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Marketta Carucci
I just recently purchased the WD TV media player and I am very happy with it so far. I did notice however that there is another player on the market, the WD TV live streaming. What is the difference between the two? I tried to look for WD TV live streaming on the WD website to make a comparison but could not find it.
There are TONS of playback devices on the market that now support DLNA and local media playback, only none do it (IMHO) as good as WD. With WD carrying Netflix, users could toss out, or simply not buy other devices. I have a WD TV Live on every TV in my home, streaming from a NAS. That is all I need, as the WD has every thing I need. Not only does the WD play just about anything, it has a gig port.
A streaming media service (also simply called a streaming service) is an online platform that allows users to watch or listen to content, such as movies, TV shows, music, or podcasts, over the internet. Instead of downloading the content to their device, users can stream it in real-time, which means they can start watching or listening immediately without having to wait for the entire file to download. Popular examples of streaming services include Netflix, Spotify, and YouTube.
An over-the-top media service (OTT) is a streaming media service offered directly to viewers via the Internet. OTT bypasses cable, broadcast, and satellite television platforms, the companies that traditionally act as controllers or distributors of such content. Most of these services are owned by a major film studio. Some streaming services started as an add-on to Blu-ray offerings, which are supplements to the programs watched.
Digital streaming acts in a similar way to on-demand television in that the program to watch is selected. But the program is not recorded or stored like it might be on TiVo, etc. Digital video purchases grant a user indefinite access to a show or film, but the terms and conditions vary as to whether the file can be downloaded or must be streamed.
A client end-user can use a media player, computer, smartphone, or smart TV to start and continue playing digital video content before the entire file has been transmitted. Users will need an Internet connection to stream or download video content. Users lacking compatible hardware or software systems may be unable to stream or download certain content.
Hulu: Hulu Originals,[g] 20th Television, FX Networks, 20th Century Studios, Searchlight Pictures, Blue Sky Studios, Touchstone Pictures, Hollywood Pictures, licensed content from other vendors
Max: HBO, Max Originals, Cinemax, Warner Bros.,[m] The CW, Discovery Channel, Food Network, TLC, Asian Food Network, Eurosport, HGTV, ID, Travel Channel, Animal Planet, Magnolia Network, New Line Cinema, DC Studios, Turner Entertainment, Warner Bros. Discovery Sports, CNN, HLN, BBC Studios, Sesame Workshop,[n] Comedy Central,[o] Studio Ghibli,[o] Cartoon Network, Cartoonito, Boomerang, Adult Swim, TBS, TNT, TruTV, Wizarding World
The following services are owned and operated by television networks, cable channels, or other conglomerates in that market. They are major content producers, and their streaming services serve as the primary means of distributing the content that often first airs on their networks or channels.
Even before millions were confined to their homes by a global pandemic, improvements in internet connections and service offerings had led to an exponential increase in the use of streaming video around the world. With few options left for entertainment, streaming services are taking off. In this commentary, we examine the carbon footprint of these services.
Streaming services are associated with energy use and carbon emissions from devices, network infrastructure and data centres. Yet, contrary to a slew of recent misleading media coverage, the climate impacts of streaming video remain relatively modest, particularly compared to other activities and sectors.
Drawing on our analysis and other credible sources, we expose the flawed assumptions in one widely reported estimate of the emissions from watching 30 minutes of Netflix. These exaggerate the actual climate impact by up 90 times.
The relatively low climate impact of streaming video today is thanks to rapid improvements in the energy efficiency of data centres, networks and devices. But slowing efficiency gains, rebound effects and new demands from emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain, raise increasing concerns about the overall environmental impacts of the sector over the coming decades.
Update 11/12/2020: The energy intensity figures for data centres and data transmission networks were updated to reflect more recent data and research. As a result, the central IEA estimate for one hour of streaming video in 2019 is now 36gCO2, down from 82gCO2 in the original analysis published in February 2020. The updated charts and comparisons also include the corrected values published by The Shift Project in June 2020, as well as other recent estimates quoted by the media.
