Watching Spark Sport (including launch and pricing)

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205 posts

Master Geek

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#2233679 9-May-2019 13:37

tdgeek:

Off course, but it should be noted. Clearly Spark will have engaged with the RSP's. The RSP's as per that video, need to do their bit. I assume that all would, you would think, I would hope. What if one or more didn't?

I'm pretty sure Spark have enough media folks to make sure that we would hear about it if it were to be the case. (this would be a competitive advantage to RSP's who deliver, and the opposite to those who don't)

They have already been pretty quick to apportion responsibility to others (in the media) when problems arise. While it is good to understand what went on technically, they need to get better at owning issues when they arise. While they are quite good at identifying root cause on a case by case basis, they have not taken a big picture view of what do we do if our VOD asset is broken or not complete. How can we make this better for our Customers?

I quite quickly fall out of love with providers who give me anxiety about how good their service will be on each occasion I want to use it - e.g. Will I get ALL of what I want to see? Will I get a complete VOD asset if I chose not to get up in the middle of the night?

tdgeek

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#2233683 9-May-2019 13:45

smcc:

tdgeek:

Off course, but it should be noted. Clearly Spark will have engaged with the RSP's. The RSP's as per that video, need to do their bit. I assume that all would, you would think, I would hope. What if one or more didn't?

I'm pretty sure Spark have enough media folks to make sure that we would hear about it if it were to be the case. (this would be a competitive advantage to RSP's who deliver, and the opposite to those who don't)

They have already been pretty quick to apportion responsibility to others (in the media) when problems arise. While it is good to understand what went on technically, they need to get better at owning issues when they arise. While they are quite good at identifying root cause on a case by case basis, they have not taken a big picture view of what do we do if our VOD asset is broken or not complete. How can we make this better for our Customers?

I quite quickly fall out of love with providers who give me anxiety about how good their service will be on each occasion I want to use it - e.g. Will I get ALL of what I want to see? Will I get a complete VOD asset if I chose not to get up in the middle of the night?

You make it seem that this is frequent?

Is it better if when something goes wrong, they say nothing? The stream is from US to Akamai to the RSP. If something goes wrong and it wasnt Spark staff breaking it,(I dont actually think they touch it, I might be wrong) then they should not say what happened? That would be easy I guess, but not transparent, if end users dont know what happened, thus have no idea if its likely again.

But, ok.

Benoire

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#2233694 9-May-2019 13:58

So who pays for the transmission costs from akamai to the customer? my ISP or Spark? With Sky you knew it was either Sky or atmospheric, with online, is it Spark, Akamai, my ISP? Who can you hold to account?

tdgeek

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#2233699 9-May-2019 14:08

Benoire:

So who pays for the transmission costs from akamai to the customer? my ISP or Spark? With Sky you knew it was either Sky or atmospheric, with online, is it Spark, Akamai, my ISP? Who can you hold to account?

I cant answer that, but how would Netflix work? Feed is from US I assume, or maybe here perhaps. I assume there is a CDN for each RSP? As its streaming, it seems to be a similar means. Sky's OD also?

Good points though

Benoire

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#2233702 9-May-2019 14:12

Its a genuine question I guess for all online distributed stuff, who is ultimately responsible for the service and who is responsible for fixing the issues? Effectively Spark Sport and my ISP hold custody over the content as they are both necessary for it to work.

smcc

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Master Geek

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#2233704 9-May-2019 14:16

tdgeek:

You make it seem that this is frequent?

Is it better if when something goes wrong, they say nothing? The stream is from US to Akamai to the RSP. If something goes wrong and it wasnt Spark staff breaking it,(I dont actually think they touch it, I might be wrong) then they should not say what happened? That would be easy I guess, but not transparent, if end users dont know what happened, thus have no idea if its likely again.

But, ok.

Fairly frequent, I don't recall a completely clean F1 Weekend, where at least one stream either didn't work, didn't fail or glitch part way through, causing the live stream to need restarting by the customer, and/or causing the VOD asset not be created correctly or to be created but not covering the whole of the programming.

