Watching Spark Sport (including launch and pricing)

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123 posts

Master Geek

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#2293845 11-Aug-2019 00:43

arnies: This doesn't really make sense to me. A higher frame rate should also indicate a higher bitrate. If theres now less frames per second but the same bitrate then what has increased in quality to allow that to happen?

Spark have always capped the bit rate at 6Mbps for both 30 and 60fps streams. So in theory the image quality will be higher now it's only running at 30fps.

Apsattv

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#2293850 11-Aug-2019 00:57

There are some codecs out there that are adapted for encoding certain sports involving motion, perhaps thats whats been done.

When Spark Sport started I suggested in here that they playout the world cup also as a Linear stream. Considering they have announced they will also run a linear worldcup service via SKY fior commercial customers, why not put the same channel on the website as well at both 50/60 30/25 fps. That would solve the quality issue.

JarrodM

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#2293851 11-Aug-2019 01:01

Seems like there’s some issues with the feed? Getting interference like static on Apple tv and my iOS app.

JarrodM

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#2293852 11-Aug-2019 01:11

JarrodM: Seems like there’s some issues with the feed? Getting interference like static on Apple tv and my iOS app.

This is quite bad barely watchable. Unsure whereabouts the fault is, but exact some issue happening in Apple tv and iOS app. Think it might be somewhere in the encoding process..

sbiddle

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Biddle Corp

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#2293874 11-Aug-2019 08:56

niallm90:
arnies: This doesn't really make sense to me. A higher frame rate should also indicate a higher bitrate. If theres now less frames per second but the same bitrate then what has increased in quality to allow that to happen?

Spark have always capped the bit rate at 6Mbps for both 30 and 60fps streams. So in theory the image quality will be higher now it's only running at 30fps.

Depends what you mean by "image quality".

Would you say the same if TV ONE suddenly moved from 1080i/25 and started broadcasting at 1080i/12 at the same bitrate?

Benoire

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#2293880 11-Aug-2019 09:07

Anyone noticed aliasing of the touch lines on the far side of the pitch? Was watching the Totenham vs Aston Villa and the near side and 18y area where ok but the far side was all aliased up, looked very odd... haven't seen that happen before.

tdgeek

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#2293896 11-Aug-2019 10:19

sbiddle:

Depends what you mean by "image quality".

Would you say the same if TV ONE suddenly moved from 1080i/25 and started broadcasting at 1080i/12 at the same bitrate?

I think the issue here us that TV1 at 1080i/25 is fine. SS at 25 or 30 isn't.

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niallm90

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#2293900 11-Aug-2019 10:26

sbiddle:

Depends what you mean by "image quality".

Would you say the same if TV ONE suddenly moved from 1080i/25 and started broadcasting at 1080i/12 at the same bitrate?

Fair call, perhaps "image quality" was a bad use of words. Frame quality is perhaps a better way of saying what I am trying to point out. The quality of each individual frame should be higher. If in your example TV ONE dropped the broadcast down to 1080i/1 and kept the same bit rate, then in theory the quality of each frame would be higher. This is oversimplifying video encoding quite a bit though and I doubt they work as well down at 1fps.

Edit:

I was just trying to point out to some people how they could change the FPS but not have the bit rate change. I agree that the change looks worse and I vastly prefer the 60fps streams over the 30fps. In my opinion their platform has gone from looking better than Sky to looking worse.

tdgeek

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#2293943 11-Aug-2019 10:39

niallm90:

sbiddle:

Depends what you mean by "image quality".

Would you say the same if TV ONE suddenly moved from 1080i/25 and started broadcasting at 1080i/12 at the same bitrate?

Fair call, perhaps "image quality" was a bad use of words. Frame quality is perhaps a better way of saying what I am trying to point out. The quality of each individual frame should be higher. If in your example TV ONE dropped the broadcast down to 1080i/1 and kept the same bit rate, then in theory the quality of each frame would be higher. This is oversimplifying video encoding quite a bit though and I doubt they work as well down at 1fps.

Edit:

I was just trying to point out to some people how they could change the FPS but not have the bit rate change. I agree that the change looks worse and I vastly prefer the 60fps streams over the 30fps. In my opinion their platform has gone from looking better than Sky to looking worse.

