Geekzone: technology news, blogs, forums
Guest
Welcome Guest.
You haven't logged in yet. If you don't have an account you can register now.


ockel

2031 posts

Uber Geek


#189325 24-Dec-2015 12:58

While the range of content is adequate I notice that there are a few quirks:

- content available the next day on Neon (and even SkyGo) is not always available.  Most recent example is The Chronicles of Shannara interviews available on SkyGo but not OnDemand.  

- obvious Sky content that airs on Sky and Prime is not available OnDemand.   eg The Crowd Goes Wild.  


Has anyone noticed any other glaring omissions?




Sixth Labour Government - "Vision without Execution is just Hallucination" 


Create new topic
Juicytree
141 posts

Master Geek


  #1456580 24-Dec-2015 15:58
Send private message

Now that I have an HD television I generally avoid watching programs in SD.  Quite a few Sky channels transmit in SD - I assume because of bandwidth availability until they have swapped out all the old decoders.  I am certain Sky down scales most programs for that reason before transmitting them.  What annoys me most is they then place them on demand in SD format too.  I find this perplexing to the point of insulting.  Why can they not make them available in HD in their "on demand" service?



ockel

2031 posts

Uber Geek


  #1456591 24-Dec-2015 16:14

Juicytree: Now that I have an HD television I generally avoid watching programs in SD.  Quite a few Sky channels transmit in SD - I assume because of bandwidth availability until they have swapped out all the old decoders.  I am certain Sky down scales most programs for that reason before transmitting them.  What annoys me most is they then place them on demand in SD format too.  I find this perplexing to the point of insulting.  Why can they not make them available in HD in their "on demand" service?


Agreed.  But Sky has persisted in keeping Prime in SD for ever (at least until 2016).
And why do TVNZ and Mediaworks only offer their ondemand products in SD?  It seems its standard for everyone but Lightbox.  




Sixth Labour Government - "Vision without Execution is just Hallucination" 


JimmyH
2886 posts

Uber Geek


  #1456596 24-Dec-2015 16:16
Send private message

My pet peeve is similar.

For quite a bit of footage from the US which is natively at 59.94 fields/sec they seem to do a strange conversion to 50 fields/sec before broadcasting it here, which causes annoying picture judder (this is particularly noticeable when the credits run) because of the frame drops needed.

Given that virtually every TV sold in the last decade can cope with US framerates as well as with our broadcast standard, I wish they would just broadcast the material at its native framerate. There are converters available that can be put between the STB and the TV for anyone who wants to cling to an old TV. They would be in SD anyway, as I doubt there are any HD TVs on the market that won't cope with both framerates.



rugrat
3107 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

  #1456855 25-Dec-2015 01:31
Send private message

I would've subscribed to sky movies this month to get the Old Star Wars movies. Missed the pop up channel, but see it's on demand.

On demand is SD only, so I won't bother. Be nice to have bigger selection of movies without having to record, not in the quality I want so I just won't buy that channel product.

tdgeek
29746 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted
Lifetime subscriber

  #1456889 25-Dec-2015 07:52
Send private message

Odd. The obvious solution is to allow the user to select 480, 720 or 1080. That satisfies users internet speed capability, and gives the best UX. 
Is there a limit on the upstream available to Sky?

BarTender
3606 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified
Trusted
Lifetime subscriber

  #1457213 25-Dec-2015 22:23
Send private message

tdgeek: Odd. The obvious solution is to allow the user to select 480, 720 or 1080. That satisfies users internet speed capability, and gives the best UX. 
Is there a limit on the upstream available to Sky?


Nope.. It's all delivered off Akamai, so there is a cost associated with hosting different formats as each format takes up x GB of disk on an Akamai node, plus Akamai clip the ticket on every GB downloaded. So it will have come purely down to costs IMHO.

rugrat
3107 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

  #1457348 26-Dec-2015 11:59
Send private message

BarTender:
tdgeek: Odd. The obvious solution is to allow the user to select 480, 720 or 1080. That satisfies users internet speed capability, and gives the best UX. 
Is there a limit on the upstream available to Sky?


Nope.. It's all delivered off Akamai, so there is a cost associated with hosting different formats as each format takes up x GB of disk on an Akamai node, plus Akamai clip the ticket on every GB downloaded. So it will have come purely down to costs IMHO.


Yet others can do it, and they're only getting around $13 a month off each subscriber, and they can still make money from doing it. Light box has a lot of free subscribers at moment so doubt they're making money, but it must be affordable for them.

 
 
 
 

Send money globally for less with Wise - one free transfer up to NZ$900 (affiliate link).
ockel

2031 posts

Uber Geek


  #1457428 26-Dec-2015 15:57

rugrat:
BarTender:
tdgeek: Odd. The obvious solution is to allow the user to select 480, 720 or 1080. That satisfies users internet speed capability, and gives the best UX. 
Is there a limit on the upstream available to Sky?


Nope.. It's all delivered off Akamai, so there is a cost associated with hosting different formats as each format takes up x GB of disk on an Akamai node, plus Akamai clip the ticket on every GB downloaded. So it will have come purely down to costs IMHO.


Yet others can do it, and they're only getting around $13 a month off each subscriber, and they can still make money from doing it. Light box has a lot of free subscribers at moment so doubt they're making money, but it must be affordable for them.
\

Whether they're making money (any of them) is questionable.  Whether they make any money in the long run is also very questionable.




Sixth Labour Government - "Vision without Execution is just Hallucination" 


Create new topic





News and reviews »

Air New Zealand Starts AI adoption with OpenAI
Posted 24-Jul-2025 16:00


eero Pro 7 Review
Posted 23-Jul-2025 12:07


BeeStation Plus Review
Posted 21-Jul-2025 14:21


eero Unveils New Wi-Fi 7 Products in New Zealand
Posted 21-Jul-2025 00:01


WiZ Introduces HDMI Sync Box and other Light Devices
Posted 20-Jul-2025 17:32


RedShield Enhances DDoS and Bot Attack Protection
Posted 20-Jul-2025 17:26


Seagate Ships 30TB Drives
Posted 17-Jul-2025 11:24


Oclean AirPump A10 Water Flosser Review
Posted 13-Jul-2025 11:05


Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7: Raising the Bar for Smartphones
Posted 10-Jul-2025 02:01


Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7 Brings New Edge-To-Edge FlexWindow
Posted 10-Jul-2025 02:01


Epson Launches New AM-C550Z WorkForce Enterprise printer
Posted 9-Jul-2025 18:22


Samsung Releases Smart Monitor M9
Posted 9-Jul-2025 17:46


Nearly Half of Older Kiwis Still Write their Passwords on Paper
Posted 9-Jul-2025 08:42


D-Link 4G+ Cat6 Wi-Fi 6 DWR-933M Mobile Hotspot Review
Posted 1-Jul-2025 11:34


Oppo A5 Series Launches With New Levels of Durability
Posted 30-Jun-2025 10:15









Geekzone Live »

Try automatic live updates from Geekzone directly in your browser, without refreshing the page, with Geekzone Live now.



Are you subscribed to our RSS feed? You can download the latest headlines and summaries from our stories directly to your computer or smartphone by using a feed reader.