Sky outbid for EPL rights (Premier League Pass discussion)

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2798 posts

Uber Geek

#869631 31-Jul-2013 22:50

Ok Dororke,

Click this link: http://sdrv.ms/18RfXzE its my skydrive account to the same timeframe as yours in the browser. It looks identical. However, when connected to my 51" plasma tv AND full screen it looks terrible. This is the key point, at the small window its not 720p its much smaller and so the detail is compressed which increases sharpness but reduces small details. At TV size, you're blowing the video to fit the full pixels of the tv and that is where it loses out massively.

MarkCerny

88 posts

Master Geek

#869632 31-Jul-2013 23:00

Hi guys, a new poster from the 'Yellow Fever Forums' here !

I must say there was a lot of promise when I first heard this new outfit had got hold of the rights to the EPL however, now the 'preview' is up, I feel let down a bit.

I am crossing my fingers that it is only these previews that are bad quality and does not reflect the actual live games. We shall see in a couple of weeks !

Also why do you think there is no higher bit rate option than 3mb/s ?

Dororke

94 posts

Master Geek

#869634 31-Jul-2013 23:13

Benoire: Ok Dororke,

That looks like a monitor and not full screen. To compare you need to output to something around 50-60" @ 1080p or better fullscreened. Mine looks 'ok' in the mini window on the website but terrible when viewing how I would watch it.

This a screen shot which is on a full screen monitor (that's 1920 x 1200 [aka ] monitor format; not Full HD which is only 1920 x 1080), so the monitor does not lose any pixels/resolution by showing the same YouTube and EPL preview. Side by side any compromise will be equally distributed accross the whole screen. If anything it'll be the upscaling not downscaling loss that will occur - but nothing that the human eye could detect. I believe this to me a fair comparison as to what I can see versus what Richard sees.

By showing the same freeze framed images side by side at their equally comparative reduced size (get a ruler on your flat screen and you'll see they're almost identical or as best I could re-size them to be), I'm able to demonstrate the physical difference that the human eye as seen by Richard is as compared to my view. No one will doubt that the left image is superior (that's not a boast - it's simply a statement), than the one on the right.

Given all Richard's better overall infrastructure/hardware, my question again is why should it be that I can see adequate playback when Richard can see a lesser appearance of the same?

I repeat I don't pretend mine is perfect - just adequate; and not nearly as bad as what Richard is incurring.

Sphyre

75 posts

Master Geek

#869635 31-Jul-2013 23:21

Dororke:
Benoire: Ok Dororke,

That looks like a monitor and not full screen. To compare you need to output to something around 50-60" @ 1080p or better fullscreened. Mine looks 'ok' in the mini window on the website but terrible when viewing how I would watch it.

This a screen shot which is on a full screen monitor (that's 1920 x 1200 [aka ] monitor format; not Full HD which is only 1920 x 1080), so the monitor does not lose any pixels/resolution by showing the same YouTube and EPL preview. Side by side any compromise will be equally distributed accross the whole screen. If anything it'll be the upscaling not downscaling loss that will occur - but nothing that the human eye could detect. I believe this to me a fair comparison as to what I can see versus what Richard sees.

It really isn't.

As for Richard's video, the main difference I see between his and mine is mine doesn't have nearly as bad jaggies on the white boundary lines - although my TV is only 32", it really looks like a scaling issue of some sort

Kim587

128 posts

Master Geek

#869638 31-Jul-2013 23:26

MarkCerny: Hi guys, a new poster from the 'Yellow Fever Forums' here !

I must say there was a lot of promise when I first heard this new outfit had got hold of the rights to the EPL however, now the 'preview' is up, I feel let down a bit.

I am crossing my fingers that it is only these previews that are bad quality and does not reflect the actual live games. We shall see in a couple of weeks !

Also why do you think there is no higher bit rate option than 3mb/s ?

