Sky outbid for EPL rights (Premier League Pass discussion)

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

1 | ... | 78 | 79 | 80 | 81 | 82 | 83 | 84 | 85 | 86 | 87 | 88 | ... | 210

327 posts

Ultimate Geek

#879532 16-Aug-2013 14:08

SwansNZ:
JarrodM:

In happier news ALL matches in the first two gameweeks will be available ondemand for the week.

— PremierLeaguePass (@p_l_pass) August 16, 2013

This is me #appvigil #lightingcandles pic.twitter.com/BOcaw047PY

— PremierLeaguePass (@p_l_pass) August 16, 2013

"In happier news ALL matches in the first two gameweeks will be available ondemand for the week."

What is and is what not on-demand is very confusing - I thought all games were going to be available on-demand each round until the following round anyway?

There is a fair bit of confusion about this, the latest is this (I think!)...

25 games per team per season can played 'On-Demand', which is anytime before the next round starts. 13 games per season per team are only available for 24hrs after the game finishes.

Neulion (the tech guys who run the product based in NYC) are saying one thing and Coliseum are saying something else...but this (above) seems to be correct from what CSM have tweeted and is also what Tim Martin said on NZ TEch Podcast...

Dororke

94 posts

Master Geek

#879733 16-Aug-2013 18:56

Not sure why there is confusion, seems simple enough to me.

Every game can be watched on demand up until the next round which is typically a week away, or 2 weeks in international weeks or a few days at Christmas and Easter.

Of all the 380 games, 250 of them will be available on demand for the entire season. I would guess they will keep the best teams/games as part of the 250.

I rarely go back and watch old games but it's nice to know that there will be a chance to watch my team if for some reason I'm away on holiday and want to catch up say.

Dororke

94 posts

Master Geek

#879735 16-Aug-2013 18:59

And besides 250 games = the first 25 rounds. So they won't start culling games until after Christmas.

JarrodM

969 posts

Ultimate Geek

#879755 16-Aug-2013 19:28

No that's not how it will work.
Select games from each round will be available on-demand till kickoff of the next matchweek. The number of these games will total 250 throughout the season.
The other 130 games throughout the season will be available to watch live or "as-live" for 24 hours after the match has been played.

nexstar

10 posts

Wannabe Geek

#879758 16-Aug-2013 19:48

Dororke: Not sure why there is confusion, seems simple enough to me.

Every game can be watched on demand up until the next round which is typically a week away, or 2 weeks in international weeks or a few days at Christmas and Easter.

Of all the 380 games, 250 of them will be available on demand for the entire season. I would guess they will keep the best teams/games as part of the 250.

I rarely go back and watch old games but it's nice to know that there will be a chance to watch my team if for some reason I'm away on holiday and want to catch up say.

I think there's confusion because their support staff have been saying something different to what their FAQ says. Their FAQ says:

Do I have to watch all the matches live or can I record them and watch at my leisure?

We've confirmed with the league that every single match can be watched once at any time - live or otherwise. On top of this we're offering 250 matches for multiple views whenever you want. We'll try to ensure for starters they are all the 3am kick-off matches, with the remainder being as many of the midnight games as we can squeeze in.

Wheras I and others have been told that they are not enforcing the one-time viewing rule. There's quite a lot of difference between being able to watch matches once or multiple times over any given period especially as it would mean that they would need to monitor the viewing record to be able to police one-time views. This also brings into question the situation when you might lose your internet connection or your Aunt Maude decides to Skype you during a match etc etc!!

My feeling is that someone at PLP got the idea that they didn't need to enforce the one-time rule and someone in their legal department has discovered that they do. Just my speculation though.

Graham

SwansNZ

97 posts

Master Geek

#879763 16-Aug-2013 19:57

Ok, so normally, ALL games are available on-demand for 24 hours, and 6 or 7 of these for the week.

I guess that is ok.

