T-Mobile Binge-On compatibility

[Letters 3]

I was wondering if the team has explored the posibility to get added to the t-mobile binge-on white list. From what I understand of the technical requirements, Emby seems to already meet the criteria. Maybe T-Mobile doesn't want to enable user-run servers though.

 

http://www.t-mobile.com/offer/binge-on-streaming-video.html#

[Deathsquirrel 741]

Call me cynical but it seems likely there are kickbacks involved there that Emby can't swing

[Untoten 296]

That would be difficult to say the least.  Most servers are not coming from a central domain or any known location.  Emby would have to build in some type of handshake mechanism to verify it was Emby activity.  If they relied on headers, etc that would allow users to take advantage and forge headers from other apps via proxy and effectively get all their activity whitelisted.  Problem with Emby is that most server are ad-hoc and not directly managed or put behind the emby domain.

[thefirstofthe300 291]

I am not sure we want to become compatible with Binge On because of how Binge On works.

 

From the EFF:

 

Our last finding is that T-Mobile’s video “optimization” doesn’t actually alter or enhance the video stream for delivery to a mobile device over a mobile network in any way.  This means T-Mobile’s “optimization” consists entirely of throttling the video stream’s throughput down to 1.5Mbps. If the video is more than 480p and the server sending the video doesn’t have a way to reduce or adapt the bitrate of the video as it’s being streamed, the result is stuttering and uneven streaming—exactly the opposite of the experience T-Mobile claims their “optimization” will have.

Given the difference between what T-Mobile implies they do and what we found, we contacted them to get clarification. They confirmed that they don’t do any actual optimization of video streams other than reducing the bandwidth allocated to them (and relying on the provider to notice, and adapt the bitrate accordingly).

 

Right now, I don't think that Emby is able to automatically adapt to a sudden drop in bandwidth.  I think the clients rely on a speedtest at the beginning of the video to automatically set the bitrate.  I can see becoming Binge On compatible causing a massive influx of users complaining that Emby suffers from stuttering when in reality the problem is T-Mobile throttling their bandwidth and hoping Emby will automatically detect the decreased bandwidth.

 

I may be totally wrong.  I also agree with Deathsquirrel that their is probably going to be a high cost to becoming compatible.

 

EFF page:https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/01/eff-confirms-t-mobiles-bingeon-optimization-just-throttling-applies