Spark Sport: Rugby World Cup 2019

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#2336615 14-Oct-2019 10:36

johny007g:

tdgeek:

Anyone aware of what SSN issue's were caused by?

Stuff report yesterday?

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/motorsport/116538406/sky-sport-streaming-crashes-missing-scott-mclaughlins-magic-moment-at-bathurst

Tks, didnt see that. Human error is the best outcome, so that's positive for them and sport streaming in general

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#2336621 14-Oct-2019 10:42

networkn:

Sco v JPN had an excellent picture, really amazing actually.

The one thing I noticed with the Sco v Jpn match, and I've watched pretty much every match, was that during the first half in particular there was a bit of stuttering (possibly buffering). It happened maybe 10 times. I haven't noticed that in other games. I'm using Kodi with the Spark Sport plug in, and have it set to stream on the best quality, this means it can't drop to lower qualities.

Curious if anyone else noticed that last night?

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#2336624 14-Oct-2019 10:45

tdgeek:

The opening match wasn't about congestion.

It was built for 500,000+, its reached 140's max? FTA will be kicking in now as well. Anyone aware of what SSN issue's were caused by?

FTA doesn't start till the semis so this weekends quarters will be by far the biggest test of the platform.

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#2336628 14-Oct-2019 10:47

damo99:

networkn:

Sco v JPN had an excellent picture, really amazing actually.

The one thing I noticed with the Sco v Jpn match, and I've watched pretty much every match, was that during the first half in particular there was a bit of stuttering (possibly buffering). It happened maybe 10 times. I haven't noticed that in other games. I'm using Kodi with the Spark Sport plug in, and have it set to stream on the best quality, this means it can't drop to lower qualities.

Curious if anyone else noticed that last night?

I didn't experience that at all. My stream was pretty much flawless in that game.

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#2336636 14-Oct-2019 10:54

damo99:Curious if anyone else noticed that last night?

I too watched Scotland vs Japan on Kodi (LibreElec) but had absolutely no issues.

Rob

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#2336638 14-Oct-2019 10:54

JPNZ:

tdgeek:

The opening match wasn't about congestion.

It was built for 500,000+, its reached 140's max? FTA will be kicking in now as well. Anyone aware of what SSN issue's were caused by?

FTA doesn't start till the semis so this weekends quarters will be by far the biggest test of the platform.

Ok, thanks for that. Just note that congestion hasn't caused any glitches yet. It didnt for Sky as well =with their issue the other day

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#2336639 14-Oct-2019 10:54

networkn:

damo99:

networkn:

Sco v JPN had an excellent picture, really amazing actually.

The one thing I noticed with the Sco v Jpn match, and I've watched pretty much every match, was that during the first half in particular there was a bit of stuttering (possibly buffering). It happened maybe 10 times. I haven't noticed that in other games. I'm using Kodi with the Spark Sport plug in, and have it set to stream on the best quality, this means it can't drop to lower qualities.

Curious if anyone else noticed that last night?

I didn't experience that at all. My stream was pretty much flawless in that game.

That's great news - hopefully just my end of things then. It got me a little concerned for the up coming games that will have higher demand.

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#2336643 14-Oct-2019 10:59

damo99:

networkn:

damo99:

networkn:

Sco v JPN had an excellent picture, really amazing actually.

The one thing I noticed with the Sco v Jpn match, and I've watched pretty much every match, was that during the first half in particular there was a bit of stuttering (possibly buffering). It happened maybe 10 times. I haven't noticed that in other games. I'm using Kodi with the Spark Sport plug in, and have it set to stream on the best quality, this means it can't drop to lower qualities.

Curious if anyone else noticed that last night?

I didn't experience that at all. My stream was pretty much flawless in that game.

That's great news - hopefully just my end of things then. It got me a little concerned for the up coming games that will have higher demand.

