SKY launches FAN PASS 2.0 with new content, pricing plans and improved technology

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#1367811 17-Aug-2015 10:47

DizzyD:

To be honest, when watching sport I will gladly sacrifice the higher quality for a smoother game.

I could not care less if this was 1080p. If its not smooth, its not worth it.

Saying that though. I think when it comes to the quality, 720p is probably the lowest I would go. This should be the benchmark.

I on the other hand want both. I've got a Full HD TV, new TV's are 4k, Neulion proudly promote that they stream 4k.
I want the new lion, not the old lion.

Agree on the smoothness, plain and simple it needs to be TV quality on my TV, so a minimum consistent frame rate is required.
720p is the minimum that it needs to work at, it shouldn't be dropping below that.
1080p should be the target very soon, because as you say, it is 2015, heading towards 2016.

TVNZ broadcast the Olympics Games in August 2008 on freeview HD UHF TV ONE in 720p and in dolby surround sound.
Prime is still in SD and in stereo only 8 years later, we can do better.

DizzyD:

Its 2015, I can understand the need for a 540p under very limited certain circumstances. But 360p and 240p? Are those settings some sort of bad joke?

The really lower res options are used for less powerful cell phones I expect.

grant_k

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#1367813 17-Aug-2015 10:48

DizzyD:
tdgeek:

I'm with you. Great idea, I'm ok with the price, if its at least 720p. I'd also be ok if it was 10 minutes behind live, so that buffering can insulate from most variables. The issues you advised bother me. I don't want IMAX, but I don't want non sharp, stutters, either. Possibly not a great deal can be done with motion blur (?) Take the Jones channel. Old style TV, blurry, but smooth. Don't want that either. Yes, I'm used to HD.

To be honest, when watching sport I will gladly sacrifice the higher quality for a smoother game.

I could not care less if this was 1080p. If its not smooth, its not worth it.

Saying that though. I think when it comes to the quality, 720p is probably the lowest I would go. This should be the benchmark.
Its 2015, I can understand the need for a 540p under very limited certain circumstances. But 360p and 240p? Are those settings some sort of bad joke?

I think the reason for some of the above comments regarding 'non smooth motion', poor frame rate will be due to the laptops being used in some cases. Unless it's a high-spec laptop with separate video chipset, it may not have the grunt required for this kind of job. A friend brought over his smallish laptop and plugged it into my Panny Plasma and I noticed the erratic motion straight away. Being a low-end laptop I suspect it was using an integrated graphics chipset.

My desktop runs an i5 with 8GB of RAM. Motion on the secondary port to the TV is silky smooth unless I am doing something compute-intensive on the primary monitor.

Yes, I know that Fanpass is not quite up to the quality of HD programmes streamed or downloaded from the BBC, or for that matter, Sky Sport HD from the satellite. Maybe in a year or two it will be, but the goalposts keep shifting and to be realistic, the BBC may always be one or more steps ahead.

To me, this service is designed for people who want to watch sports on a casual basis, without the monthly commitment to paying $80+. In all the 20 years we had Sky, we never had the Sport channels because we wouldn't have watched them enough to justify it. Sure, there is a quality trade-off at this point in time, but it's worth it in return for the ability to buy just a week at a time.

If you're an 'HD or nothing kind of guy' then Fanpass is probably not for you, at this stage anyway. Keep paying the $80+ every month to get your fill, which is still good value if you watch it enough. For the rest of us who aren't that committed to watching sports on TV, Fanpass is a great option.

DizzyD

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#1367814 17-Aug-2015 10:49

tdgeek:

Yep. I was suprised that many here used a hardwired laptop. I have a strong laptoip, but when I play SVOD its never awesome. It looks fine, I see dropped frames, maybe not many but enough to notice. Play on my iPad and airplay to TV, sweet as a nut. Thats Lightbox. Laptop video, or laptops in general always seem to have that issue, no matter what the specs are. But an iPad, or an app seems as good as it gets IMHO. less power but way less going on on the device.

This is interesting.

I only tried on my laptop.
But its an Intel Core i7, with 16GB of RAM.
It runs Netflix, Vudu and Hulu+ in full quality HD just fine.

