Sky outbid for EPL rights (Premier League Pass discussion)

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

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978 posts

Ultimate Geek
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#880982 19-Aug-2013 13:18

blessant: when is the premier league review/highlights show on TV & what channel? looking forward to seeing the best of gameweek 1! :)

TV1 10:55 tonight.

blessant

17 posts

Geek
+1 received by user: 1

#880984 19-Aug-2013 13:19

JarrodM:
blessant: when is the premier league review/highlights show on TV & what channel? looking forward to seeing the best of gameweek 1! :)

TV1 10:55 tonight.

thanks - same time every wk? will do a series link if so..

nzmate

36 posts

Geek
+1 received by user: 1

#880988 19-Aug-2013 13:25

spiglord:
I made use of the ‘free’ 24 hour ‘Tiger’ passcode to check out the quality of the PLP service on the weekend, with a view to understanding if the service was good enough to fork out $149 for a season pass. I had previously checked out the quality of the sample stream on my computer monitor, which I didn’t think was representative of what the service would be, so I watched the Spurs v South China on Saturday on my computer and it didn’t look too bad on the 23”screen.

So I rigged up my spare laptop with an HDMI cable to my 55” Samsung LED and fired up the PLP service, and watched the Swansea v Man U game start to finish on Sunday morning, and was generally pleased with the picture quality on such a large screen. Having been a Sky HDi subscriber in the past, the quality was much poorer than what I was previously used to, but it was watchable, even if it did look slightly out-of-focus & washed out at times, (the rain in Wales did not help).

If I am honest, the service was better than I expected, given the lack of a real ‘try-before-you-buy’ samples, and the fact that it was ‘watchable’ on my 55” TV. Once the stream settled down, there was limited blockiness/pixilation, but the judder remained noticeable throughout, which I have become used to when watching poorly streamed content. I also ran a sample of the NFL content at 4500kbps on the 55” TV and as expected, the quality was much improved and the judder less noticeable. IF PLP move to the higher streaming speed, I believe that the quality question will be less of a concern.

So, I gave in a subscribed to PLP….., what choice did I have…?

Being an ardent Spurs supporter I was not prepared to wait 34 hours (!!) for ‘delayed’ coverage on Sky TV, as I much prefer watching ‘pseudo-live’ in the morning a few hours later, so I got up at 5am this morning and watched the VOD Spurs game before work. My experience was similar to the Man U game on Sunday, but my eyes did start to hurt a little during the second half.

Overall, the service is good enough to watch a game or two on the big TV when SkyTV’s coverage is delayed beyond a few hours or days (!), but I don’t think I’ll be using it to watch too many other games until the quality is improved. However, watching on my computer or laptop screen is acceptable for the time being. Given that I paid $127, (with Telecom discount), and that I will probably watch at least 1 game a week, I would say that the PLP service is acceptable at less than $4 per game…..

TL:DR The ‘quality & convenience’ of the PLP is a significant step backwards for watching the English Premier League in New Zealand, and only when PLP acknowledge this fact and start taking positive steps to improve this, will their reputation for only being interested in the $$$ start to improve.

Did the same here, I have found that some LCD screen show's poor/average quality, on my Laptop Toshiba Qosmio was good quality, then I connected it via HDMI to me Samsung LED 42' and the quality was 8/10 (if you stand one meter from the screen you can see the pixilation but 2 meters and further is good as Sky.
So If you can afford $150 a year then go for it, I know I am (plus will keep the Sky sport for ESPN and will also watch Bundesliga via Sommet)

JarrodM

978 posts

Ultimate Geek
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#880989 19-Aug-2013 13:26

blessant:
JarrodM:
blessant: when is the premier league review/highlights show on TV & what channel? looking forward to seeing the best of gameweek 1! :)

TV1 10:55 tonight.
thanks - same time every wk? will do a series link if so..

just checked the freeview epg, it's on the same time next week. so looks like it will be.

invisibleman18

1420 posts

Uber Geek
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#881030 19-Aug-2013 14:45

Just got a reply from Sky on Facebook that Arsenal's CL qualifier against Fenerbahce will be live on ESPN at 6.45am this Thursday (the schedule still says teams and venues TBA but apparently ESPN have just sent them the details to update). It's replayed later in the day on ESPN but there will be no delayed Arsenal TV screening which is interesting as the original announcement gave the impression that for all 4 clubs all games in all competitions would be screened delayed.