To be fair I have to say this is far from every stream, but at least one stream most F1 weekends thus far. (Some times it was F2 or the pre/post session SKYUK programming for example). e.g. the first hour and a bit of the pre race programme from BAKU is missing from the VOD asset (due to a in-stream glitch which killed the live feed) (note the live feed also had an entire programme segment missing), one of the F2 races from China only appeared later in the week after the event). These are not RSP issues (or probably even Akamai issues, more likely transport issues from SKYUK or FOM to i-Planet))

I never said it is "Spark staff breaking it", however it about how Spark Sport respond to make good when it does break that is important to me as a customer. Transparency is good, but as a customer I don't really care what the cause was, just that they learn from it and make good to provide the content I have paid for. I only have a relationship with SS, if someone else causes a problem with the service to me that is a spark sport problem, I have no relationship with anyone else.

Sourcing and standing up a good copy of the feed from the source would also be a great way to respond. (they do exist on the internet if you look hard enough), but I would rather that SS get SkyUK or FOM to send a clean copy to IPlanet or whoever needs it, to provide the full programming I believed I was paying for.

tdgeek

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#2233741 9-May-2019 14:21

Benoire:

Its a genuine question I guess for all online distributed stuff, who is ultimately responsible for the service and who is responsible for fixing the issues? Effectively Spark Sport and my ISP hold custody over the content as they are both necessary for it to work.

My opinion is this, its my opinion/assumption/probably wrong!

SS and NF are fully responsible, its their product, no matter what.

The streaming provider whoever that may be, may be tasked with delivering to Akamai, and/or a CDN

Akamai and/or the CDN has to do its thing, I guess they are technically responsible there (although overall as I said, its SS/NF)

If an RSP has to have Akamai "stuff" setup thats their task

If one of those fail, SS/NF own it, but its another company that has caused the fault, so SS/NF need to sort them out. So while I see that SS/NF own it all, they cannot probably control it all

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smcc

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Master Geek

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#2233757 9-May-2019 14:46

Talkiet:

As an extension of that argument, who's responsible if an ISP doesn't have enough handover bandwidth, or if the subscriber's VDSL line has lots of errors, or if their WIFI isn't very good? Or their PC is too old? Spark Sport can not be responsible for every single part of the chain, in the same way Sky shouldn't be responsible for a broken TV.

Having and maintaining good Akamai infrastructure is the responsibility of each ISP, either to have capacity in their network, or to arrange access to capacity. Spark has been extremely proactive in assisting ISPs and Akamai understand the requirements and possible max loads they may see, but ultimately it's up to each ISP to ensure that they have sufficient Akamai capacity.

Like Netflix, this is an example of where someone might want to choose an ISP on some metric other than the cheapest price possible. (That said, I think most if not all large and medium sized ISPs have good Akamai capacity.... I can't speak to the tiny ones)

Cheers - N

SS have publicly stated they support all NZ ISP's I would take that as the answer.

If you have other Internet connectivity issues then why would you not have already addressed that with your ISP. SS have stated what the minimum connectivity they support is if your connection supports that and it still doesn't work my first point of escalation would be SS.

hio77

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#2233764 9-May-2019 14:54

smcc:

If you have other Internet connectivity issues then why would you not have already addressed that with your ISP. SS have stated what the minimum connectivity they support is if your connection supports that and it still doesn't work my first point of escalation would be SS.

to be fair, and i'm sure you can ask this of many providers....

Customers do call in about their netflix buffering or not working correctly.

to end users, their issue isn't my internet is slow their issue is, netflix isnt HD.

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smcc

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Master Geek

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#2233829 9-May-2019 16:03

hio77:

to be fair, and i'm sure you can ask this of many providers....

Customers do call in about their netflix buffering or not working correctly.

to end users, their issue isn't my internet is slow their issue is, netflix isnt HD.

I agree, but to some extend this comes with the territory, if you use the internet to deliver content then you as a supplier are going to have to deal with this from your customers (especially if it the general public).

Having said that, most of the issues we have been discussing are not about delivery to the end user, they are problems with the source material that is breaking the stream, and high quality and full VOD assets not being stood up by SS (or their suppliers). These are most definitely not an ISP issue. These issues are not Bandwidth or ISP service related they relate to how the stream is created and managed by SS (and its suppliers).

WRC+ for example seem to cope much better with stream glitches, which occur, it tends in general not to break the live stream completely and they can normally stand up a full VOD asset quite quickly even if the live stream had issues.

