Dial111: I feel sorry for Spark as how much of these issues are down to the end user? Granted if you paid for the pass you’d expect it to just work right?

Too many variables involved to make this a successful campaign for Spark, they’re on a hiding to nothing, it won’t matter what the issue is even if it’s the end users network setup or whatever, it will be “Sparks fault” and the media as they often do will be handing the pitchforks out.

Interesting new information - Spark understood to believe it was let down by US tech giant

It is understood Saturday's problems stemmed from the fact that a large volume of the encoded rugby streams were sent to just one of Akamai's six content delivery network centres in New Zealand which was already coping with peak evening demand for other internet content.
That caused glitches for some of the streams on some devices.

Not sure where he got that from but it certainly could explain the issues!

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/116005208/spark-understood-to-believe-it-was-let-down-by-us-tech-giant

That is at least is a semi plausible excuse explanation.

Batman: Is duke in 1080p normally?

Read somewhere Duke was recently upgraded in the last couple weeks

frednz:

 

tdgeek:

 

frednz:

 

Batman:

 

same. as long as game is ok, but the capacity won't be tested for a few days yet. 

 

 

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12269946

 

Spark say that it was not a load issue that caused the problem:

 

Latch said Spark believed it had fixed the problem and all three matches last night played perfectly.

 

It was not a load issue that caused a problem, Latch said, but in the video pathway configuration in New Zealand where the volumes are tiny.

 

On Saturday, 25,000 new subscribers came in with 100 people signing up a minute, a lot of whom left it until the 11th hour and needed assistance getting set up, Latch said.

 

He could not guarantee the rest of the tournament would not be faultless with Spark's streaming service, but could guarantee the platform, network and production has tested well and been outstanding.

 

 

 

 

That makes sense and aligns with this thread. I can recall two in Welly had no issues , one down south also

 

 

If the problem was a "video pathway configuration in New Zealand", then why does Spark say that the majority of viewers didn't have a problem? Why didn't this problem affect everybody's equipment?

 

 

 

Trust the Herald to misquote Jeff Latch!

I went back and listened to the recording of the interview (NewsTalk ZB at 7.08.45 am), and what he actually said was "because this was an issue in the video pathway configuration from the US to New Zealand".

The misquote completely alters the sense of what he said in this context. Trust the MSM. Yeah right!

baxnz:

 

Read somewhere Duke was recently upgraded in the last couple weeks

 

Duke on Sky went from 576i, i.e., standard definition, to 1080i.

Well the stream and Spark's ability to handle it will not be properly tested again until the 19th/20th October when the quarter finals are on.

Viewership for the next 3 NZ games (Canada, Nambia & Italy) will be well below what they were for the 1st game vs South Africa.

JPNZ:

 

Well the stream and Spark's ability to handle it will not be properly tested again until the 19th/20th October when the quarter finals are on.

 

 

 

Viewership for the next 3 NZ games (Canada, Nambia & Italy) will be well below what they were for the 1st game vs South Africa.

 

Yep get out of jail free card for the pool games

Will be fake news announcements coming from Spark

JPNZ:

 

Well the stream and Spark's ability to handle it will not be properly tested again until the 19th/20th October when the quarter finals are on.

 

 

 

Viewership for the next 3 NZ games (Canada, Nambia & Italy) will be well below what they were for the 1st game vs South Africa.

 

Fair cop  is due. If Akamai gave them 1/6 of the servers, that together will more than cater for 500,000+ connections, according to NOG then its not surprising that 132000 connections was an issue. It came right when some, just 6000 apparently, went to Duke, so a broad assumption that one server can manage 126,000 users, or lets say 110,000 to be safe, then it can seemingly manage close to 700,000. On that, its a cruise. Just my rough calc assumption

baxnz:

JPNZ:

Well the stream and Spark's ability to handle it will not be properly tested again until the 19th/20th October when the quarter finals are on.

 

Viewership for the next 3 NZ games (Canada, Nambia & Italy) will be well below what they were for the 1st game vs South Africa.

 

Yep get out of jail free card for the pool games

Will be fake news announcements coming from Spark

Not QFs, only semi onwards are live FTA.

Spyware:

 

baxnz:

 

Read somewhere Duke was recently upgraded in the last couple weeks

 

 

Duke on Sky went from 576i, i.e., standard definition, to 1080i.

 

GZ thread here

surfisup1000:

 

unsignedint:

 

Wellington, 2degrees gigabit fibre. During the NZ game I had the common frequent quality drops (on both Apple TV + Panasonic). However, I switched over to the Formula 1 at times  (and half-time) and I had exactly the same quality drops. So it seems like the problem affected the whole platform? I have been watching F1 regularly on Spark Sport and never seen this before.

 

I would be really interested to hear a more detailed technical explanation from Spark.I mean, I really don't think it was that bad, but I feel like they should be more open about what is/was wrong and where the limits of their infrastructure is. For example, see what most of the Silicon Valley crowd do these days, e.g.: https://blog.cloudflare.com/details-of-the-cloudflare-outage-on-july-2-2019/

 

 

Are you on wifi?

 

No, but it's hardly relevant here. My points are simply:

1. this did not affect only the RWC game -- the Formula1 had the same quality drops at exactly the same time.

2. if Spark provided a decent Reason For Outage then I believe we would all be better off, and would obviate speculation and scaremongering

unsignedint:

 

No, but it's hardly relevant here. My points are simply:

 

1. this did not affect only the RWC game -- the Formula1 had the same quality drops at exactly the same time.

 

True, and is from the same cause.

unsignedint:

 

2. if Spark provided a decent Reason For Outage then I believe we would all be better off, and would obviate speculation and scaremongering

 

an explanation has been given in many of the media releases.