Presumably as it's already on ESPN they just see no need to fit a delayed screening into their schedule aswell. Guess the real test will come when the domestic cups start and the games are not usually shown (or any CL games ESPN do not show if they make it past the qualifier).

MePLUR

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#881068 19-Aug-2013 15:42

Anyone else notice that even if you set the quality to 3000 Kbps, it still drops to a lower bitrate?

My experience this weekend was disappointing. The stream was constantly buffering when trying to watch the game at 3000 Kbps. Set it to 'Best Available' and this is what I got at the end of the Crystal Palace vs. Tottenham game. Pretty sure it wasn't my internet connection. Did a speed test at the time to a local server and was downloading at 16 Mbps. Even if the content was hosted on an overseas server, I should be able to stream at 3000 Kbps.

PLP needs to do something about the quality of its feeds. Even at 3000 kbps, Sky's SD stream looked less jerky to me.

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NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

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#881070 19-Aug-2013 15:50

MePLUR: Anyone else notice that even if you set the quality to 3000 Kbps, it still drops to a lower bitrate?

My experience this weekend was disappointing. The stream was constantly buffering when trying to watch the game at 3000 Kbps. Set it to 'Best Available' and this is what I got at the end of the Crystal Palace vs. Tottenham game. Pretty sure it wasn't my internet connection. Did a speed test at the time to a local server and was downloading at 16 Mbps. Even if the content was hosted on an overseas server, I should be able to stream at 3000 Kbps.

PLP needs to do something about the quality of its feeds. Even at 3000 kbps, Sky's SD stream looked less jerky to me.

makes you wonder if the bitrate is not only determined by your personal connection, but also by the 'allowable' bitrate from teh CDN. e.g. PLP might have paid for a max bitrate of 'XMbps' at any one time, and if too many people try to watch at the same time, it drops everyone down to a lower rate to get more people on, rather than stopping new people joining (which is what iSky does)

compost

295 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 37

#881156 19-Aug-2013 18:40

StarBlazer: Do we know if anyone from PLP is watching this forum? If not that's a missed opportunity.

There is no forum on their site and I couldn't find a Facebook page!

Personally, I'd like to question where they got the average 1.1GB from!

https://www.facebook.com/PremierLeaguePass

Strange that it's lowly ranked in google

A time-poor geek is hardly a geek at all

aboylikedave

243 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 4

#881286 19-Aug-2013 22:40

As an Arsenal fan who cannot afford Sky, being able to get up at 9am on Sunday instead of the middle of the night, and watch the game at a better quality than I am used to from Internet streams, is well worth 125 bucks a season......

However for me it was all about also being able to watch it on tv via ipad and Apple TV. I am a bit miffed that having quite clearly said the ipad app would be ready for the start of the season it is not. Poor and amateurish.

My EPL football websites: Get the results but hide the score of your team at HidetheScore.net. Compare league positions with wage bills at RealPremierLeague.net.

Apsattv

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#881313 20-Aug-2013 01:12

I took a look using the tiger promo code, Interesting?

stream url when the game was live
http://nlds5.cdnak.lon.neulion.com/nlds/coliseum/westhamunited/as/live/westhamunited_hd_3000/20130817/13/5756.mp4

some fiddling around, and I came up with

(400x224) http://nlds5.cdnak.lon.neulion.com/nlds/coliseum/westhamunited/as/live/westhamunited_hd_400.m3u8
(640x360) http://nlds5.cdnak.lon.neulion.com/nlds/coliseum/westhamunited/as/live/westhamunited_hd_800.m3u8
(640x360) http://nlds5.cdnak.lon.neulion.com/nlds/coliseum/westhamunited/as/live/westhamunited_hd_1200.m3u8
(960x540) http://nlds5.cdnak.lon.neulion.com/nlds/coliseum/westhamunited/as/live/westhamunited_hd_1600.m3u8
(1280x720) http://nlds5.cdnak.lon.neulion.com/nlds/coliseum/westhamunited/as/live/westhamunited_hd_3000.m3u8

all of which played fine in VLC without logging in.... and could be played by overseas friends with no account.... as did other live games

example
http://nlds3.cdnak.lon.neulion.com/nlds/coliseum/westbromwichalbion/as/live/westbromwichalbion_hd_400.m3u8

tripp

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#881321 20-Aug-2013 07:10

Apsattv: I took a look using the tiger promo code, Interesting?

