under the hood of these apps? I seen enough instances of click on movie with several/ multiple sources to stream it from.
I did notice that the actual app, alot of different people were using were the same and it changed over time. ( I assumed due to the DMCA takedowns)
Know what I want to know is, since these were all app based, basically point and click for average joe to utilize, what really was/is going on under the hood there?
My guess is the apps were for the lack off a better term torrenting, under the GUI interface that whoever created. Am I on the right path here? Because that would explain the performance issues on less popular stuff, if there weren't enough seeders.
Or am I wrong and it's some sort of data base, that people would encode on their own, and upload to? Or even host publicly themselves? Another theory I would tell people is that it's possible whichever (insert what they clicked on here) didn't have enough upload bandwidth capacity that could be causing the buffering, Maybe being hosted on the other side of the world.
I know there were a few local people that made quite a bit of money off this, especially when the takedowns would happen and a new app would need to be sideloaded.
Are my theories correct? Or close to it? On what is going on under the GUI of these apps?
@JackMDS or @Perknose or @ElFenix to see if this is correct forum and/or will be allowed discussion.