Its really hard to imagine that an ipad will do a better job.
Even my Roku 2 and Raspberry Pi do a great job at running HD content.

tdgeek

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#1367816 17-Aug-2015 10:51

DizzyD:
tdgeek:

Agree 100%. I have Sky Sport HD, so either I'm picky or I'm used to it. I'm not sure what SS HD looks like if you dont have the HD ticket, but I'd excpect I;d be ok with that, a step down from great, to very good. I alsio hate stutters, and sync issues, although sports doesn't matter with sync issues

And no popups, that is an issue.

However, after RWC seeing as its around the corner and F1 is still on, I will can Sky after RWC, Fanpass or no Fanpass. I'll hope that Fanpass improves, and I'll use LB and NF and the Dish FV+ recorder. Nice wee combo

I will be really interested to hear if there are any Sky Sports HD subscribers here that have tested this service, and are happy to make the switch.

I'll give it a crack this weekend, trying F1 free practice as my test. Is the free trial still on?

grant_k

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#1367819 17-Aug-2015 10:54

tdgeek: I'll give it a crack this weekend, trying F1 free practice as my test. Is the free trial still on?

Yes, until August 31st.

grant_k

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#1367820 17-Aug-2015 10:56

DizzyD:
tdgeek:

Yep. I was suprised that many here used a hardwired laptop. I have a strong laptoip, but when I play SVOD its never awesome. It looks fine, I see dropped frames, maybe not many but enough to notice. Play on my iPad and airplay to TV, sweet as a nut. Thats Lightbox. Laptop video, or laptops in general always seem to have that issue, no matter what the specs are. But an iPad, or an app seems as good as it gets IMHO. less power but way less going on on the device.

This is interesting.

I only tried on my laptop.
But its an Intel Core i7, with 16GB of RAM.
It runs Netflix, Vudu and Hulu+ in full quality HD just fine.

Its really hard to imagine that an ipad will do a better job.
Even my Roku 2 and Raspberry Pi do a great job at running HD content.

Interesting comments. Clearly your laptop is well and truly up to the job.

I'm wondering if the difference is happening because Fanpass still uses Flash Player?

Do Netflix, Vudu and Hulu+ still use Flash, or are they on HTML5?

DizzyD

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#1367822 17-Aug-2015 10:57

grant_k:
If you're an 'HD or nothing kind of guy' then Fanpass is probably not for you, at this stage anyway. Keep paying the $80+ every month to get your fill, which is still good value if you watch it enough. For the rest of us who aren't that committed to watching sports on TV, Fanpass is a great option.

100% agree.
The problem I have however is that Sky is adverting it as an HD service.

But then I guess it will be a terrible business model if Sky made the service just as good (or better) than Sky Sports HD Satellite.
Sky (Fan Pass) is after non Sky subscribers like you.
Like Igloo, its not going to move people off Sky.

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tdgeek

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#1367823 17-Aug-2015 10:58

DizzyD:
tdgeek:

Yep. I was suprised that many here used a hardwired laptop. I have a strong laptoip, but when I play SVOD its never awesome. It looks fine, I see dropped frames, maybe not many but enough to notice. Play on my iPad and airplay to TV, sweet as a nut. Thats Lightbox. Laptop video, or laptops in general always seem to have that issue, no matter what the specs are. But an iPad, or an app seems as good as it gets IMHO. less power but way less going on on the device.

This is interesting.

I only tried on my laptop.
But its an Intel Core i7, with 16GB of RAM.
It runs Netflix, Vudu and Hulu+ in full quality HD just fine.

Its really hard to imagine that an ipad will do a better job.
Even my Roku 2 and Raspberry Pi do a great job at running HD content.