You answered your own question

On Kodi, the bitrate dropping to secure a consistent stream are not present. If your setup and/or device was deemed as not quite up to the max frame rate, the bitrate will decrease. But with Kodi it doesn't. So if that occured, you would remain at best quality but lose frames

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#2336673 14-Oct-2019 11:43

tdgeek:

You answered your own question

On Kodi, the bitrate dropping to secure a consistent stream are not present. If your setup and/or device was deemed as not quite up to the max frame rate, the bitrate will decrease. But with Kodi it doesn't. So if that occured, you would remain at best quality but lose frames

It's running on my 2018 Sony Bravia, the TV is wired and I've got 100M fibre. So definitely no issues bandwidth-wise. As I said I've watched all the games (same setup) and haven't noticed this issue. I wondered if there was a bit more demand on last nights game. Pleased to hear no one else had the issue though, hopefully it was just my TV busy doing something else.

When I watched the All Blacks v South Africa game I was using the native Spark Sport app, which of course dropped down to a very low bit rate when they were having issues - I was just hoping this wasn't the same issue occurring again, which could present as missed frames because it won't drop to a lower stream.

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#2336725 14-Oct-2019 11:58

damo99:

tdgeek:

You answered your own question

On Kodi, the bitrate dropping to secure a consistent stream are not present. If your setup and/or device was deemed as not quite up to the max frame rate, the bitrate will decrease. But with Kodi it doesn't. So if that occured, you would remain at best quality but lose frames

It's running on my 2018 Sony Bravia, the TV is wired and I've got 100M fibre. So definitely no issues bandwidth-wise. As I said I've watched all the games (same setup) and haven't noticed this issue. I wondered if there was a bit more demand on last nights game. Pleased to hear no one else had the issue though, hopefully it was just my TV busy doing something else.

When I watched the All Blacks v South Africa game I was using the native Spark Sport app, which of course dropped down to a very low bit rate when they were having issues - I was just hoping this wasn't the same issue occurring again, which could present as missed frames because it won't drop to a lower stream.

Did you try the SS app and not Kodi when you had this recent issue?

Thats AB/RSA issue, it was congestion. BUT due to all bar 1 CDN servers not running, of the 6 I recall. So with 1/6 of capability and it caused issues at 137,000 streams but ok at 126,000 streams, that shows how much ability is there. Theoretically 6 x 126,000 could work, simplistically

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#2336729 14-Oct-2019 12:06

tdgeek:

damo99:

tdgeek:

You answered your own question

On Kodi, the bitrate dropping to secure a consistent stream are not present. If your setup and/or device was deemed as not quite up to the max frame rate, the bitrate will decrease. But with Kodi it doesn't. So if that occured, you would remain at best quality but lose frames

It's running on my 2018 Sony Bravia, the TV is wired and I've got 100M fibre. So definitely no issues bandwidth-wise. As I said I've watched all the games (same setup) and haven't noticed this issue. I wondered if there was a bit more demand on last nights game. Pleased to hear no one else had the issue though, hopefully it was just my TV busy doing something else.

When I watched the All Blacks v South Africa game I was using the native Spark Sport app, which of course dropped down to a very low bit rate when they were having issues - I was just hoping this wasn't the same issue occurring again, which could present as missed frames because it won't drop to a lower stream.

Did you try the SS app and not Kodi when you had this recent issue?

Thats AB/RSA issue, it was congestion. BUT due to all bar 1 CDN servers not running, of the 6 I recall. So with 1/6 of capability and it caused issues at 137,000 streams but ok at 126,000 streams, that shows how much ability is there. Theoretically 6 x 126,000 could work, simplistically

No I didn't try the spark sport app, the app on my tv only streams at 30fps and a lower bit rate, the image is substantially worse than watching via Kodi.

I was aware of the CDN related issue. Overall I'm extremely impressed with the service and the picture quality (for the most part, the blocky grass is annoying), and it looks as though they most definitely have enough capacity if everything is running smoothly :-)

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#2336735 14-Oct-2019 12:16

damo99:

No I didn't try the spark sport app, the app on my tv only streams at 30fps and a lower bit rate, the image is substantially worse than watching via Kodi.