I wonder how they will present a live game that you join after the start - there should be an option to play from the start or join the game live. I hope they don't muck this up, I plan to ge up about 5:30 Sunday to watch Swansea v Man Utd - I want to start from the beginning, not join live to see the Swans are 3 up already :)

compost

295 posts

Ultimate Geek

#879796 16-Aug-2013 21:00

NonprayingMantis: if it is a dedicated new channel, then it is unlikely to be in HD I think.

If that is the case there will be a few people in this thread very disappointed as apparently watching football in anything less than HD makes you eyes bleed.

Resolution-induced ocular platelet deficiency syndrome...nasty. Lucky I'm immune

A time-poor geek is hardly a geek at all

Equinox IT

Cloud spending continues to surge globally, but most organisations haven’t made the changes necessary to maximise the value and cost-efficiency benefits of their cloud investments. Download the whitepaper From Overspend to Advantage now.

compost

295 posts

Ultimate Geek

#879803 16-Aug-2013 21:17

invisibleman18: Really surprised Sky didn't go for Liverpool over Man City. Surely they have the largest fan base in NZ alongside Man United, much larger than Man City.

Au contraire - with so much football available, football addicts who are going to make the most of it are going to watch games in order of team preference. It's like the Single Transferable Voting system. For the vast majority, one Manchester team will be dead last in preference, which means that the other team will automatically be near the top.

A time-poor geek is hardly a geek at all

dwl

371 posts

Ultimate Geek

#879896 16-Aug-2013 23:59

dwl:
gunnerpc: I have been streaming it wirelessly to my tablet, the delay in stream was hopeless, they would be about to shoot, next thing you know its down the other end of the field.
Some may say, well its the wireless, but I disagree, the stream I watch from Arsenal TV on the same tablet, doesn't lag like the PLP one. The two qualities are comparable.

The lack of effective frame rate sounds excessive if it literally misses that much ball travel. Once home networks, especially wireless, are added there can also be variations over time with other users (or even device by themselves) using the bandwidth for other content. If the comparison has been shown multiple times to be worse for one provider and better on the other that would seem fair but watch out for quick assessments. If assessing on a tablet, there might also be trade offs of resolution vs. motion in the encoding which may be more obvious on a larger screen (assuming the stream rates were the same).

I've had a look at the streams on the Arsenal home page and downloading http://player.arsenal.com/player/3846-man-city-n-bitesize for me it seems to be lower resolution at 854x480 and a low bit rate around 800 kbps but peaking about twice that. I don't know how to get a higher resolution stream. The motion performance seems reasonable but the lower resolution becomes really obvious on a larger screen.

I would expect that this Arsenal stream to look quite reasonable on a tablet, especially as the motion was looking fairly smooth. If it was only the 800 kbps Arsenal stream, then it could be that the PLP stream was dropping rate and could well start to look worse at low rates. These assessments are made more difficult because the PLP demo player doesn't report rates or allow for fixed rate setting like you can do for NFL Game Pass.

Apsattv

2388 posts

Uber Geek

#879921 17-Aug-2013 04:56

another option but expensive? via smart dns or vpn. There is a smart tv hack for Samsungs that allow you to load Samsung apps for Australia etc.. maybe the Foxtel iptv app could be loaded up. They have a pc version as well.

http://www.foxtel.com.au/foxtelplay/home/default.htm

Foxtel brings Barclays Premier League to Play

From http://www.techradar.com/news/television/foxtel-brings-barclays-premier-league-to-play-1173274

Watch the matches live

At least you won't have to sign up to a year-long contract to watch the matches...
With the recent launch of Foxtel Play, Foxtel has now announced that the 2013/14 Barclays Premier League will be available to watch live through its new IPTV service.

The first match kicks off this Saturday at 9pm (AEST), with Liverpool facing Stoke City, but in order to get your league fix through Foxtel Play, you'll have to first subscribe to a genre package to then be able to subscribe to the premium Sports package.

One genre package will set you back $25, two will be $35, $45 for three or $50 for all four. The Sports package will cost $25 extra, but will give you access to Fox Sports channels, ESPN and ESPN2, as well as Euro Sport, Speed and Fuel TV.

