benokobi: I don't use it even without a paywall. It barely ever works and the quality isn't great.

benokobi: I don't use it even without a paywall. It barely ever works and the quality isn't great.

charsleysa:
I never have a problem with it and quality is reasonable. Try changing the quality setting to 1500. If it spends too long loading then your internet isn't capable of handling the demands and you should look at your options for upgrading.

farcus:

charsleysa:
I never have a problem with it and quality is reasonable. Try changing the quality setting to 1500. If it spends too long loading then your internet isn't capable of handling the demands and you should look at your options for upgrading.

Both TVNZ and TV3 streaming quality even at its highest setting is seriously wanting.
TV3s highest quality setting of 1465kbps gives me a picture quality setting comparable to youtube 360p yet it often sutters during playback.
I have plenty of bandwidth and can happily stream 720 or 1080 content from youtube, and don't get any buffering issues from any major streaming companies.
TVNZ seems better than TV3 in regards to reliability but its picture quality certainly couldn't be called "good"

charsleysa:

Please do note that in order to keep such a low bitrate of 1500 kbps extreme compression is used and is indeed a good quality video for the amount of compression it goes through. The stuttering is caused by either your computer not being able to handle the decompression or your internet connection being able to handle the throughout.

It's more likely that your computer can't handle the aggressive decompression. There are so many factors that come into play when streaming video such as on demand TV, especially since it uses a different streaming method than YouTube (as far as I know, YouTube downloads the video and is technically not streaming in the strict sense of the word, while on demand is not downloading the video, it is streaming).

Streaming video is quite a big topic and I invite you to spend some time understanding some of the differences between types of streaming.

farcus:

charsleysa:

Please do note that in order to keep such a low bitrate of 1500 kbps extreme compression is used and is indeed a good quality video for the amount of compression it goes through. The stuttering is caused by either your computer not being able to handle the decompression or your internet connection being able to handle the throughout.

It's more likely that your computer can't handle the aggressive decompression. There are so many factors that come into play when streaming video such as on demand TV, especially since it uses a different streaming method than YouTube (as far as I know, YouTube downloads the video and is technically not streaming in the strict sense of the word, while on demand is not downloading the video, it is streaming).

Streaming video is quite a big topic and I invite you to spend some time understanding some of the differences between types of streaming.

both TVNZ and TV3 encode using H264. They should be able to provide a much better quality video that can be streamed over an adsl connection without stuttering.
(my connection is a 100 down / 50 up fiber connection on a high spec computer)

I can assure you that my internet connection and computer system are not the reason for stuttering.

Of course Youtube is streaming video - it is perhaps in many instances cached to a local server by a users isp - but that is still streaming content . . . and in any case, youtube is just one example. I have no problem with other streaming services that are not cached by local isps.

charsleysa:

As I have said, I invite you to learn about the differences in streaming types.

Real streaming is not utilized by YouTube. They utilize a form of streaming that makes it appear to be streaming but is actually downloading it and temporarily caching it locally.

farcus:

charsleysa:

As I have said, I invite you to learn about the differences in streaming types.

Real streaming is not utilized by YouTube. They utilize a form of streaming that makes it appear to be streaming but is actually downloading it and temporarily caching it locally.

I'm not going to get into a debate here about who knows what (I'm very comfortable with my years of acquired knowledge about video compression technology).
As I said, youtube is just one example.
The indisputable fact is that both TVNZ and TV3s streamed content is of a poorer quality than it needs to (and should) be.

charsleysa:

There are a variety of reasons as to why your videos stutter but considering you have not mentioned any information other than your connection speed and the issue, it's safe to assume that the fault lies within your computer.