Sky outbid for EPL rights (Premier League Pass discussion)

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4792 posts

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#958208 28-Dec-2013 09:35

Yes, it would apply to ADSL2, provided your line can achieve the actual bitrates required. I don't know however, whether or not Slingshot customers would get the same level of performance... I'm not saying they won't - I'm saying I know our network, where the data streams come from, and the loadings of the servers and links involved... I know none of those details for Slingshot.

And no, a simple speedtest won't give you anything like the whole story I'm afraid.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

vexxxboy

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#958216 28-Dec-2013 10:21

the better test is to go to NFL Gamepass, it's free and you dont have to enter anything, and try watching a game in 4500 and see what it is like . if it runs fine without any problems then the problem is not your end. you will be surprised how good streaming HD sport can be.

Common sense is not as common as you think.

dwl

371 posts

Ultimate Geek

#958217 28-Dec-2013 10:22

Talkiet: Yes, it would apply to ADSL2, provided your line can achieve the actual bitrates required. I don't know however, whether or not Slingshot customers would get the same level of performance... I'm not saying they won't - I'm saying I know our network, where the data streams come from, and the loadings of the servers and links involved... I know none of those details for Slingshot.

And no, a simple speedtest won't give you anything like the whole story I'm afraid.

Cheers - N

An overview from my understanding: The PLP provider, NeuLion, does have servers offshore which may handle some of the transactions but the video content is delivered via CDN partners which include Akamai who have a major presence here in NZ. The major ISPs may have large Akamai clusters, with servers close to you, while others have less or none (e.g. could be single server at one location or the content has to come from another provider).

The DNS setting is important and the worst outcome may be achieved using a public DNS like 8.8.8.8 (gets my content from Tokyo). If you are a Slingshot customer and traceroute to an address like nlds2.cdnak.lon.neulion.com (which is example of what the player is given by the website) you will hopefully find it is relatively low delay for you.

Even the ISPs may have limited knowledge of the actual service being delivered from the cluster in their network - they might see a total loading but I don't know if they get visibility of the NeuLion analytics (per user experience). Akamai actively move around the content references within the cluster to manage loading and I have seen on Telecom more distant servers being referenced at times.

Unfortunately this is a complex system and it needs all components to work well to give best performance (speed to nearest server, Akamai seeding, Akamai loading, Akamai server assignments). What might work well for one game may no longer be quite so good if there are 9 games all shown at once with high user demand or an Apple IOS or Windows update is released (also uses Akamai).

Another key point for live games on the PC is that player seems to maintain dual streams with a secondary seen of Limelight (another CDN provider) who have servers in Sydney. You might have a good connection with the local Akamai but if that is overloaded and the backup is needed it can be the performance of your ISP to an offshore location that can also determine performance.

If you have other users in the household a higher speed connection like UFB should give more headroom. There is some buffering in the player so it will tolerate brief loss of bandwidth but if other on-demand content, especially HD, is being consumed then the ADSL2 connection may not be enough.

dwl

371 posts

Ultimate Geek

#958219 28-Dec-2013 10:39

vexxxboy: the better test is to go to NFL Gamepass, it's free and you dont have to enter anything, and try watching a game in 4500 and see what it is like . if it runs fine without any problems then the problem is not your end. you will be surprised how good streaming HD sport can be.

Good tip as an indication.

However, this does highlight the variability because if I try Gamepass now it is working fine for me but the delay to the server is 49 ms whereas for the PLP address it is 43 ms. Both seem to be on Telecom Akamai with one perhaps in Auckland and the other more local to me. I don't know how the server allocations are made for Gamepass vs PLP or the relative loading. This indication is hopefully a good guide but you may see different relative performance at other times.

Talkiet

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#958221 28-Dec-2013 10:44

dwl:
Talkiet: Yes, it would apply to ADSL2, provided your line can achieve the actual bitrates required. I don't know however, whether or not Slingshot customers would get the same level of performance... I'm not saying they won't - I'm saying I know our network, where the data streams come from, and the loadings of the servers and links involved... I know none of those details for Slingshot.

And no, a simple speedtest won't give you anything like the whole story I'm afraid.

Cheers - N

An overview from my understanding: [snip]

A very good and accurate wrapup there :-)

I have seen the offshore/onshore ratio for Telecom Retail customers and it's overwhelmingly onshore sourced data but as you point out, there are overseas sources for the data too...

The NFL Gamepass use the same technology but I am not sure whether or not the game data is as populated to local CDNs as the content is for PLP. So if you get a good experience on the NFL Gamepass then I'd say you are _very_ likely to get as good or better with PLP.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

martyyn

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#958369 28-Dec-2013 17:29

Talkiet:

If you have your DNS servers set correctly that is!

Ok, so as I've had a poor experience with PLP but dont appear to have any trouble with the NFL, how do I work out what my current DNS settings are and what should they be to best handle PLP ?