I also hope that things improve because at the moment it looks pretty poor, including the two full matches available so far. It's possible that we will get a 4.5mb/s bit rate but I'm not convinced that it'll happen. To me it looks like PLP have badly miscalculated their market. They seem to think that being able to offer every game live is exciting enough to justify the reduced quality, which I think will prove to be a big mistake. I think what most people wanted to be able to do was to watch the games in their lounge, with their mates or kids, in brilliant HD. They did not want to crowd round a computer or tablet to do it (I know you can hook the laptop up to the tv but the quality offered suggests they haven't really taken this too seriously). Anyone who wanted to watch it on a laptop probably already did it anyway. But while there was possibly a gap in that on-the-go sort of market, I think they've piled too many eggs into that basket and neglected the more traditional, and probably bigger, tv lounge market. Their stubborn denial that there's a problem with the quality of their streams seems to confirm that, because to anyone who wants to watch on a modern tv, a 3000kpbs stream is not going to offer the amazing quality that PLP have tried to convince us it will!

Benoire

2798 posts

Uber Geek

#869639 31-Jul-2013 23:26

Hi Dororke,

Sorry this post is not intending to sound condacending or trying to insult your intelligence.

Have you got a large (50" or bigger) 1080p TV that you can connect a laptop, PC to? The reason is that you're not comparing correctly. A small video screen what looks to be around 360p will always look good when running content of a higher resolution, even if the bit rate is low. As soon as you move to full screen (try it and you'll see what we mean), you'll notice how the defects become more apparent. This only gets worse as you move up in screen size as the pixel size gets bigger.

At 55" you've only got 40 pixels per square inch, where as on a 19" you've got 119 ppi. The smaller the screen the greater the density, meaning a sharper picture if you keep the image small.

Actually I've looked again on the TV and the quality at fullscreen 1080p is almost the same as the SD feed from Sky, very poor.

Dororke

94 posts

Master Geek

#869645 31-Jul-2013 23:39

Kim587:
Dororke: Boy that was easy.

So from the previous image you'll see my freeze framed part in the ELP clip (Left) and compare it to Richard's EPL video of the same clip (Right). Now I fully understand the conditions aren't directly comparable. Aside of the obvious angles and video to digital encoding plus all the other paraphernalia, and my own monitors resolution; one has to agree the differences are stark for what are both in essence a similar sized motion picture.

Why so. On the left you can read most every detail of the hoardings. In Richard's you would struggle to name the sponsor.

If you've been avidly following this thread then why is my image and playback, with seemingly inferior band width and hardware, superior to Richards?

Well it looks to me as if you're not watching it in fullscreen
A. Yes I am,
but Richard was
A. Yes he was too - check the HD button on the YouTube feed
which would probably explain it
A. Not really since both are the same or have I misunderstood your point .
Let's go with the line of thought here. If I'm not watching in fullscreen mode and I still get visually a better picture, then that makes the comparative argument worse not better right?
In the small screen, the image looks fairly good,
A. Agreed.
although still has problems with motion.
A. Yes - I'll concede that; but only in the sense that Richard has worse motion (that's a relation to the viewing of the feeds and has nothing to do with bowel movements )
But when stretched out to full screen, it looks appalling.
A. I say adequate - not terrible nor appalling.
So bad it's almost as if there's a bug in flash player!
A. Not for me - I simply have shown to you what I see.
Which is pretty bad,
A. It could be better for sure, but its not bad and not terrible in my opinion.
who wants to pay for the service
A. Err me
and for the data used by a 3000kbps stream and not even be able to watch it in full screen mode?
A. I can watch it adequately on my 50" Plasma
We want to be able to watch it in our lounges!

A. As do I, and I can do so adequately. I trialled it with my 16 year old son who agreed it was OK.

Quic Broadband

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Benoire

2798 posts

Uber Geek

#869649 31-Jul-2013 23:44

The static image you showed was not full screen, where as the video by Richard was taken with the TV on the wall in full screen mode.

