ockel:

niallm90:

ockel:

Apsattv:

Spark TV channel streams have also been dropped to 25 fps!

What the hell are they doing!~

 

Revenue earned not justifying costs incurred.....

The cost hasn't change, the bit rate is the same...

Lower development costs as Spark are only covering the lowest common denominator by covering the broadest range of supported devices but sacrificing quality to deliver.  Imagine a world where only one platform was supported - CPE cost for the consumer but easily supportable at a high quality.  [BTW the consumer has to acquire a Chromecast or an Apple TV or some CPE anyway, go figure]

Im talking about the linear channels

EDGE TV

MAN United

NBA

all were 50/60 FPS previously and now are 25/30

does Spark Sports have IPTV options? (m3u)?

This dumbing down of the stream quality is a such a poor decision. 

Who ever made it does not understand their target audience at all. 

They've clearly done it to alleviate their server/bandwidth costs (which even though not corroborated is clearly the reason for their variable quality over the past few months). 

It's a false economy, dropping fps on fast moving content like sports, for people who are specifically paying to watch these sports, will result in fewer people subscribing - and at that point you've dropped quality for nothing because you won't have the subscriber numbers to even tickle the servers.

I was about to sub for the EPL (and RWC), but based on these reports and some corroboration from friends I've decided not to bother until I get reports of improved quality.

Disappointed because I was looking forward to the EPL in particular but watching it at 30fps would just kill the enjoyment. I didn't invest in a 4k TV and fibre broadband to watch crappy quality streams at 30fps. This is 2019 ffs.

I'll simply find another source and VPN it. 

Good luck recouping that money you paid for the EPL rights Spark - given the small subscriber base here in NZ, you probably can't afford to be losing subscribers before the season even starts due to dumb executive decisions like this.

My bet is that the exec who made this call doesn't even watch sport.

grimwulf:

 

This dumbing down of the stream quality is a such a poor decision. 

 

Who ever made it does not understand their target audience at all. 

 

They've clearly done it to alleviate their server/bandwidth costs (which even though not corroborated is clearly the reason for their variable quality over the past few months). 

 

It's a false economy, dropping fps on fast moving content like sports, for people who are specifically paying to watch these sports, will result in fewer people subscribing - and at that point you've dropped quality for nothing because you won't have the subscriber numbers to even tickle the servers.

 

I was about to sub for the EPL (and RWC), but based on these reports and some corroboration from friends I've decided not to bother until I get reports of improved quality.

 

Disappointed because I was looking forward to the EPL in particular but watching it at 30fps would just kill the enjoyment. I didn't invest in a 4k TV and fibre broadband to watch crappy quality streams at 30fps. This is 2019 ffs.

 

I'll simply find another source and VPN it. 

 

Good luck recouping that money you paid for the EPL rights Spark - given the small subscriber base here in NZ, you probably can't afford to be losing subscribers before the season even starts due to dumb executive decisions like this.

 

My bet is that the exec who made this call doesn't even watch sport.

 

The reduction in fps has not effected the bit rate and so has not reduced bandwidth costs. The 60fps stream and 30fps steam are both 6Mbps.

I'm giving this the benefit of the doubt for the moment.  I'm not entirely happy with the performance of F1 but the fast panning for EPL will be a deal breaker if it carries on like this.

The reduction in fps has not effected the bit rate and so has not reduced bandwidth costs. The 60fps stream and 30fps steam are both 6Mbps.

I'm not convinced that that is true - however I'm not a streaming video guru so stand to be corrected.

I would argue that :-

• That a 60fps source video file at the same quality will have roughly double the file-size of that of a 30fps source video - simply by virtue of having double the number of frames.
• Transmission at the same bit-rate would (all things being equal) take twice as long...
• And would therefore consume more bandwidth and thereby server handling time as the stream downloads and buffers...
• Thus more bandwidth used and more server handling time required for the same time period.
• For example, at the 6Mbps quoted - you'd could have your 30fps stream at maximum buffer (which means the server takes a breather) whilst your 60fps stream would still be buffering (which means the server's still doing something).

In my view it's primarily cost-reduction math on Sparks end - TLDR; servers can handle more 'concurrent' 30fps streams than 60fps streams = lower server costs and lower bandwidth costs.

