Spark Sport: Rugby World Cup 2019

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#2322704 22-Sep-2019 15:45

Bobdn:

According to this guy Sky Sport Now is in 1080p

That's streaming, not satellite. The argument/comparison was to do with rain fade etc, which streaming doesn't suffer. The first guy that was quoted made no mention of Sky Sport Now, only Sky Sport, which is demonstrably lower quality than Spark Sport.

Bobdn:

Anyway, as I said I do wonder if Spark should reach out to Sky to help get a solution. Sky is the expert here and Sky's platform has been rock solid.

Apples and oranges. Sky's world cup broadcasts were using satellite television infrastructure.

Spark has a lot of smart people working on this. The problems described here in this thread are related to the first 2 days of the tournament being streamed on a new platform. I imagine there's a lot of smart people working night and day to tweak and tinker with the infrastructure to improve things they've learned over the last 36 hours.

Dingbatt

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#2322719 22-Sep-2019 16:03

I just reread Mauricio's post containing the press release from Spark Sport.
It says today's matches will be be simulcast on Duke. Nothing about the rest of the tournament. I do think it is generous that they are offering voucher customers a refund as well. I won't be taking this up, the RWC voucher was just a happy bonus when we switched to fibre.
What I do find perplexing from a customer service perspective is, SpSp are happy to bombard me with texts promoting the tournament, but when it really counted and they needed to tell customers they could switch to Duke if they were having problems.......nothing. So if the pixelation was so bad you couldn't see the placard on the Livestream how would you know to change? I'm not in the habit of having social media up while I'm watching sport. Very 1990s I know, but that's just me.

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BlakJak

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#2322720 22-Sep-2019 16:08

freitasm:

BlakJak: And why shouldn't they blink? Now is not the time to experiment. Now is the time to ensure their customers get the experience they pay for.. or it'll be a disaster for them. Credit for going as far as they have, but why overlook a perfectly valid method of media distribution due to a technical challenge they're not sure they've solved yet?

"Blinked" here is in the sense that they could have been conservative and sold the service as Chromecast plus DishTV A2 plus smartphones only. Smart TVs are a gamble because the vast majority are underpowered. And some are not even Android TV OS so you can count they won't be as well supported.

I think it's just pre-empting the obvious questions + "not our device, not our problem". Just like they can offer assurances about the performance of their mobile network or internet service and then ultimately say 'ah, it your device that's the problem, sorry, unsupported'

Thus so much emphasis on testing ahead of time.

Don't get me wrong, I think this is a useful exercise and RWC is a great catalyst for it, but i'm glad they've also recognised the need to just have a working outcome at the end of the day.

No signature to see here, move along...

Bobdn

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#2322724 22-Sep-2019 16:20

@geheena, some interesting stats here. 55,000 people streamed the recent Bledisloe Test match on Sky's platform. It worked well.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12266326

Yes, I'm sure there are lots of smart people working all hours at Spark. Must be stressful, hope it all goes well.

Jiriteach

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#2322727 22-Sep-2019 16:26

kiwifidget:

The trouble is that Spark promised bigger and better, to the point where our expectations were high, and then by under-delivering we have felt majorly let down.

And thats the problem - the promise of an amazing experience (in some cases made out to be better than Sky).

This was inevitable. Premier League Pass tried this a few years ago and it was utter rubbish. I couldnt wait for their rights to expire. Then BeIN Sports came along and their streaming capability was rubbish as well. Was great they made a deal with Sky to pay a little extra.

I really hoped that Spark will invest heavily to address these previous issues. It looks like they have but with so many variables/devices/platforms - its always going to be an ask and unfortunately they've lost many users and their brand around their streaming abilities.

-- opinions expressed by me are solely my own. ie - personal

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#2322728 22-Sep-2019 16:29

I hope people try the streaming service again tonight, instead of going direct to FTA. People worked hard for this to work, so it is worth putting some faith in them.

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Jiriteach

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#2322730 22-Sep-2019 16:29

NickMack:
dfnt:

Be interesting to hear how ISP's are finding their own networks are coping. I know Spark will be smoke and mirrors but 2degrees are usually transparent about these things @NickMack?