As a month to month service, you should keep in mind that you will be paying a minimum of $50 a month if your keen to watch the entire season through Foxtel Play.

gunnerpc

29 posts

Geek

#879938 17-Aug-2013 08:50

dwl:
dwl:
gunnerpc: I have been streaming it wirelessly to my tablet, the delay in stream was hopeless, they would be about to shoot, next thing you know its down the other end of the field.
Some may say, well its the wireless, but I disagree, the stream I watch from Arsenal TV on the same tablet, doesn't lag like the PLP one. The two qualities are comparable.

The lack of effective frame rate sounds excessive if it literally misses that much ball travel. Once home networks, especially wireless, are added there can also be variations over time with other users (or even device by themselves) using the bandwidth for other content. If the comparison has been shown multiple times to be worse for one provider and better on the other that would seem fair but watch out for quick assessments. If assessing on a tablet, there might also be trade offs of resolution vs. motion in the encoding which may be more obvious on a larger screen (assuming the stream rates were the same).

I've had a look at the streams on the Arsenal home page and downloading http://player.arsenal.com/player/3846-man-city-n-bitesize for me it seems to be lower resolution at 854x480 and a low bit rate around 800 kbps but peaking about twice that. I don't know how to get a higher resolution stream. The motion performance seems reasonable but the lower resolution becomes really obvious on a larger screen.

I would expect that this Arsenal stream to look quite reasonable on a tablet, especially as the motion was looking fairly smooth. If it was only the 800 kbps Arsenal stream, then it could be that the PLP stream was dropping rate and could well start to look worse at low rates. These assessments are made more difficult because the PLP demo player doesn't report rates or allow for fixed rate setting like you can do for NFL Game Pass.

I have just resurrected my HTPC.
Premierleague pass is garbage, unwatchable on my 50 inch TV.
Arsenal TV, passable but not ideal.
Hulu, pretty good. All US based TV was ok even going through Hola.
TVNZ on demand. really good.

I just don't get it.

dwl

371 posts

Ultimate Geek

#879964 17-Aug-2013 10:35

gunnerpc: I have just resurrected my HTPC.
Premierleague pass is garbage, unwatchable on my 50 inch TV.
Arsenal TV, passable but not ideal.
Hulu, pretty good. All US based TV was ok even going through Hola.
TVNZ on demand. really good.

I just don't get it.

I feel your frustration as there are many variables. I suspect some of this debate is due to different resolution (how sharp it looks) and effective frames rate (how blurry or jerky it gets with motion) as different people have different thresholds of discomfort and then outright pain when too bad.

PLP is variable stream rates. You haven't stated what your player was achieving and if only using the demo that is harder. If less than 3000 kbps on a 50" it could well look like garbage to a lot of people. If at 3000 kbps it may still not be that good depending on how it was encoded - it may need several games from PLP for comparison and this is only subscribers who will know. PLP are using 1280x720 and while 720p can be HD if the effective frame rate isn't there to match or the encoding performance isn't there I doubt it will look good on a 50" (and I am pleased they are not claiming it as HD).

Arsenal on the feed I had was 854x480 at a low rate of 800 kbps. They did seem to have encoding that delivered good motion performance. The change from 1280x720 down to 854x480 means only 45% of the pixels needed so more effort can go into motion or using a lower bit rate. The bandwidth requirement for Arsenal seems low and should be more immune to any network limitations.

I haven't tried Hola. I am impressed with what Quickflix here can do for their low bandwidth but that is mostly watching relatively slow moving content and I wouldn't want to do it on a set bigger than my 32".

TVNZ has a maximum stream of 1500 kbps. Using this setting on "The Voice Australia" I see this reported by mediainfo for the first 30 seconds of the video portion:
Nominal bit rate : 1 372 Kbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 396 pixels
Frame rate mode : Variable
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.162

Over a more extended period I see the download rate mostly averaging 1.5 Mbps but there are times when it goes higher averaging 2.5 Mbps over 30 seconds. A key parameter here is the Bits/(Pixel*Frame) which is quite high and achieved by not trying to deliver high resolution and is an indicator (still encoder dependent) of capacity to cope better with motion.