Looking at electricity consumption alone, the original Shift Project figures imply that one hour of Netflix consumes 6.1 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity. This is enough to drive a Tesla Model S more than 30km, power an LED lightbulb constantly for a month, or boil a kettle once a day for nearly three months. The corrected figures imply that one hour of Netflix consumes 0.8 kWh.
With 167 million Netflix subscribers watching an average of two hours per day, the corrected Shift Project figures imply that Netflix streaming consumes around 94 terawatt hours (TWh) per year, which is 200 times larger than figures reported by Netflix (0.45TWh in 2019).
The assumptions behind the Shift Project analysis (largely based on a 2015 paper, whose assumptions have been significantly revised in 2019 and 2020) contain a series of flaws, which, taken together, seriously exaggerate the electricity consumed by streaming video.
This difference stemmed from a stated assumption of 3Mbps apparently being converted in error to 3 megabytes per second, MBps, with each byte equivalent to eight bits. The Shift Project corrected this error in their June 2020 update, but did not revise any of their other assumptions, discussed below.
The Shift Project analysis overestimates the energy intensity of data centres and content delivery networks (CDNs) that serve streaming video to consumers by around 35-fold, relative to figures derived from 2019 Netflix electricity consumption data and subscriber usage data.
My original February 2020 analysis showed that the Shift Project assumptions for data transmission energy intensity (0.15-0.88 kWh/GB) were much higher than more recent estimates (0.025-0.23kWh/GB). However, the latest research shows that these data-based intensity values (kWh/GB) are not appropriate for estimating the network energy use of high bitrate applications such as streaming video. Instead, experts advise using time-based energy intensity values (kWh per viewing hour). Therefore, my assumptions for data transmission energy use have been updated with time-based energy intensity values.
Taken together, my updated analysis suggests that streaming a Netflix video in 2019 typically consumed around 0.077 kWh of electricity per hour, some 80-times less than the original estimate by the Shift Project (6.1 kWh) and 10-times less than the corrected estimated (0.78 kWh), as shown in the chart, below left. The results are highly sensitive to the choice of viewing device, type of network connection and resolution, as shown in the chart, below right.
The IEA estimate is also substantially lower than other estimates quoted in the media, including 22-times lower than the Despacito claim (cited on Channel 4, the BBC, Fortune, and Al Jazeera, assuming a global average grid mix) and 11-times lower than the claim by Save On Energy that 80 million views of Birdbox emitted 66ktCO2 (cited in the New Yorker, Euronews, Forbes, Die Welt, and the Daily Mail). My estimate of 36gCO2 per hour is over 2100-times lower than Marks et al. (2020) who estimated that 35 hours of HD video emits 2.68tCO2, or 77kgCO2 per hour.
But as the chart above shows, this figure depends heavily on the generation mix of the country in question. In France, where around 90% of electricity comes from low-carbon sources, the emissions would be around 2gCO2e, equivalent to 10 metres of driving.
Using country average emission factors may still overestimate emissions, particularly from data centres. Technology firms operating large data centres are leaders in corporate procurement of clean energy, accounting for about half of renewable power purchase agreements in recent years.
The electricity mix is also rapidly decarbonising in many parts of the world. For instance, the emissions intensity of electricity in the UK fell by nearly 60% between 2008 and 2018. Compared to 2019 levels, global emissions intensity of electricity falls by around a quarter by 2030 in the IEA Stated Policies Scenario and by half in the Sustainable Development Scenario.
As well as changes that are invisible to the consumer, there are also obvious trends in the technology seen everyday. Devices are also becoming smaller and more efficient, for example, in shifts from CRT to LCD screens, and from personal computers to tablets and smartphones.
Many new video streaming and cloud gaming services have also launched in recent months. Particularly noteworthy is the rapid growth in video traffic over mobile networks, which is growing at 55% per year. Phones and tablets already account for more than 70% of the billion hours of YouTube streamed every day.
The ease of accessing streaming media is leading to a large rebound effect, with overall streaming video consumption rising rapidly. But the complexity of direct and indirect effects of digital services, such as streaming video, e-books, and online shopping, make it immensely challenging to quantify the net environmental impacts, relative to alternative forms of consumption.
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