Sky outbid for EPL rights (Premier League Pass discussion)

Forums › Online streaming services › Sky outbid for EPL rights (Premier League Pass discussion)

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371 posts

Ultimate Geek

#868190 29-Jul-2013 22:17

I believe gamepass are 720p at both 3000 and 4500 and the 4500 does look better to me and while not full HD I think quite reasonable. I doubt either will be acceptable to richardgnz as he has become used to the better quality that is available from other HD (probably not on-line) sources. I think it is a fair comment of his that times have moved on but the reality of live streaming is that higher rates in NZ are probably not yet viable (percentage of users, cost of delivery).

We are left with a service being offered by PLP that might be acceptable to others if the quality could be sustained. However, I suspect some of the reports of pixelation and more severe artifacts might be because the rate being achieved is less than 3000 and I think it is important to understand whether there are delivery problems. Whereas gamepass will show the rate being achieved and you can manually select I don't see a comparable control or reporting on the PLP Flash player.

I don't understand the algorithm used to determine rate selection but I still see mine dropping under 3000 on PLP at times when I am fairly sure there is bandwidth available on my access. It had dropped to 1600 (which doesn't look good) and I then started a speedtest to the Telecom server which gave 4.5 M. Whether I had UFB or VDSL it might still want to drop if loss is occurring beyond my access segment.

Just now (10pm) I saw 30 seconds at 3000 and then 20 seconds at 1600 (after it tried to pull a 3000 segment from the US rather than NZ), 20 seconds at 800 and then over a minute at 400 before it bounced back to 3000. I don't need to say what it looked like ;-(

My question is when unacceptable pictures are being seen, what rate is being achieved. For richardgnz and some others that is probably 3000. For others, are they suffering from a reduction of delivered rate, perhaps due to other factors like overall loading on the Akamai servers? This may also vary with ISP as I see the Akamai server count for NZ is quite high.

The ideal may be full HD for all games but is a lesser quality, still with a good selection of games, an adequate answer? If so, can most users get a stable 3000 product?

JarrodM

969 posts

Ultimate Geek

#868193 29-Jul-2013 22:26

It's only on the preview you can't manually choose the rate. Someone over on the Yellow Fever forums has subscribed and he said the UI is the same as NFL game pass and you can choose the rate. He said it is "Basically the same performance, other than NFL has a 4500Kbps option which looks noticably better."

Apsattv

2388 posts

Uber Geek

#868250 30-Jul-2013 01:50

richardgnz:
Sphyre:
richardgnz:
Sphyre:
BigMal: Can someone do a visual comparison to the NFL games which also stream via Akami?

you can check them out yourself for free: http://gamepass.nfl.com

I just had a look at the NFL stream and overrode the default best setting and hard coded the 3000kbps stream. On my 55" screen this looked terrible. I then tried the 4500kbps stream and this was better but still nothing I would describe as HD or even close to HD.

There is no chance that PLP will be providing a 4500kbps stream and even if they were it would not be good enough. The only acceptable stream for me would be a minimum of 9000kbps.

I can only hope that PLP fail to convince enough people to sign up and they go out of business. If somehow their business succeeds then the beautiful game will be anything but.... At least in New Zealand for the next three years.

really? do you ever download 720p videos from the internet? id say the quality is equivalent to those.

I am use to watching the Premier League in HD.

I cannot accept watching it in a quality which reminds me of the 1980's and bunny ears....

Can you seriously accept this major backward step in broadcasting quality???? I for one cannot.

Apsattv

2388 posts

Uber Geek

#868251 30-Jul-2013 01:50

richardgnz:
Sphyre:
richardgnz:
Sphyre:
BigMal: Can someone do a visual comparison to the NFL games which also stream via Akami?

you can check them out yourself for free: http://gamepass.nfl.com

I just had a look at the NFL stream and overrode the default best setting and hard coded the 3000kbps stream. On my 55" screen this looked terrible. I then tried the 4500kbps stream and this was better but still nothing I would describe as HD or even close to HD.

There is no chance that PLP will be providing a 4500kbps stream and even if they were it would not be good enough. The only acceptable stream for me would be a minimum of 9000kbps.