Also for fairness, I believe F1TV Pro had a bit of a horror weekend for Baku also, I believe they are offering refunds to those who bleet loudly enough. I believe they use the same streaming provider as SS.

davidcole

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#2233928 9-May-2019 18:51

Talkiet:

For anyone to suggest we have "buggered up" F1 would be an overreaction of galactic proportions.

Sorry I didn't mean to imply that Spark Sport had.

Just pointing out to others, that people will also be biased towards their sport, and if you read the media coverage, the F1 and hockey fans have had a bad run of it (and seeing complaints throughout this thread).

Also pointing out, that at the end of the day....it's just telly....it's not the end of the world even if there are problems.

Personally I'd had very few issues, and even on that first weekend, the mismatched audio/commentary wasn't the end of the world.

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davidcole

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#2233932 9-May-2019 18:56

tdgeek:

davidcole:

BRING ON THE DEVICES!!!

https://help.sparksport.co.nz/your-account/what-devices-can-i-watch-spark-sport-on

Updates and timelines are there now

Interesting (and doesn't affect me), that it doesn't list android tv generically. Isn't that what the dish tv, and shield tv comes under?

hio77

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#2233944 9-May-2019 19:02

davidcole:

tdgeek:

davidcole:

BRING ON THE DEVICES!!!

https://help.sparksport.co.nz/your-account/what-devices-can-i-watch-spark-sport-on

Updates and timelines are there now

Interesting (and doesn't affect me), that it doesn't list android tv generically. Isn't that what the dish tv, and shield tv comes under?

Android TV will be included, content missed it unfortunately.

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tdgeek

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#2233981 9-May-2019 20:19

davidcole:

tdgeek:

davidcole:

BRING ON THE DEVICES!!!

https://help.sparksport.co.nz/your-account/what-devices-can-i-watch-spark-sport-on

Updates and timelines are there now

Interesting (and doesn't affect me), that it doesn't list android tv generically. Isn't that what the dish tv, and shield tv comes under?

I dunno! I dont do Android, but as Troy (@Hio77) has confirmed its next week, as is iOS. I hope that generic Android TV works well

tdgeek

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#2233989 9-May-2019 20:36

smcc:

tdgeek:

You make it seem that this is frequent?

Is it better if when something goes wrong, they say nothing? The stream is from US to Akamai to the RSP. If something goes wrong and it wasnt Spark staff breaking it,(I dont actually think they touch it, I might be wrong) then they should not say what happened? That would be easy I guess, but not transparent, if end users dont know what happened, thus have no idea if its likely again.

But, ok.

Fairly frequent, I don't recall a completely clean F1 Weekend, where at least one stream either didn't work, didn't fail or glitch part way through, causing the live stream to need restarting by the customer, and/or causing the VOD asset not be created correctly or to be created but not covering the whole of the programming.

To be fair I have to say this is far from every stream, but at least one stream most F1 weekends thus far. (Some times it was F2 or the pre/post session SKYUK programming for example). e.g. the first hour and a bit of the pre race programme from BAKU is missing from the VOD asset (due to a in-stream glitch which killed the live feed) (note the live feed also had an entire programme segment missing), one of the F2 races from China only appeared later in the week after the event). These are not RSP issues (or probably even Akamai issues, more likely transport issues from SKYUK or FOM to i-Planet))

I never said it is "Spark staff breaking it", however it about how Spark Sport respond to make good when it does break that is important to me as a customer. Transparency is good, but as a customer I don't really care what the cause was, just that they learn from it and make good to provide the content I have paid for. I only have a relationship with SS, if someone else causes a problem with the service to me that is a spark sport problem, I have no relationship with anyone else.

Sourcing and standing up a good copy of the feed from the source would also be a great way to respond. (they do exist on the internet if you look hard enough), but I would rather that SS get SkyUK or FOM to send a clean copy to IPlanet or whoever needs it, to provide the full programming I believed I was paying for.

While not trying to defend SS, the level of glitches per feed has been very low. Ive watched F1 for years. There are inherent glitches. Take Monza and its not the only one, when cars go under bridges it stops. Many times some interviews are audio out of sync, this was on Sky. The press conferences were often out of sync.

Point is, yes some glitches can be SS, but some are the feed

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