From our side - really good, I have a post mortem meeting tomorrow morning to go through in more detail, however high level reports were excellent - We saw a bunch more load on akamai caches, both fixed and mobile networks performed as we expected and auxiliary services like DNS, radius etc were as planned for/expected. This should be a gimme IMHO - I suspect viewership will grow towards the end of the campaign which is when things will be pushed harder I suspect.

Nick

Awesome to hear. My 2degrees fibre connection in Wellington performed really well last night. Was rock solid. Issues I experienced in quality were nothing to do with my connection.

-- opinions expressed by me are solely my own. ie - personal

surfisup1000

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#2322733 22-Sep-2019 16:35

Spark should never have been given the rights.

Prioritising financials over product is not always the best option.

Rugby administrators must take the blame here.

I did get to watch much of the game but it was constantly buffering. I could count it, 4 seconds action, 2 seconds buffering.

Sure, I was on 4g which is not ideal...but, if sky had the rights there would have been absolutely no issues.

Other people had issues, such as trying to get chromecast working in their hotel.... the other friend was trying to get it working on chrome, but ended up needing to download firefox to get it working.....although, that sounds a bit weird to me.

gehenna

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#2322734 22-Sep-2019 16:37

Bobdn:

@geheena, some interesting stats here. 55,000 people streamed the recent Bledisloe Test match on Sky's platform. It worked well.

I'm not questioning Sky's streaming. I'm disagreeing with the quote on NZ Herald that Sky Sport (Satellite) is better quality, because the quote is factually incorrect.

Jiriteach

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#2322735 22-Sep-2019 16:40

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12269872

" ... has vowed that the Government will get to the bottom of the issue."

"I can assure you we will find out as fast as possible as to what on earth is not going on," he told Newstalk ZB this afternoon.

What can the government do about this? Do they have the power to force Spark to make changes? I would think not?

-- opinions expressed by me are solely my own. ie - personal

stocksp

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#2322741 22-Sep-2019 16:49

BarTender: Disappointed that Spark blinked. Yes some people had problems just like some Sky customers get rain fade.
Did customers who streamed via Chromecast with a decent WiFi coverage between all three devices? I didn't see any issues via Twitter when I was searching.
Did Netflix or Google launch day one supporting all devices, no. I think Spark Sports underestimated the complexity of multiple different TVs and their differences plus supporting desktop computers and the weird and wonderful way they can behave.

I had pixelation and blurring. On fibremax gigabit streaming to a chromecast off ac wifi from a gigabit cable connected aircube less than 2 meters from the chromecast. Not sure I could make it any better for wifi

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#2322747 22-Sep-2019 16:58

freitasm: I hope people try the streaming service again tonight, instead of going direct to FTA. People worked hard for this to work, so it is worth putting some faith in them.

I agree, but as the All Blacks aren't playing, there wont be as many people watching, just like the Japan/Russia game. So effectively unless Spark comes out to say it's all working fine now, the servers wont get tested until the All Blacks play again, or until the 1/4 finals.

old3eyes

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#2322749 22-Sep-2019 16:59

Jiriteach:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12269872

" ... has vowed that the Government will get to the bottom of the issue."

"I can assure you we will find out as fast as possible as to what on earth is not going on," he told Newstalk ZB this afternoon.

What can the government do about this? Do they have the power to force Spark to make changes? I would think not?

Doubt if they could as they haven't done any good with fuel prices and oil companies.

Regards,

Old3eyes

gehenna

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#2322750 22-Sep-2019 17:00

Jiriteach:

What can the government do about this? Do they have the power to force Spark to make changes? I would think not?

Not least of all because it's absolutely inappropriate for the government to get involved.

sm1ff

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#2322752 22-Sep-2019 17:00

for those people that think spark sports has better picture quality, i disagree with all of you. The clarity is softer compared to sky sports, the frame rate was definitely less due to much more judder, it did not feel like 60 or 50 fps to me!
I was using chrome cast built into my NVIDIA shield. the 2 channels of audio is terrible and shocking bad.

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