I guess what we need is for somone who has subscribed to let us know the quality of the game currently available. If it is the 3mbps stream and it looks 'better' then that would be good, although bitrate != resolution. A 3mbps stream might still look terrible if the res transmitted is low.
langers1972: Oh dear, this is the answer I got back from support when I asked about the poor picture quality on my Smart TV:
Thank you for contacting Premier League Pass support.
Unfortunately at this time access via Smart tvs is not support. Access at this time is only available via computer/laptop. Mobile apps are being developed for mobile devices and tablets and will be available in the near future.
Sincerely,
Premier League Pass Support
FAIL
Have they got a 5 year old writing their emails??? The grammar is most unimpressive.
Really disappointed that it is a flash product and actually quite angry that there is no smart TV support!
I am a little confused though; can you access their site without an app and watch it through your browser on your smart TV?
grab a chromekey for ~$60 and you are all set for streaming to any TV that has an HDMI input.
Benoire: I guess what we need is for somone who has subscribed to let us know the quality of the game currently available. If it is the 3mbps stream and it looks 'better' then that would be good, although bitrate != resolution. A 3mbps stream might still look terrible if the res transmitted is low.
Even resolution does not tell the full story. A great example of this is TV shows and movies from iTunes, where the video is 720p and the bitrate is ~3400kbps but the quality is far better than what most of the cable TV channels transmit at higher resolutions. This is due to the excellent source iTunes is provided with, and the methods of encoding.
The source Coliseum are being provided with is excellent (as we've seen with Sky), so either they need to enhance their encoding settings or increase the bitrate to allow more quality through. Being a live sport if they increase the encoding settings too much it will create a delay, but if they increase the bitrate too much it will cause buffering on some users PCs. So somewhere in the middle would be a good solution.
If they could offer the same rate as Sky was able to, that would suffice as an additional option but it appears they don't want to (at present).
Generally I'm still miffed that I have to sit in front of my PC to watch this instead of my TV in the lounge as I don't have a tablet or laptop to use and my work phone is not so smart. Now if they have a smart tv app, I might have forgiven them as my Samsung TV would then be useful for this.
If they could offer the same rate as Sky was able to, that would suffice as an additional option but it appears they don't want to (at present).
Generally I'm still miffed that I have to sit in front of my PC to watch this instead of my TV in the lounge as I don't have a tablet or laptop to use and my work phone is not so smart. Now if they have a smart tv app, I might have forgiven them as my Samsung TV would then be useful for this.
If they could offer the same rate as Sky was able to, that would suffice as an additional option but it appears they don't want to (at present).
Generally I'm still miffed that I have to sit in front of my PC to watch this instead of my TV in the lounge as I don't have a tablet or laptop to use and my work phone is not so smart. Now if they have a smart tv app, I might have forgiven them as my Samsung TV would then be useful for this.
I don't think that its they don't want to, more that there are several restrictions as to why they can't, such as the bandwidth required (most homes do not have the ability to stream 9mb/s consistently), data caps, server capacity, etc.
There are issues with Smart TV apps too as the current Smart TV environment is quiet fragmented. I have little doubt however that they're going to have to release something along those lines if they want to be successful. The current situation of having to plug your laptop into the TV is not going to be suitable long term, and in my opinion their guide emphasises this fact.
Overall this project does have a bit of a "rushed" feeling to it, hopefully they can get things sorted in the next 2 weeks.
based in some of the numbers I've seen around for Akamai costs, if they allowed people to stream at 9Mbps there would simply be no business case to launch.
They would be paying Akamai Xc per GB streamed, so obviously a match at 9Mbps would use triple the amount of GBs as a match at 3Mbps and so triple their Akamai costs.
I suppose the writing was on the wall with one of their banners. Given it shows 'Watch the Premier League on your TV' with a shot of a CRT being connected using RCA cables I shouldve known it wasnt going to be great !
I tried the sample video on my 32" in the lounge and it was much better, still not great but 'watchable' seeing as I have no other choice. So I signed up and tried the recent Man City - Sunderland game, but that was back to being almost unwatchable. Buffering, along with poor video quality is just not going to cut the mustard.
Benoire: I guess what we need is for somone who has subscribed to let us know the quality of the game currently available. If it is the 3mbps stream and it looks 'better' then that would be good, although bitrate != resolution. A 3mbps stream might still look terrible if the res transmitted is low.
I've been watching this forum 'from the outside' with interest for a while but thought I'd join in to offer an answer to this question, fellow football fans in need and all that :-) ! I have a subscription (watching my team is non-negotiable, and I'm not a convert to rubbishy free streams). The quality of the man city sunderland game is a bit dodgy, even at the 3000kbps rate. It has pretty bad motion stutter and looks pretty grainy, just like that preview video really. It looked pretty sharp when not on full screen mode, but once stretched out to full screen, didn't look too nice. This seems stupid to me, the first thing most people will do is click full screen so surely theu should optomise it for that! I watched it on my 32" tv and wasn't too impressed, the motion stutter in particular got really annoying. I compared it to a match on nfl gamepass seeing as, as far as I know, they use pretty much the same platform. The quality of the nfl stream was much crisper at the same bit rate. I sent an email asking them if we can expect performance improvements as they fine tune their site, but am expecting a patronising response telling me to check I have the latest flash player update!
If they could offer the same rate as Sky was able to, that would suffice as an additional option but it appears they don't want to (at present).
Generally I'm still miffed that I have to sit in front of my PC to watch this instead of my TV in the lounge as I don't have a tablet or laptop to use and my work phone is not so smart. Now if they have a smart tv app, I might have forgiven them as my Samsung TV would then be useful for this.
It's not as if Chromekey is going to help if the quality of the stream is poor, the main gripe isn't getting the content to the TV it's the content itself!!
Totally unimpressed by the image quality they're going with. It looks terrible, and it seems to have issues with buffering and stutter (I've tried on a 100Mbps fibre, and 65Mbps VDSL... so no, it's not a lack of downstream bandwidth at my end). Unfortunately for them, I'm not hardcore enough of a fan to pay for something this poor. Watched it when it was on Sky, as I have Sky Sport anyway, and enjoy watching, but yeah. If they can't offer the same viewing conditions, well, sorry, not putting my money in. If their issue is cost of content distribution, it would probably be better financially for them to front up with a little gear of their own to distribute it as local traffic within NZ, far cheaper probably in the long run, to be able to offer proper HD streams.
Not likely as the guy in charge when being intreviewed by Brendan Telfer said he watched everything on the net in 1600kps and thought it was a good quality.
If their issue is cost of content distribution, it would probably be better financially for them to front up with a little gear of their own to distribute it as local traffic within NZ, far cheaper probably in the long run, to be able to offer proper HD streams.
If TVNZ and Sky don't even do that for their online streaming platforms, then no way in hell would it make sense for these small fry guys to do it.
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.
ID Verified
Trusted