I can only hope that PLP fail to convince enough people to sign up and they go out of business. If somehow their business succeeds then the beautiful game will be anything but.... At least in New Zealand for the next three years.

really? do you ever download 720p videos from the internet? id say the quality is equivalent to those.

I am use to watching the Premier League in HD.

I cannot accept watching it in a quality which reminds me of the 1980's and bunny ears....

Can you seriously accept this major backward step in broadcasting quality???? I for one cannot.

dwl

371 posts

Ultimate Geek

#868321 30-Jul-2013 09:19

JarrodM: It's only on the preview you can't manually choose the rate. Someone over on the Yellow Fever forums has subscribed and he said the UI is the same as NFL game pass and you can choose the rate. He said it is "Basically the same performance, other than NFL has a 4500Kbps option which looks noticably better."

Thanks for the reference - that is a good review last night (Forums > Worldwide Football Discussion > English (and other British lower league) Football Discussion) getting reasonable results with fixed 3000.

If the demo could offer the rate fixing option, I think it would allow better assessment of each viewers available experience which will vary a lot depending on their access technology and provider. I doubt that Coliseum will be prepared to offer refunds if you were to say part way through the series that your quality isn't acceptable (but then I might be wrong if they accept that there are a whole new set of issues with on-line delivery).

Otagolad

364 posts

Ultimate Geek

#868385 30-Jul-2013 11:33

Watched the preview last night - I have 100/50 UFB and was using Chrome and NetStat and I could see that the bitrate was pretty constant at 3000kbps. Picture quality - AWFUL!!!!!

I also looked at my NFL Gamepass and chose on-demand for a couple of last year's games and fixed the rate at 4500kbps and the picture was very good.

If Coliseum don't make a seismic shift in delivery of a quality stream then I'm not touching this with a barge-pole. I'd rather watch MOTD on BBC iPlayer, watch some "other streams" online, watch the Sunday game on TV and the Monday night highlights package and save myself the $150-$240 a year these muppets are going to charge.

I wasn't particularly happy with the move to online as online streaming:

1. generally just doesn't work as smoothly as Satellite/Cable for sports (although I do pay for MLB and use NFL Gamepass and they are very good); and

2. normally means the consumer loses out by paying more to get the same/worse coverage than if one major company (i.e. SKY) provides it - only need to look to the UK to see this. Competition authorities love these split-ups because they offer "more choice" to consumers but that is quite different than being "good" for consumers,

however I was going to pay the extra to get it as I do love my EPL, but if the quality remains as is then I'm out and I imagine a lot of others will be too.

Davy

196 posts

Master Geek

#868482 30-Jul-2013 13:21

Wow, I'm pretty surprised at how poor the quality is on the clip! Especially as Coliseum is using it to promote their stream. Even on a PC monitor with a fast internet connection it looks bad; lots of motion artifacts and when the ball is moving at speed it kinda gets lots in the background.

Based on the promo clip I won't be touching it yet, but I'll check again in a couple of weeks. For the money it needs to be a lot better than youtube.

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Dororke

94 posts

Master Geek

#868565 30-Jul-2013 14:29

Well I'll confess to being dissappointed with the quality of the preview program. I was able to get it up on the large 50" Full screen HDTV over my wireless and sit back in the comfort of my lounge 3 or so metres from the screen. I measured a constant 3Mbps feed and my wireless 802.11n measured the same so I was able to see the best it will ever get. I love EPL too much not to sign up so I'm just waiting for Telecom to open their order books tomorrow so I can sign in.

I then watched this year's Superbowl on NFL (which is free by the way) and compared the bitrate at 3Mbps and then their top offering of 4.5Mbps. There was noticeable improvement with 4.5Mbps but still not on a par with what I was used to with Sky in HD. Comparing 3Mbps for the NFL was to my subjective eye similar to the EPL preview program in terms of quality. So my next question is why can't they punch out the EPL at 4.5Mbps?

I guess one underlying problem is the 720p feed. I've just upgraded my home broadband to VDSL2+ and can enjoy downloads of 30Mbps+ from NZ servers and ~15Mbps from NY based servers using Speedtest.Net; so I am fortunate to be able to receive higher resolution and faster download speeds if they were available. So maybe when the technology is able to push 1080p at 12Mbps we'll get to something approaching what we were able to enjoy with Sky last season.

