We go to great lengths to use the most efficient codecs we can (the technology that compresses video files for streaming). This gives us the best balance of quality vs file size we can achieve. Once we've done that, you don't stream or download videos directly from our server, you stream them from a content delivery network (CDN). This is a commercial service we use to make streaming much faster on a global scale. It works by serving up copies of the original video from a location nearer to your location than our server. It is designed specifically to serve video globally, but it's performance can vary depending on your location relative to the nearest CDN "endpoint". There are many of these endpoints spread around the world.
Even though FulGaz streams tens of thousands of Gigabytes of data per month, it is a tiny drop in the ocean compared to companies like Netflix and YouTube. Unlike companies of that size, we have no control over the performance or location of these endpoints. This means we have no control over the speed of delivery between the nearest endpoint and your home.
Whilst this might sound like a way of absolving ourselves of all responsibility, it is the nature of how video streaming works for all except a very few of the largest video providers in the world. Passing this task onto a specialist service delivers much better results than we could achieve on our own.
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Do you know if the CDN is compressing them again? I still can't believe how bad the compression is. I'm technical and I do understand the tradeoffs of bitrate vs file size.
Has there been any thought put into somehow providing a way to deliver much higher bitrate video files to those who want them? For example (and yes I know this sounds crazy this day in age) we mail you a small external hard drive and you fill it up with higher quality (bit rate) videos and mail it back? I'd pay money for that.
Your app is amazing except for the fact that I can't watch nice clear video.
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