Given the quoted reason of 'supporting more client platforms' - I'd be interested if anyone has examples of any of Sparks supported client platforms that can't handle a 60fps stream?

Just had a live chat with spark sport and the rep said, and I quote: "We did this to offer more devices" and "sorry about that".

What a joke!

Understandable, although I would be interested in why the lower frame rates has been selected, it was very clear on the football feeds and noticeable on the F1 feeds... Given Sky Sports now is supposed to be 1080p/60 (unless I've got it wrong) spark need to consider their offering in relation to their competitors, not only on content but price and performance.

grimwulf:

 

The reduction in fps has not effected the bit rate and so has not reduced bandwidth costs. The 60fps stream and 30fps steam are both 6Mbps.

 

I'm not convinced that that is true - however I'm not a streaming video guru so stand to be corrected.

 

I would argue that :-

 

• That a 60fps source video file at the same quality will have roughly double the file-size of that of a 30fps source video - simply by virtue of having double the number of frames.
• Transmission at the same bit-rate would (all things being equal) take twice as long...
• And would therefore consume more bandwidth and thereby server handling time as the stream downloads and buffers...
• Thus more bandwidth used and more server handling time required for the same time period.
• For example, at the 6Mbps quoted - you'd could have your 30fps stream at maximum buffer (which means the server takes a breather) whilst your 60fps stream would still be buffering (which means the server's still doing something).

In my view it's primarily cost-reduction math on Sparks end - TLDR; servers can handle more 'concurrent' 30fps streams than 60fps streams = lower server costs and lower bandwidth costs.

 

Given the quoted reason of 'supporting more client platforms' - I'd be interested if anyone has examples of any of Sparks supported client platforms that can't handle a 60fps stream?

 

I'm no expert either but Mbps is a measure of the bandwidth. A 6 Mbps stream could be 8K at 60fps and look terrible or 720p at 30fps and look great. There can be no increase in time it takes to transmit the stream on live content. Given what Spark published at the NZ NOG the stream maxes out at 6 Mbps for both 30fps and 60fps.

With live content you need to have an average bandwidth higher than 6 Mbps for it to be streamed to you at this rate. If it was taking twice as long to download it wouldn't be "live". You would have to buffer 50% before you could watch the whole thing without buffering.

Talkiet, can appreciate your response, everyone deserves respect.

However, I've got to say, there's clearly a problem here, which I suspect could become a much bigger problem for SS when the RWC starts streaming. A lack of engagement by SS here is not going to help, and seems to be contributing to people's frustrations. It's not even clear if SS are still looking at re-introducing 50/60 fps at some point?

So perhaps we can help come up with a solution to this? To help provide feedback to SS on what us, as customers, are thinking. To start, what is the actual problem?

Looking at bandwidth, I'm seeing 6,000 kbps on SS (as the VOD filename suggests). What's interesting is that YouTube seems to be 4,500 kbps when I watch the German GP highlights at 1080p50. DRM may add an overhead, but still, perhaps bandwidth is not the major factor here, especially if it was 6,000 at 50 fps too?

SS Support have told me (as they have others) that "The reason for the change from 60 to 30fps is to ensure more devices are able to access the service as a number of devices were not able to work at 60."

OK, in which case there's a technical issue, a classic example of providing the "lowest common denominator". But what is the actual problem?

P1. Perhaps SS cannot identify which devices can support 50/60 fps? So ok, a technical issue.

P2. Perhaps SS can identify which devices can support 50/60 fps, but do not want to provide two different streams (e.g. 25 & 50)? Perhaps a technical issue, but possibly a financial issue?

If it technical, what could be done to solve it? How about:

S1. Could SS introduce a per-device setting to choose the frame rate ("High" or "Low")? Or if there's some limitation (or other reason) why device-level settings are not possible, why not have an account-level setting? I'm always watching on the same device, for example, so an account-level setting is fine for me. It could default to "Low", for now at least.

S2. YouTube seems to dynamically adapt fine to the device playing the video. So why can't the SS player do the same?

S3. Perhaps at least the browser-based SS - when it identifies the device as a PC - could default to 50/60 fps?

Without knowing exactly which devices cannot do 50/60 fps, it's tricky to come up with a specific solution, but there's got to be a solution somewhere?!