Jas777

838 posts

Ultimate Geek

#868609 30-Jul-2013 15:14

Doroke,

I used to get MLBtv and that even at their best rate didn't look as good as ESPN direct which isn't as good as when ESPN gets a through feed from COMCAST or someone like them.

As an aside how many Mbps do you get if you do a speedtest to a UK/London server on VDLS2+?

Dororke

94 posts

Master Geek

#868648 30-Jul-2013 16:00

Jas777: Doroke, As an aside how many Mbps do you get if you do a speedtest to a UK/London server on VDLS2+?

Here's the down/up speedtests to Vodafone servers around the globe on ADSL2 before upgrading. London is highlighted...

Auckland 15.12Mbps & 0.96Mbps
Wellington 15.86Mbps & 0.95Mbps
Sydney 14.26Mbps & 0.97Mbps
LA 12.56Mbps & 0.85Mbps
New York 10.15Mbps & 0.86Mbps
London 2.76Mbps & 0.87Mbps

Now on VDSL2+ I get...

Auckland 32.76Mbps & 8.08Mbps
Wellington 31.24Mbps & 8.13Mbps
Sydney 30.11Mbps & 7.74Mbps
LA 28.64Mbps & 7.98Mbps
New York 24.23Mbps & 7.92Mbps
London 7.8Mbps & 4.70Mbps

I live ~400m away from the cabinet which helps. I have a work colleague who has just been upgraded to VDSL2+ and lives ~900m away and he gets half these speeds. The good thing I have noticed with VDSL is that it seems to be a sustained speed and less prone to variances. I don't know if there are some technical reasons for this or maybe I'm just the first in the street to upgrade, but at this stage it seems a lot more stable if I repeat the speed tests. (Warning: speed tests can be addictive

)

NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

Uber Geek

#868649 30-Jul-2013 16:02

Dororke: Well I'll confess to being dissappointed with the quality of the preview program. I was able to get it up on the large 50" Full screen HDTV over my wireless and sit back in the comfort of my lounge 3 or so metres from the screen. I measured a constant 3Mbps feed and my wireless 802.11n measured the same so I was able to see the best it will ever get. I love EPL too much not to sign up so I'm just waiting for Telecom to open their order books tomorrow so I can sign in.

I then watched this year's Superbowl on NFL (which is free by the way) and compared the bitrate at 3Mbps and then their top offering of 4.5Mbps. There was noticeable improvement with 4.5Mbps but still not on a par with what I was used to with Sky in HD. Comparing 3Mbps for the NFL was to my subjective eye similar to the EPL preview program in terms of quality. So my next question is why can't they punch out the EPL at 4.5Mbps?

I guess one underlying problem is the 720p feed. I've just upgraded my home broadband to VDSL2+ and can enjoy downloads of 30Mbps+ from NZ servers and ~15Mbps from NY based servers using Speedtest.Net; so I am fortunate to be able to receive higher resolution and faster download speeds if they were available. So maybe when the technology is able to push 1080p at 12Mbps we'll get to something approaching what we were able to enjoy with Sky last season.

Sky doesn't do 1080p or 12Mbps, so if you could get that it would be superior to sky.

NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

Uber Geek

#868652 30-Jul-2013 16:05

Dororke:
Jas777: Doroke, As an aside how many Mbps do you get if you do a speedtest to a UK/London server on VDLS2+?

Here's the down/up speedtests to Vodafone servers around the globe on ADSL2 before upgrading. London is highlighted...

Auckland 15.12Mbps & 0.96Mbps
Wellington 15.86Mbps & 0.95Mbps
Sydney 14.26Mbps & 0.97Mbps
LA 12.56Mbps & 0.85Mbps
New York 10.15Mbps & 0.86Mbps
London 2.76Mbps & 0.87Mbps

Now on VDSL2+ I get...