stream url when the game was live
http://nlds5.cdnak.lon.neulion.com/nlds/coliseum/westhamunited/as/live/westhamunited_hd_3000/20130817/13/5756.mp4

some fiddling around, and I came up with

(400x224) http://nlds5.cdnak.lon.neulion.com/nlds/coliseum/westhamunited/as/live/westhamunited_hd_400.m3u8
(640x360) http://nlds5.cdnak.lon.neulion.com/nlds/coliseum/westhamunited/as/live/westhamunited_hd_800.m3u8
(640x360) http://nlds5.cdnak.lon.neulion.com/nlds/coliseum/westhamunited/as/live/westhamunited_hd_1200.m3u8
(960x540) http://nlds5.cdnak.lon.neulion.com/nlds/coliseum/westhamunited/as/live/westhamunited_hd_1600.m3u8
(1280x720) http://nlds5.cdnak.lon.neulion.com/nlds/coliseum/westhamunited/as/live/westhamunited_hd_3000.m3u8

all of which played fine in VLC without logging in.... and could be played by overseas friends with no account.... as did other live games

example
http://nlds3.cdnak.lon.neulion.com/nlds/coliseum/westbromwichalbion/as/live/westbromwichalbion_hd_400.m3u8

Good god, one balls up after another with these guys, won't take long to work out the address for the games you want to watch

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richardgnz

64 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 13

#881322 20-Aug-2013 07:13

A new article on stuff...

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/9061401/Footage-falls-flat-with-premier-league-fans

StarBlazer

961 posts

Ultimate Geek
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#881332 20-Aug-2013 07:53

Apsattv:

I think it's as interesting to see the resolutions that are provided at the specific bit rates. There is no point me connecting my laptop at 1080p when even the best resolution is only 720 (I presume p).

Also I note that the 800 and 1200 streams are the same resolution but no difference in either the fps or the encoding!

I had a quick look at the codec meta data in VLC and saw that the frame rate is listed at 59.94 - okay there are some arguments whether this is still 60fps or not - but the fact that the majority of complaints were from people experiencing some kind of visual "judder" this cannot be simply ignored. Codec is h264 which is probably no surprise.

I'm not an engineer but I know some on here are (dwl) - what would be the impact of watching a video at 59.94fps on a TV running at 1080@50p - I would guess unpleasant. I have mentioned off-board that it looked similar to an NTSC conversion issue.

Some have said that the NFL looks better. Can anyone get the metadata and confirm what the frame rate and resolution are?

Procrastination eventually pays off.

dwl

371 posts

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#881386 20-Aug-2013 09:32

Some interesting revelations here. First off, while I worked in TV broadcasting for an extended period it was on transmission in the old analogue sense and more recently helping make sure Freeview was getting around the country without glitches. That later model gives everyone the same resolution feed which isn't always available with OTT, hence my keen interest in these alternative delivery methods. I am not a video specialist but work with those who are (and you probably won't be hearing from those guys on this forum). Please don't take the opinions I have here as being from an expert but rather playing around with what I can see from home and with others in this forum we can hopefully get a reasonable view of the issues.

If I look at the video clip that was posted at http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=106&topicid=120925&page_no=90#880788 in slow motion using VLC I see 30 fps and it seems about twice per second a frame is repeated (no movement). This might be the the re-encoding done for this forum or could be in the original stream. I could jump to the conclusion it was a poor conversion from 25 fps to 30 fps but without more source material or better analysis tools (plus a lot of time) it is difficult to draw that conclusion. Overall that very brief clip didn't look too bad and didn't have the heavier smearing effects being seen elsewhere.