100% smooth, never any missed frames? I noticed this on Lightbox testing and this was a common comment by others. That dropped frame every few secs is annoying.
iPad Airplay appears to be the best performing option. iPad video is wonderfully smooth, and its only being transferred to the Apple TV
I also have no issues with SkyGo on it, its good. But I havent used SkyGo on high interest stuff such as AB's

tdgeek

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#1367832 17-Aug-2015 11:06

Is there any chance it might be app based, or is that a no go based on how Neulion operates?
Could that improve the overall experience?

bbunnys

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#1367842 17-Aug-2015 11:22

Interesting I just checked with Sky and it does not include the pop up channels. So thats a big negative for me as lots of the motorsport and other sports are now on pop up channels. And I bet Bathurst will be as well.

dclegg

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#1367843 17-Aug-2015 11:25

tdgeek:
Yep. I was suprised that many here used a hardwired laptop. I have a strong laptoip, but when I play SVOD its never awesome. It looks fine, I see dropped frames, maybe not many but enough to notice. Play on my iPad and airplay to TV, sweet as a nut. Thats Lightbox. Laptop video, or laptops in general always seem to have that issue, no matter what the specs are. But an iPad, or an app seems as good as it gets IMHO. less power but way less going on on the device.

I used a laptop for the first half of the rugby because I couldn't get AirPlay to reliably work. The AirPlay link kept dropping, or the stream would pause to rebuffer.

I tried again in the second half, and it worked much better than my laptop (which had a generally unwatchable picture). I also used AirPlay for the netball last night, and apart from a few stutters, it worked well* for most of the game

*Where "well" is defined as having a watchable picture, somewhere between SD and 720p. But still nowhere near as clear and crisp as what I get using the same setup from Netflix, Hulu, HBO or Lightbox.

grant_k

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#1367846 17-Aug-2015 11:30

dclegg: I tried again in the second half, and it worked much better than my laptop (which had a generally unwatchable picture). I also used AirPlay for the netball last night, and apart from a few stutters, it worked well* for most of the game

*Where "well" is defined as having a watchable picture, somewhere between SD and 720p. But still nowhere near as clear and crisp as what I get using the same setup from Netflix, Hulu, HBO or Lightbox.

So does anybody know whether Netflix, Hulu, HBO or Lightbox use Flash or HTML5?

It seems to me that may be the difference here.

dclegg

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#1367847 17-Aug-2015 11:31

grant_k:
I think the reason for some of the above comments regarding 'non smooth motion', poor frame rate will be due to the laptops being used in some cases. Unless it's a high-spec laptop with separate video chipset, it may not have the grunt required for this kind of job. A friend brought over his smallish laptop and plugged it into my Panny Plasma and I noticed the erratic motion straight away. Being a low-end laptop I suspect it was using an integrated graphics chipset.

I was using a MacBook Pro with a 2.7GHz Intel Core i7, 16GB RAM, with a NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 1GB RAM. The browser being used was Chrome.

When it was able to sustain what I think was a 720p picture, there were noticeable stutters ever second or so for about 1/4 of a second. This frequency and duration of this stutter was consistent.

dclegg

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#1367848 17-Aug-2015 11:33

tdgeek:
iPad Airplay appears to be the best performing option. iPad video is wonderfully smooth, and its only being transferred to the Apple TV

Does anyone know how AirPlay actually works? Is the stream being downloaded from the SVOD provider to the iPad/iPhone, and then forwarded to the Apple TV? Or does it broker a special URL for the Apple TV to use, which it will then use to connect directly to the content?

grant_k

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#1367853 17-Aug-2015 11:48

dclegg:
grant_k:
I think the reason for some of the above comments regarding 'non smooth motion', poor frame rate will be due to the laptops being used in some cases. Unless it's a high-spec laptop with separate video chipset, it may not have the grunt required for this kind of job. A friend brought over his smallish laptop and plugged it into my Panny Plasma and I noticed the erratic motion straight away. Being a low-end laptop I suspect it was using an integrated graphics chipset.

I was using a MacBook Pro with a 2.7GHz Intel Core i7, 16GB RAM, with a NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M with 1GB RAM. The browser being used was Chrome.

When it was able to sustain what I think was a 720p picture, there were noticeable stutters ever second or so for about 1/4 of a second. This frequency and duration of this stutter was consistent.

NVidia GeForce GTX650 with 1GB of RAM is exactly what I'm using, but not the mobile version. I'm sure that wouldn't make any difference though as your MacBook Pro sounds perfect for the job in all other respects.

Several other people have mentioned bad experiences with Chrome, but I don't know whether you can use Firefox on a Mac? It might be worth trying if you can, because Firefox consistently delivers the goods for me, across a wide range of VOD sites.

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