I was aware of the CDN related issue. Overall I'm extremely impressed with the service and the picture quality (for the most part, the blocky grass is annoying), and it looks as though they most definitely have enough capacity if everything is running smoothly :-)

Ok, that confirms your TV isn't supported, as it isn't deemed ok for 60fps, but its clearly close. Maybe however it was shot might have been busier for the TV, hard to know. Oddly, and maybe related, or just placebo effect, I felt that the F1 was better than it normally is and its normally 10/10. It just seemed perfect, smoothness-wise. Maybe I was imagining it, but someone else referred to the rugby as amazing, so it made me feel if an encoding improvement had occurred. All supposition though

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#2340091 18-Oct-2019 10:23

Just received:

Spark Sport is confident all measures are in place to ensure its broadband streaming service works well during this weekend’s crucial Rugby World Cup quarter final matches.

Over the 37 RWC pool matches played since September 20, the streaming platform delivering matches into people’s homes has performed as expected in all but one match – the exception being the New Zealand vs South Africa match on Day 2 of the tournament, during which a minority of customers experienced poor video quality due to Spark back-end delivery issues.

Those issues were not related to the number of customers streaming this match and throughout the tournament to date the network has operated well within capacity. As a consequence, Spark does not anticipate the high viewership expected over this coming weekend will cause any capacity-related or other technical concerns.

In addition to successfully streaming all remaining RWC matches, the recent focus of the Spark Sport team has been on helping as many customers as possible have a better Rugby World Cup viewing experience, especially by identifying improvements to their in-home technology setup.

Over the past fortnight, we’ve had around 17,000 interactions via our Care channels (with everything from complex troubleshooting, to basic help such as password resets). Most of these customers have received the support they need over the phone or online chat, although several hundred have been assisted through an in-home visit or have received a complimentary Freeview SmartVU device as an alternative way to watch.

Although we believe these steps have gone a long way to help many more New Zealanders get themselves match-ready for live broadband streaming, we know there are Spark Sport customers who haven’t watched a RWC match over the past week or two, and we suspect some of them may still need help with their in-home technology setup. We expected we would help many of them for the All Blacks’ match against Italy last Saturday, but unfortunately this was cancelled due to typhoon Hagibis.

We want everyone to have a great experience on Saturday evening, and we understand that streaming live sport is a new technology which can sometimes be frustrating for people who are unfamiliar with streaming live content online. We want to help, so we encourage all Spark Sport customers who experienced issues last time they watched a match and haven’t resolved their issues permanently since then, to get in touch with our Care teams (help.sparksport.co.nz or 0800 792 787) well in advance of kickoff. We also encourage customers to do a quick health check of their setup by going onto Spark Sport and watching something from the catalogue of on-demand rugby content available on their device of choice for watching the big games.

In anticipation of a busy weekend of rugby, Spark Sport has increased the capacity of its dedicated care team who will be available from 7am Saturday to help customers troubleshoot their issues.

For Spark Sport’s top device and set up tips visit https://help.sparksport.co.nz/rugby-world-cup-2019/top-troubleshooting-tips

Referral links: Quic Broadband (free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE) | Samsung | AliExpress | Wise | Sharesies

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#2340667 19-Oct-2019 17:07

Pity it doesn't start at say 8.15 rather than 10.15. I suspect this may put a lot of people off who will record it from TVNZ. I suspect that the streaming load will not be as high if it was earlier.

Regards,

Old3eyes

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#2340679 19-Oct-2019 17:40

old3eyes:
Pity it doesn't start at say 8.15 rather than 10.15. I suspect this may put a lot of people off who will record it from TVNZ. I suspect that the streaming load will not be as high if it was earlier.

Yes and no, the fact that it is late is more incentive to stream IMO. If you want to watch it yes you could record and watch in the morning but if you don’t want to wait til the morning it’s incentive to stream it because waiting an extra hr later means you don get to bed until around 1:15 rather than midnight. That extra 1hr sleep is worth the $24 or whatever it is for a single game IMO.

So I wouldn’t expect the numbers to be low

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