The stream URLs are not any use to me now as games are over. Hopefully we won't see any sharing of URLs while games are on - I think Colliseum are making good efforts, including sharing with TVNZ, and are getting some reality checks with a huge range of issues so please don't undermine their investment.

When I have used the same URL approach to look at stream detail for NFL, the games I have seen are 30 fps with both the 3000 and 4500 streams at 720p. I know that 60 fps is being used on some platforms by NeuLion for NHL but I am surprised to hear that 60 fps is appearing in PLP streams.

As I have posted before, I thought that the Bits/(Pixel*Frame) was a useful metric assuming the encoder was of the same capability. If 60 fps and each frame is rendered separately then something needs to give. I can't see any reason for using 60 fps with the available bandwidth and even 25 fps as used for Arsenal player is probably a better choice than 30 fps if the stream is bandwidth limited. Say we have 2.9M for the video then the Bits/(Pixel*Frame) rises from around 0.105 at 30 fps to 0.126 at 25 fps both at 720p and if the resolution was dropped slightly to 1024x576 (SD) at 25 fps it rises further to a massive 0.197 which should give even better motion performance. However, this still requires the source material to be high quality with good conversion to the required rate and of course high performance final encoding.

There will be others, perhaps working in TVNZ, Sky or other broadcasters, who know this quality stuff really well. Colliseum have chosen partners that have a particular package and are still working out what fits in the NZ market. This detailed video quality issue may be a minor concern if the bulk of quality complaints are about low rate streams, freezing or very blocky pictures for some viewers that are probably a priority to fix. My view is that a clean stream isn't looking too bad and while I don't think it may be the best the technology can deliver there are bigger issues for PLP just now. Each game might have different issues with different source quality or perhaps distribution variability within NZ.

Early days yet and at least the free day passes helped to load up the system a bit and hopefully provide good learning. I'll continue to watch this space with interest.

gunnerpc

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#881393 20-Aug-2013 09:42

MePLUR: Anyone else notice that even if you set the quality to 3000 Kbps, it still drops to a lower bitrate?

My experience this weekend was disappointing. The stream was constantly buffering when trying to watch the game at 3000 Kbps. Set it to 'Best Available' and this is what I got at the end of the Crystal Palace vs. Tottenham game. Pretty sure it wasn't my internet connection. Did a speed test at the time to a local server and was downloading at 16 Mbps. Even if the content was hosted on an overseas server, I should be able to stream at 3000 Kbps.

PLP needs to do something about the quality of its feeds. Even at 3000 kbps, Sky's SD stream looked less jerky to me.

I got the Free Tiger pass on the weekend. I sent to to my 50 inch LCD, and mine looked the same as this above for the majority of the games. As such its unwatchable for me.
I could watch the stream on my 22inch computer monitor, where it did look considerably better, but still not magnificent. But who wants to do that?

In this thread there seems to be two or three types of people.
1. Are the group who were already watching their football from illegal streams on their laptops or something similar. As such PLP is a fantastic product for them.
2. People who were watching on full HD via mysky, and of course PLP is inferior to them.
3. Die hard fans (likely mainly expats) that must watch their team, and will put up with anything to do it.

I live in a 1920's house, which doesn't have CAT6E wiring throughout, I have to do most of the internet via WIFI, I expect that a few people have similar situations to me.
The only way I can see that I can get a better quality to my TV in the lounge, is to hard wire the internet. I don't want to do this, it will cost a fortune.

So I and many others need to decide whether to watch a mediocre stream on my PC, not watch it at all, or watch it delayed on SKY with a couple of one eyed commentators.
Personally I cant understand why anyone would want to watch any great amount of TV on their laptop or PC, but that's just me. Some people dont have a choice I guess.

What I cant understand is why PLP have been so short sighted, and only provided a product that some people will like. Well I can, its all $$.
I am sure there are plenty of people who are missing out on the EPL altogether as they don't know how or aren't interested or don't have the equipment to what PLP.

I have lost track of what I was even trying to say.
The long and short of it is, I still hate it.
I don't want to watch it on my PC.
I want to do do an HD stream via wireless to my HTPC and have it look good.

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