Running 720p with only 3 Mbps is asking quite a lot for content with a lot of motion. The trade off to a lower resolution but the same bit rate might well make the motion better but annoy those who want sharpness. For me I find the lack of fluid motion disconcerting but each viewer will have their own setups and preferences. I hope this helps.

dwl

371 posts

Ultimate Geek

#879972 17-Aug-2013 10:51

Apsattv: another option but expensive? via smart dns or vpn. There is a smart tv hack for Samsungs that allow you to load Samsung apps for Australia etc.. maybe the Foxtel iptv app could be loaded up. They have a pc version as well.

A word of caution, which will already be understood by many on this forum, is that options like this and Al Jazaeera have to pull the full content stream from offshore (assuming DNS or VPN used). This may well work a lot of the time but if the stream does start to struggle you don't have much recourse. Fine if it is free but when laying down $ and not having support is a risk.

On a selfish note, I would rather that viewers used local servers, which is the model from PLP, so that the international bandwidth isn't getting consumed. While it could be argued that this usage is trivial, it doesn't take that many viewers, especially trying for higher resolutions, to make a measurable dent in available capacity. Yes, I do know it is your right to use whatever bandwidth you have paid for however you like, but it doesn't seem a good model to be firing up many long distance video streams with the same content (whether live or sitting on NZ servers as on-demand).

Dororke

94 posts

Master Geek

#879975 17-Aug-2013 11:09

SwansNZ: Ok, so normally, ALL games are available on-demand for 24 hours, and 6 or 7 of these for the week.

I guess that is ok.

I wonder how they will present a live game that you join after the start - there should be an option to play from the start or join the game live. I hope they don't muck this up, I plan to ge up about 5:30 Sunday to watch Swansea v Man Utd - I want to start from the beginning, not join live to see the Swans are 3 up already :)

Says they will be available for on-demand from kick off. I read that to mean that if you set your alarm and wake up after a short snooze but miss the beginning of the game you will be able to start from the beginning - if you so wish.

And all games will be available for on-demand up until the next round (not just 24 hours). So typically that will be a week or so, 2 weeks if there is an international weekend intervening and 2 or 3 days at Christmas and Easter.

As to those only being able to watch a game once, PLP have stated they will not enforce this. But I gotta ask who out there watches a game more than once. Thinking back over the years with SKY and always recording the live games I can't ever recall an instance where I re-watched a game. So who does?

SwansNZ

97 posts

Master Geek

#879995 17-Aug-2013 11:35

Dororke:
SwansNZ: Ok, so normally, ALL games are available on-demand for 24 hours, and 6 or 7 of these for the week.

I guess that is ok.

I wonder how they will present a live game that you join after the start - there should be an option to play from the start or join the game live. I hope they don't muck this up, I plan to ge up about 5:30 Sunday to watch Swansea v Man Utd - I want to start from the beginning, not join live to see the Swans are 3 up already :)

Says they will be available for on-demand from kick off. I read that to mean that if you set your alarm and wake up after a short snooze but miss the beginning of the game you will be able to start from the beginning - if you so wish.

And all games will be available for on-demand up until the next round (not just 24 hours). So typically that will be a week or so, 2 weeks if there is an international weekend intervening and 2 or 3 days at Christmas and Easter.

As to those only being able to watch a game once, PLP have stated they will not enforce this. But I gotta ask who out there watches a game more than once. Thinking back over the years with SKY and always recording the live games I can't ever recall an instance where I re-watched a game. So who does?

If all games are available on-demand until the next round all season, then why did PLP announce that for the first 2 rounds, all games would be available on-demand for the week? PLP really should clarify exactly what do they mean by on-demand, and if all games will be available to view "non-live"' and if so, for how long.

I never watch a whole game more than once, I often watch highlights of games many times.

1 | ... | 78 | 79 | 80 | 81 | 82 | 83 | 84 | 85 | 86 | 87 | 88 | ... | 210