Spark to offer FAN PASS to unlimited broadband customers

Forums › Sky, Neon, Lightbox › Spark to offer FAN PASS to unlimited broadband customers

1 | 2 | 3 | 4

6037 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#2026851 1-Jun-2018 11:40

tdgeek:

davidcole:

Much better than $90 a month. Pity it doesn't also include special event popups. And I still think fanpass need to do event passes, eg FIFA world cup, Americas Cup, Rugby world cup, Olympics etc.

I agree, but if they allowed users to pay $5 this month, $15 some other month that would be a big revenue hit

So given these generally now popup channels, I would expect that it might almost me an add on to the regular price, which woudl give you SS1 (for eg for RWC + the RWC popup channels).

Previously known as psycik

Home Assistant: Gigabyte AMD A8 Brix, Home Assistant with Aeotech ZWave Controller, Raspberry PI, Wemos D1 Mini, Zwave, Shelly Humidity and Temperature sensors
Media:Chromecast v2, ATV4 4k, ATV4, HDHomeRun Dual
Server Host Plex Server 3x3TB, 4x4TB using MergerFS, Samsung 850 evo 512 GB SSD, Proxmox Server with 1xW10, 2xUbuntu 22.04 LTS, Backblaze Backups, usenetprime.com fastmail.com Sharesies Trakt.TV Sharesight

Jas777

838 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2026896 1-Jun-2018 13:31

tdgeek:

ockel:

MikeB4:

The first thing that popped into my head when I read this was at what speed would Spark had been on the phone to the Commerce Commission if this deal was offered through other Telcos.

If its a wholesale deal that other Telcos are happy to sign the terms on then Sky will offer it to them too. Sky has always said the wholesale terms it offers are for all-comers. Spark pays away to Spotify and Netflix on wholesale terms (and internally from between Spark and Lightbox I'd guess). In both cases the question would be the wholesale price that Spark pays for that content. I'd guess there is a price that Spark is paying to Sky - the gap payment between the $30/mth customer charge and the wholesale price so to speak.

Possibly its not a payment issue, but cooperation with sports such as RWC that Spark/TVNZ now has, and whatever other sports are bought?

I think its a good deal for both. People won't ditch Sky to get this if they are big sport watchers as many standard sports are on popups. A few will though. But many that ditched Sky for cost reasons but want sport will jump at this I'd say.

I wont ditch because no matter what people say the streaming quality for sports is not as good as the normal SKY quality

allio

885 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2026918 1-Jun-2018 14:13

tdgeek:

Im keen to see how good FP is. Last time I used it, it was 720 (just), but had jitter, as if every few frames was a missing frame. If it streamed well, and was smooth, well worth it, just be careful of whats on popups

You can give it a try now for free - just create an account and watch some of the (very limited) free content. The 'daily highlights' videos that are more than two days old are free.

My experience streaming to Chromecast on a 4K TV with VDSL:

Resolution is 720p, bitrate seemed to be about 4500-5000kbps. The still picture looks good - not quite as good as 1080p over the satellite, but miles better than any free stream and considerably better than Sky Go.

Chromecast support is great. It's built into the page itself (you don't have to use a browser extension). It has dedicated controls and was very fast and responsive.

Frame rate/motion is an issue. I first tried with motion interpolation on my TV turned on. This produced smooth motion (with a bit of jank), but the ball was strobing in and out of existence as it moved around the field/sky - not good. Turning off motion interpolation fixes the strobe, but the resulting picture is very jerky compared to broadcast sports. It's like you're watching a movie about sports instead of live sports.

The solution was to switching my Chromecast to 50hz mode and set motion interpolation to high - this gave very minimal strobing/jank and mostly smooth motion. It's still quite a long way short of what the broadcast feed looks like. Sports without fast motion (lawn bowls? darts) would be very acceptable, but rugby/soccer/cricket suffer a bit. I imagine the issue is that the feed is 25p instead of 50i.

Overall, it's good enough, but it's not like watching Sky Sports over the satellite.

tdgeek

29753 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2026922 1-Jun-2018 14:16

allio:

tdgeek:

Im keen to see how good FP is. Last time I used it, it was 720 (just), but had jitter, as if every few frames was a missing frame. If it streamed well, and was smooth, well worth it, just be careful of whats on popups

You can give it a try now for free - just create an account and watch some of the (very limited) free content. The 'daily highlights' videos that are more than two days old are free.

My experience streaming to Chromecast on a 4K TV with VDSL:

Resolution is 720p, bitrate seemed to be about 4500-5000kbps. The still picture looks good - not quite as good as 1080p over the satellite, but miles better than any free stream and considerably better than Sky Go.

Frame rate/motion is an issue. I first tried with motion interpolation on my TV turned on. This produced smooth motion (with a bit of jank), but the ball was strobing in and out of existence as it moved around the field/sky - not good. Turning off motion interpolation fixes the strobe, but the resulting picture is very jerky compared to broadcast sports. It's like you're watching a movie about sports instead of live sports.

The solution was to switching my Chromecast to 50hz mode and set motion interpolation to high - this gave very minimal strobing/jank and mostly smooth motion. It's still quite a long way short of what the broadcast feed looks like. Sports without fast motion (lawn bowls? darts) would be very acceptable, but rugby/soccer/cricket suffer a bit. I imagine the issue is that the feed is 25p instead of 50i.

Overall, it's good enough, but it's not like watching Sky Sports over the satellite.