I'm not disagreeing that the small video from the website is ok and I got the same static shot as you did, but in full screen mode (both on my PC with 24" LCD and 51" Plasma) I got the same as Richard.

Perhaps our expectations are different then, as I don't consider that image maximised to be anywhere near adequate for a) the price you pay, and b) the data used.

Kim587

128 posts

Master Geek

#869653 1-Aug-2013 00:03

Hi Dororke, yes you did misunderstand my point. You were not watching that video in full screen mode, because the video did not cover all of your monitor's screen. If it was scaled up to fit the whole screen, you'd begin seeing pixelation similar to Richard's, except not as bad as his example because his screen is bigger.
I have a 32" tv. The quality of each frame is almost ok for that size. But as a video, not really. Especially when you throw in the motion stutter and the price tag.

Dororke

94 posts

Master Geek

#869658 1-Aug-2013 00:21

Dunno what to say.

Side by side I've watched the YouTube video on my small 17" screen laptop at full HD, and compared the same on my 50" TV running as an extended desktop from ny Dell Windows PC. The EPL feed on the large TV is better than the YouTube one. If I play the YouTube clip on the large monitor it looks quite bad.

As I write I have hot keyed between the Full Screen YouTube video played through my Apple TV and compared it to the same feed from the EPL web site. The latter is simply better in the same vein as my earlier post of the freeze frame image comparison.

Kim587

128 posts

Master Geek

#869659 1-Aug-2013 00:24

Right, well in that case can you post a photo of richard's clip, and your own video stream, both playing on your 50" tv instead of one on your monitor? Then we'd have a fair comparison, it would be quite interesting to see actually.

dwl

371 posts

Ultimate Geek

#869681 1-Aug-2013 07:49

I have now looked at the current demo via a Core i5-2.5GHz laptop directly connected via HDMI to a full HD 32" up close. The browser traces show that every segment is at 3000 and I see fairly good detail in the image being discussed which is at 7:20 on the website clip. The grass is repainting every second which while giving each version an adequate look the overall effect is disconcerting to me.

When the teams walk out between 6:25 and 7:00 the picture is obviously 720p but the grass looks terrible (heavily smeared) which I think is not unexpected trying to squeeze 720p into only 3000. I can imagine that fans who are used to looked at the condition of the grass would find this upsetting. I would still expect high motion to be impaired at this low rate but the quality can differ depending on coding effort applied (hence NFL vs EPL comparisons).

At other times last evening I was still getting rate drops and when it was anything less than 3000 it looked pretty bad on a large screen (I would struggle to even call it SD). During these rate drops a speedtest to Telecom showed around 4.5M which is what I expect to be left over and that 6M pipe should easily cope with 3000. I don't have confidence for my service that the Telecom Akamai servers are always delivering the best stream. Using network rate reporting does give a reasonable guide although when rate adaption is occurring there can be partially downloaded segments that are wasted and copies of the same time segment are sourced in other resolutions.

If everything else in the home setup looks like it handles 720p well, I would remain wary that impairments could still be rate adaption even though your service has heaps of headroom. The ability to fix the bandwidth is really needed for accurate assessment.

All the best for trying to get to the bottom of the difference between different viewer experiences. This isn't easy when there are HD expectations.

Jas777

838 posts

Ultimate Geek

#869684 1-Aug-2013 08:12

Got to say I am with SSP in this one. I watch more than just the EPL when it was on SKY so if I purchase this product it is an extra cost. If I am going to pay an extra cost then the product has to as good as what I previously got or it is no dice.

I am a bit of geek so understand some stuff but for those that aren't do you really think they will want to be fiddling around with settings on laptop/pc and TVs and/or paying extra to get someone else to do it for them?

expression

236 posts

Master Geek

#869693 1-Aug-2013 08:27

Posted on twitter by Radio Live: SKY TV has announced a deal with three big Premier League clubs to show delayed coverage of their games.

expression

236 posts

Master Geek

#869695 1-Aug-2013 08:31

http://bit.ly/17Um15X

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