The service is being hosted by Akamai in Sydney. It's going to cost TVNZ a fortune to longline to NZ from Australia, I wonder how long they will be able to sustain the costs?
Fantastic service I think. Really good quality, no buffering and starts straight away. A good range of programmes to start off with.
I did notice however that they're a bit slow at uploading the news. It's 8:30pm and they haven't put tonight's news up yet. What's the point of having the news up there if by the time it's there, it's out of date. I was kinda hoping to use this to catch up on the news as very often we miss the 6 o'clock broadcast.
I agree, the quality is impressive. Very fast too (Orcon Max/Max) Have just tried streams, do you know if pay-per-view downloads have any quality difference? Of course they're not 720p nor 16:9 but hey, this is a great start! no ads, a part from the first one You can have an on demand ok quality TV from any room in your house! 16:9 will come, one day, surely
I just hope reviewing the 7 day DRM limit is something they could look at removing. I'd prefer to be limited to a single device and have unlimited plays. It would be interesting to know exactly why they have only chosen to allow 7 days of usage.
Give them a chance - This is a long term play for TVNZ. They know that the 7 day limit is not ideal but they need to have it this way until they can sort out rights issues. Going forward TVNZ will negotiate content deals where they can have the most flexibility in terms of distributing content. TVNZ's motto is 'Inspiring New Zealanders on every screen' which basically means embracing new technologies and ways of accessing content. There are some really good plans for OnDemand and this is only version 1 (4 month build time) - Expect to see lots of iteratations of the site and download options over time.
Well, first thing I get is a fake scrollbar flash list on the main page, most of these are done by mac users that dont have wheelmice and dont understand the problem.
So I find something and click on it and the page loads with a tiny flash player - like 3" sized. At least there is a functional fullscreen option, but oh my god it looks bad like that. Looks like its not using an overlay since the pic is tearing to hell and the scaling to fullscreen makes everything turn into jumbopixelvision type material.
Why do people insist on using that abortion that is flash video.
richms: Well, first thing I get is a fake scrollbar flash list on the main page, most of these are done by mac users that dont have wheelmice and dont understand the problem.
So I find something and click on it and the page loads with a tiny flash player - like 3" sized. At least there is a functional fullscreen option, but oh my god it looks bad like that. Looks like its not using an overlay since the pic is tearing to hell and the scaling to fullscreen makes everything turn into jumbopixelvision type material.
Why do people insist on using that abortion that is flash video.
That's a bit harsh. It's better than Youtube, Google Video, BBC's video clips, is about comparable quality to CNN's pipeline. I really can't think of an online video streaming service that has better quality and certainly not one that plays instantly without buffering from New Zealand.
Also, considering the generally poor state of the average NZ broadband connection, they'd be silly to stream at a higher rate.
compost: So barnaclebarnes, do you think geekzone needs a tvnzondemand forum for their employees to post in?
Good call if I was a TVNZ employee but I am not. In the interests of full disclosure I work for Nielsen//NetRatings (my real name Glen Barnes) and TVNZ are one of my clients. I just happen to think TVNZ has done a good job here considering the constraints they are under. I also attended a lunch with TVNZ (including Regan and Rachel from Throng and Richard McManus from R/RW) where they outlined their future plans. If they pull it off I think they will do really well. Check out Richard's blog for more details of TVNZ's plans - http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/tvnz_ondemand.php
my honest opinion of this service (if anyone cares) is that using Flash is the wrong way to do it (but a good way to test the water).
Orcon TV - when it was around - was technically better because they used mms:// and multicast. TVNZonDemand could work on PC-based set-top boxes, Windows MCE and PVRs and etc but because of the choice to use flash it is limited.
multicast routing reduces overhead compared to the oodles of unicast streams flash uses and mms is compatible on more platforms than flash player. to draw an exaggerated analogy; choosing flash player is like broadcasting TV only to Sony television sets. mms and multicast are industry standards for IPTV, flash is better suited for web browser games, advertisments and youtube. am I barking up the wrong tree? does anyone think flash is a good idea for public TV broadcast?
Orcon TV - when it was around - was technically better because they used mms:// and multicast. TVNZonDemand could work on PC-based set-top boxes, Windows MCE and PVRs and etc but because of the choice to use flash it is limited.
multicast routing reduces overhead compared to the oodles of unicast streams flash uses and mms is compatible on more platforms than flash player. to draw an exaggerated analogy; choosing flash player is like broadcasting TV only to Sony television sets. mms and multicast are industry standards for IPTV, flash is better suited for web browser games, advertisments and youtube. am I barking up the wrong tree? does anyone think flash is a good idea for public TV broadcast?
Flash is the perfect way to deliver web based content. It is probably the only multi-platform method that Just Works(tm) on most systems. It also allows you to add interactive features in terms of voting, etc in the actual stream.
Now this is only one way that TVNZ is delivering their content. They also provide some podcasts, Windows Media downloads and at some point hopefully services like iTunes and Joost. I think their plan is to support many platforms but the reality is at the moment Flash based players will reach the greatest audience with the least amount of effort. They can build on this and add other delivery methods in the future.
Glen PS: Please see disclaimer in previous post...I don't work for TVNZ but have talked with them about their plans and this where I can see them going.
perhaps it is not designed to be what I was hoping it was
Television sets with ethernet (they connect to mms multicast services) are available in Japan and China. mms is far more ubiquitous than flash, it is built into every modern media player, from PCs to Xboxes, Macs to Linux, Windows Media Player to VLC. there are exciting developments taking place overseas based on IPv6 multicast routing & mms and TVNZ should be aiming for that not just patching a gap between youtube and TV. I'm sure this site will be very successful but still, it's not real IPTV.
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