Cheers

Talkiet

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#958374 28-Dec-2013 17:43

martyyn:
Talkiet:

If you have your DNS servers set correctly that is!

Ok, so as I've had a poor experience with PLP but dont appear to have any trouble with the NFL, how do I work out what my current DNS settings are and what should they be to best handle PLP ? Cheers

It probably won't be a magic fix... All I was alluding to was that the PLP data is predominantly served from a New Zealand located set of CDN nodes (for Telecom customers at least), and it's entirely possible to break CDNs by being clever and setting your own DNS servers (like the Google servers etc).

All you should be doing is making sure you are using your ISP assigned DNS servers.

If you're still getting better results on NFL than PLP then something is funny, or it's down to the encoding choices used for each site...

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

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martyyn

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#958378 28-Dec-2013 17:55

Talkiet:

It probably won't be a magic fix... All I was alluding to was that the PLP data is predominantly served from a New Zealand located set of CDN nodes (for Telecom customers at least), and it's entirely possible to break CDNs by being clever and setting your own DNS servers (like the Google servers etc).

All you should be doing is making sure you are using your ISP assigned DNS servers.

If you're still getting better results on NFL than PLP then something is funny, or it's down to the encoding choices used for each site...

Cheers - N

Fair enough, I'll double check what they are and will see if it makes any difference.

Thanks.

jasonm13

17 posts

Geek

#958845 29-Dec-2013 23:02

I have to say that i`ve have been very impressed with overall quality of the streams on plp the 4500 streams having tried Al Jazeera sports in recent times I think the quality on plp is far superior not to mention far more reliable.They appear to have made improvements on the stream Judder and running it on a dedicated htpc via my 42 inch hd tv it looks very nice indeed keep up the good work plp.

Handsomedan

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#958923 30-Dec-2013 09:54

Had a few issues with the stream this morning, but I think that may have been a local issue rather than a PLP issue as speeds were slow on a speedtest, too.

Have been impressed with the HD feed but still don't see it as HD...more higher-quality SD. It's certainly not on par with the Sky HD picture or Freeview.

Can't pick out individual blades of grass and beads of sweat during a moving sequence as you can with non-streaming HD viewing. Maybe it's just my telly...

Handsome Dan Has Spoken.
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Handsome Dan does not currently have a side hustle as the mascot for Yale

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spiglord

26 posts

Geek

#958949 30-Dec-2013 10:31

Well since the introduction of the 4500Kbps stream, the quality of my stream via iPad/AppleTV has degraded significantly.

I first noticed it over the weekend, but during the first half of the Spurs game, the quality kept dropping back to the 'Minecraft' level for a couple of minutes at a time. In the end I got fed up of it and went back to my laptop connected to the TV for the second half. With the laptop set at 4500Kbps, the second half was rock solid with no noticable drop-outs.

Shame that I cannot adjust the streaming rate on the iPad.... !

With PLP it always 2 steps forward & 1 step backwards....

- Spig

StarBlazer

961 posts

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#958951 30-Dec-2013 10:36

spiglord: Shame that I cannot adjust the streaming rate on the iPad.... !

I asked that question too, apparently the "player" is the built in player from Apple which is why it can't be changed. I asked if they could change the site to be able to select High/Med/Low.

Procrastination eventually pays off.

fyscdaniel

52 posts

Master Geek

#959832 1-Jan-2014 11:32

I found some live streaming apps (chinese developers) includes dlna in the apps so i can stream the video into my dlna enabled tv without adding apple tv.
I wonder PLP is looking into this?

gunnerpc

29 posts

Geek

#959968 1-Jan-2014 16:25

Last night I watched a movie on igloo for the first time. It streamed over wifi.
I was impressed with the quality, no lag and it appeared to be HD.

For me the thing to note is it streamed over WIFI with no lag.
When I try to watch plp @ 3000k over WIFI, its pretty rough.

Why oh why.... This is my question.

dwl

371 posts

Ultimate Geek

#959986 1-Jan-2014 17:07

gunnerpc: Last night I watched a movie on igloo for the first time. It streamed over wifi.
I was impressed with the quality, no lag and it appeared to be HD.

For me the thing to note is it streamed over WIFI with no lag.
When I try to watch plp @ 3000k over WIFI, its pretty rough.

Why oh why.... This is my question.

Could you please be a bit more specific about "pretty rough". There are many possible issues. Was the PLP stream pausing suggest download delivery issue? What bit rate was the player using (manual or auto)?

Is it the panning shots with motion becoming jerky while more stationary shots are clearer? Are all games also "pretty rough"? It could be a player incompatibility (older posts about different browsers and Flash) or possibly the video coding itself.

Video quality assessment is a minefield and unfortunately this type of sport content is one of the harshest tests.

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