Internet TV is growing, but there's a catch

Tens of thousands of viewers who tried to tune in for Sunday's season finale of the HBO hit crime drama True Detective may have been left without a resolution to the complex plotline. It wasn't because of a cable outage. It wasn't because of a blackout sparked by a cable services feud with a pay-TV channel. Rather, it was the result of so many people trying to watch the finale on HBO Go -- the cable channel's streaming service.

Streaming media -- or "over the top" (OTT) as it's called by those in the industry -- has long been seen as having the potential to seriously disrupt the status quo of the cable television business. But HBO's recent failure shows that the drama isn't limited to just what viewers are watching on the screen. Even Netflix, which successfully transitioned from a DVD-by-mail service to a streaming provider, has had problems ensuring quality of service. Many viewers who expected Blu-ray or at least DVD-quality video were left with a picture of much lower resolution, especially during peak hours where demand was high.

"It is an inherent problem with OTT," said Greg Ireland, research manager in the consumer markets for video program at research firm IDC. "If we expect the OTT market to develop and supplant traditional paid TV, then reliability and quality becomes so much more important."

Netflix, which is now producing original programming such as the critically acclaimed and award-winning series House of Cards, recently agreed to a deal with Comcast so that its subscribers using Comcast's service would see improved picture quality, rather than the lesser quality picture resulting from throttled bandwidth. Netflix reported that speeds to Comcast customers were up 11% in February from the month prior, following four straight months of declines. Netflix -- the Internet company seen as competing with traditional cable channels such as HBO and Showtime -- must pay the cable company to ensure quality of its streaming service. The fates of the disruptor and disrupted are intertwined.