I have Sky, so I am not eligible to have Fanpass

allio

885 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2026924 1-Jun-2018 14:18

tdgeek:

I have Sky, so I am not eligible to have Fanpass

I don't think they'll stop you signing up - just use a different email address than you use for your Sky account? Or just take my word for it about the video quality :p

tdgeek

29753 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2027048 1-Jun-2018 16:49

allio:

tdgeek:

I have Sky, so I am not eligible to have Fanpass

I don't think they'll stop you signing up - just use a different email address than you use for your Sky account? Or just take my word for it about the video quality :p

:-) When I had FP, I watched F1, it was ok. I'd expect any streaming of recorded stuff to be fine, but live streaming is the tricky one. I put the jitter down to that

Senecio

2715 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#2027340 2-Jun-2018 07:26

I'm a Spark customer and think it would be great value but I'd be lost without the pop up channels.

Quic Broadband

Move to New Zealand's best fibre broadband service (affiliate link). Free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE. Note that to use Quic Broadband you must be comfortable with configuring your own router.

tdgeek

29753 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2027350 2-Jun-2018 09:06

Senecio:

I'm a Spark customer and think it would be great value but I'd be lost without the pop up channels.

Same. The popups used to have niche stuff, like surfboard champs, but now its not uncommon to have mainstream sports. When this thread popped up, LPGA live with Lydia Ko was on a popup

allio

885 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2027388 2-Jun-2018 10:22

tdgeek:

Senecio:

I'm a Spark customer and think it would be great value but I'd be lost without the pop up channels.

Same. The popups used to have niche stuff, like surfboard champs, but now its not uncommon to have mainstream sports. When this thread popped up, LPGA live with Lydia Ko was on a popup

Last night the England v Pakistan test was on a popup as well. Not sure the value proposition is all that good really.

It must be a tactical decision, not a technical one, because the popups are on Sky Go.

tdgeek

29753 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2027399 2-Jun-2018 10:29

allio:

tdgeek:

Senecio:

I'm a Spark customer and think it would be great value but I'd be lost without the pop up channels.

Same. The popups used to have niche stuff, like surfboard champs, but now its not uncommon to have mainstream sports. When this thread popped up, LPGA live with Lydia Ko was on a popup

Last night the England v Pakistan test was on a popup as well. Not sure the value proposition is all that good really.

It must be a tactical decision, not a technical one, because the popups are on Sky Go.

Yes. If you have a full option at full price, and you bring in a budget option its hard to offer the full experience. Then bunches would downgrade Sky to $30 FanPass. You could get Sky and all Sports with no recorder for $55.91, so $30 seems fair.

Kiwifruta

1423 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#2027407 2-Jun-2018 10:40

tdgeek:

allio:

tdgeek:

Senecio:

I'm a Spark customer and think it would be great value but I'd be lost without the pop up channels.

Same. The popups used to have niche stuff, like surfboard champs, but now its not uncommon to have mainstream sports. When this thread popped up, LPGA live with Lydia Ko was on a popup

Last night the England v Pakistan test was on a popup as well. Not sure the value proposition is all that good really.

It must be a tactical decision, not a technical one, because the popups are on Sky Go.

Yes. If you have a full option at full price, and you bring in a budget option its hard to offer the full experience. Then bunches would downgrade Sky to $30 FanPass. You could get Sky and all Sports with no recorder for $55.91, so $30 seems fair.

For $55.91/month is the rugby in Full HD or just SD?

tdgeek

29753 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2027441 2-Jun-2018 11:35

Kiwifruta:

tdgeek:

allio:

tdgeek:

Senecio:

I'm a Spark customer and think it would be great value but I'd be lost without the pop up channels.

Same. The popups used to have niche stuff, like surfboard champs, but now its not uncommon to have mainstream sports. When this thread popped up, LPGA live with Lydia Ko was on a popup

Last night the England v Pakistan test was on a popup as well. Not sure the value proposition is all that good really.

It must be a tactical decision, not a technical one, because the popups are on Sky Go.

Yes. If you have a full option at full price, and you bring in a budget option its hard to offer the full experience. Then bunches would downgrade Sky to $30 FanPass. You could get Sky and all Sports with no recorder for $55.91, so $30 seems fair.

For $55.91/month is the rugby in Full HD or just SD?

Not sure if Sky Sport 1-4 plus popups are all HD or if dependent on the feed, but sport looks great to me

SeymourScagnetti

58 posts

Master Geek

#2029746 5-Jun-2018 12:04

allio:

tdgeek:

Senecio:

I'm a Spark customer and think it would be great value but I'd be lost without the pop up channels.

Same. The popups used to have niche stuff, like surfboard champs, but now its not uncommon to have mainstream sports. When this thread popped up, LPGA live with Lydia Ko was on a popup

Last night the England v Pakistan test was on a popup as well. Not sure the value proposition is all that good really.

It must be a tactical decision, not a technical one, because the popups are on Sky Go.

In regards to pop-ups the full FIFA World Cup will be on SKY Sport 3 & 4 this time round

KrazyKid

1238 posts

Uber Geek

#2029800 5-Jun-2018 13:24

For $55.91/month is the rugby in Full HD or just SD?

Last time I used Fanpass it seemed to be at about 720p equivalent bitrate. I stopped using it when they dropped the weekly subs.
But up to then it looked good on my Samsung 4K TV. Roughly the same quality as watching a HD satellite image at my mate's house from memory.

waikariboy

902 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

#2032659 9-Jun-2018 17:03

joined up when i heard about this, am happy, have noticed some network performance issues, but for 30$ i get to watch my sports. All i want now is my apple tv to tell me when a NRL game is coming up!

Balm its gone!

1 | 2 | 3 | 4