Auckland 32.76Mbps & 8.08Mbps
Wellington 31.24Mbps & 8.13Mbps
Sydney 30.11Mbps & 7.74Mbps
LA 28.64Mbps & 7.98Mbps
New York 24.23Mbps & 7.92Mbps
London 7.8Mbps & 4.70Mbps

I live ~400m away from the cabinet which helps. I have a work colleague who has just been upgraded to VDSL2+ and lives ~900m away and he gets half these speeds. The good thing I have noticed with VDSL is that it seems to be a sustained speed and less prone to variances. I don't know if there are some technical reasons for this or maybe I'm just the first in the street to upgrade, but at this stage it seems a lot more stable if I repeat the speed tests. (Warning: speed tests can be addictive )

are you on VF VDSL2 trial, or did you switch ISPs?

Those london speedtests are quite impressive. In theory having VDSL shouldn't make very much difference to very long distance speedtests, since the exchange/cabinet is not the bottleneck.

richardgnz

64 posts

Master Geek

#868656 30-Jul-2013 16:08

NonprayingMantis:
richardgnz:
Sphyre:
BigMal: Can someone do a visual comparison to the NFL games which also stream via Akami?

you can check them out yourself for free: http://gamepass.nfl.com

I just had a look at the NFL stream and overrode the default best setting and hard coded the 3000kbps stream. On my 55" screen this looked terrible. I then tried the 4500kbps stream and this was better but still nothing I would describe as HD or even close to HD.

There is no chance that PLP will be providing a 4500kbps stream and even if they were it would not be good enough. The only acceptable stream for me would be a minimum of 9000kbps.

I can only hope that PLP fail to convince enough people to sign up and they go out of business. If somehow their business succeeds then the beautiful game will be anything but.... At least in New Zealand for the next three years.

I doubt they will be going out of business that quickly - they have billionaire backers so will be giving it a shot for at least 3 years.

I'm curious, how did you ever watch football before about 5 years ago when Sky launched HD? It must have been sheer agony for you watching everything in the unacceptable SD quality.

I lived in london for 8 years and watched the premier league in HD. I then moved back home to New Zealand in 2009, ordered MySky HD and continued to watch the premier league in HD.

NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

Uber Geek

#868679 30-Jul-2013 16:28

richardgnz:
NonprayingMantis:
richardgnz:
Sphyre:
BigMal: Can someone do a visual comparison to the NFL games which also stream via Akami?

you can check them out yourself for free: http://gamepass.nfl.com

I just had a look at the NFL stream and overrode the default best setting and hard coded the 3000kbps stream. On my 55" screen this looked terrible. I then tried the 4500kbps stream and this was better but still nothing I would describe as HD or even close to HD.

There is no chance that PLP will be providing a 4500kbps stream and even if they were it would not be good enough. The only acceptable stream for me would be a minimum of 9000kbps.

I can only hope that PLP fail to convince enough people to sign up and they go out of business. If somehow their business succeeds then the beautiful game will be anything but.... At least in New Zealand for the next three years.

I doubt they will be going out of business that quickly - they have billionaire backers so will be giving it a shot for at least 3 years.

I'm curious, how did you ever watch football before about 5 years ago when Sky launched HD? It must have been sheer agony for you watching everything in the unacceptable SD quality.

I lived in london for 8 years and watched the premier league in HD. I then moved back home to New Zealand in 2009, ordered MySky HD and continued to watch the premier league in HD.

Pretty impressive considering Sky UK didn't launch HD services until 2006, 5 years after you managed to start using them in 2001.

Dororke

94 posts

Master Geek

#868681 30-Jul-2013 16:30

are you on VF VDSL2 trial, or did you switch ISPs?

I happened to speak to one of the Chorus guys a few weeks back when I saw some work going on in my cabinet. Always curious to know when fibre was going to become available I asked him what he was installing. He told me new ISAM cards to deliver VDSL2 to existing customers. So I rang Telecom and lo and behold they were rolling out this new service in my area (Dannemora, Manakau, East Auckland). It's officially on their web site now and there's a finder app that will tell you whether your address is covered.

I didn't have to change ISPs. The service was a free upgrade to my plan (I'm on the 500GB $119 per month thing) but there was a choice of a $99 charge for the new modem if you signed a new 12 month contract (which I took) or $300 if you went free of contract.

For the improved upload speed alone this was worth it for me - especially if you make Skype video calls. Very happy so far but still waiting for fibre. The new router also has a decent wireless which is much improved over the previous ADSL modem/router/wireless combo.

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