Thats exactly right. I have Sky I watch F1, I know exactly what each does. Sky F1 is great. SS F1 is better, image wise. Crisper. Put that down to 1080i vs 1080p. The smoothness was the same. So whatever FPS Sky (1080i/25?) uses or SS used (1080p/50/60) it looked the same. Perhaps SS was normal and Sky was encoded very well?

In any case, Spark Sport image remains good, but the FPS is terrible. I did pick up an improvement last night while messing around and reading other posters while waiting for the rugby, and it seemed to have improved. That may also be a placebo effect, as I spent good time looking at poor video, maybe my brain enhanced it (which it can)

Apsattv

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#2293982 11-Aug-2019 12:04

tdgeek:

Its changed.I just rechecked F1, its better. The side panning of the background before was very noticeable, heavy judder, now its more normal. Yes, the background is not sharp, its moving and its motion blurred, but its consistent and the "judder" is now very small, so it blends in, rather than hits you in the face? Anyone else notice this?

I think they could tinker with encoding. Say if they put a 15 second extra delay on the feed encoder and did some forward motion compensation Encode from a buffer or other trickery.

networkn

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#2293984 11-Aug-2019 12:08

Apsattv:

tdgeek:

Its changed.I just rechecked F1, its better. The side panning of the background before was very noticeable, heavy judder, now its more normal. Yes, the background is not sharp, its moving and its motion blurred, but its consistent and the "judder" is now very small, so it blends in, rather than hits you in the face? Anyone else notice this?

I think they could tinker with encoding. Say if they put a 15 second extra delay on the feed encoder and did some forward motion compensation Encode from a buffer or other trickery.

Or they can give us what we paid for and provide 60FPS for those who enable it in their account and leave it disabled by default. Then it's the consumers choice.

As I see it now, they have two choices, they can give everyone a crap picture, or they can give some people a less than perfect performance because they have chosen not to invest in better hardware.

tdgeek

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#2293987 11-Aug-2019 12:14

networkn:

Apsattv:

tdgeek:

Its changed.I just rechecked F1, its better. The side panning of the background before was very noticeable, heavy judder, now its more normal. Yes, the background is not sharp, its moving and its motion blurred, but its consistent and the "judder" is now very small, so it blends in, rather than hits you in the face? Anyone else notice this?

I think they could tinker with encoding. Say if they put a 15 second extra delay on the feed encoder and did some forward motion compensation Encode from a buffer or other trickery.

Or they can give us what we paid for and provide 60FPS for those who enable it in their account and leave it disabled by default. Then it's the consumers choice.

As I see it now, they have two choices, they can give everyone a crap picture, or they can give some people a less than perfect performance because they have chosen not to invest in better hardware.

There was a lot of doubt early on, fair enough. A very small number of F1 glitches that weren't actually Sparks fault, so pop that down to teething troubles. Since then F1 has been rock solid, great picture, motion was same as Sky. I thought then it was a done deal, and if it stayed that way, everyone here would be happy as, easily a 9.5/10 . But as we know something has changed. Ugh

arnies

525 posts

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#2294077 11-Aug-2019 12:41

networkn:
Apsattv:

tdgeek:

Its changed.I just rechecked F1, its better. The side panning of the background before was very noticeable, heavy judder, now its more normal. Yes, the background is not sharp, its moving and its motion blurred, but its consistent and the "judder" is now very small, so it blends in, rather than hits you in the face? Anyone else notice this?

I think they could tinker with encoding. Say if they put a 15 second extra delay on the feed encoder and did some forward motion compensation Encode from a buffer or other trickery.

Or they can give us what we paid for and provide 60FPS for those who enable it in their account and leave it disabled by default. Then it's the consumers choice.

As I see it now, they have two choices, they can give everyone a crap picture, or they can give some people a less than perfect performance because they have chosen not to invest in better hardware.

To be fair to SS they never advertised 60fpsn when I asked a month or two ago they said it would be 30.

tdgeek

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#2294083 11-Aug-2019 12:52

arnies: To be fair to SS they never advertised 60fpsn when I asked a month or two ago they said it would be 30.

Not relevant. A high quality service was released. Great. Now it has been reduced in quality.

arnies

525 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2294131 11-Aug-2019 13:11

tdgeek:
arnies: To be fair to SS they never advertised 60fpsn when I asked a month or two ago they said it would be 30.

Not relevant. A high quality service was released. Great. Now it has been reduced in quality.

It was released in Beta. SS is on par with other streaming platforms (NFL, NBA etc)

That being said I would love it to be better quality of possible.

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