Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

So streaming is the way forward, judging by the quoted report - sports fans expect to get buffering and other problems while watching live streaming!

I don't know about anyone else, but I am not prepared to pay a subscription and get a sub-standard service.

Give me a standard channel broadcast any day.

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

I am not surprised ! NFL Gamepass has been pretty poor this year and many users have been given a 25% refund. The problems have been across all sorts of platforms, which is very poor considering it has been available for many years from the NFL.
I have often thought about using it myself , but as long as Sky have exclusive live rights to the playoffs there is no point.

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

Well, that assumes that the problems experienced in the States would be likely to be replicated here.

Hazarding a guess, I would say that Virgin Media subscribers with a V6 and a superhub should not experience such problems, provided that the streaming service itself isn't at fault.

As I pointed out earlier, there are no problems with live streaming on BBC's i-Player.

But you are right, sports fans would not pay out for an inferior service.

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

Just another reason and there are many as to why streaming sports will always be the little brother to the big brother which is Linear TV sport.

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

You would certainly be right if improvements were not made, Den. As I mentioned before, VM viewers with the right kit should not experience such problems (fingers crossed!) provided that the stream itself was robust.

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

Its not all about VM OB. Its the companies supplying the streams as well , the provisioning of server space to handle it all and many other technicalities.

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

However a reasonable number of Sky customers (and prospective customers) might not have enough bandwidth - Sky quoted me at around 7Mb/s.

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

Christ! Is that even enough for UHD?

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

I had the same thoughts, there are too many people that get poor speeds. Unless this is addressed, it will be difficult for streaming to get enough take up to justify the expense of these sports rights.

As most on here are on VM then it won't be an issue but there are plenty out there not so lucky with speeds

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

Indeed, I don't know how may customers VM have (and what %age take sports) but I would guess it is small beer compared to sky's figures.

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

Netflix UHD requires around 15-16 mb however they recommend your connection is around 25 mb for a smooth experience.

As Sport is fast moving it requires considerably more , I believe BT require you have at least a 40mb connection for its BT Sport UHD service.

---------- Post added at 19:37 ---------- Previous post was at 19:34 ----------

I'm presuming your area has no access to FTTC ?

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

Thing is though companies like gigaclear are already working around that by using 4G to get people ultra fast broadband in rural areas, maybe this will grow into more areas iver time.

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

I assume so - that’s the speed quoted by Sky.

Just re-checked (I last looked a couple of months ago) - I got this - If I check on the Openreach site, I get this

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

As someone who's viewing is 99% via streaming services I've found buffering is a thing of the past with a couple of exceptions, both Eurosport and NFL Gamepass upgraded (outsourced) their services to Bamtech this year and for a while both services were awful treating their paying customers as beta testers.
The NFL did the decent thing and issued a partial refund and since then I have to say the service has been top notch.
Eurosport didn't answer any support tickets and as far as I can tell only fixed their website as I cannot even login anymore on my Fire TV's let alone get any buffering and the app on my Android phone only works intermittently, I'm glad I only paid them £20 for a 12 month subscription and I certainly wont be paying them full price when my sub runs out in January!
Now TV, BT Sports and my US services (Fox, NBCSN and ESPN) all work absolutely perfectly without issue (he says touching a piece of wood so as to not tempt fate lol)

@alwaysabear It is very easy and cheap to bypass the UK blackout on NFL Gamepass, even though I have Sky Sports I do it all the time as I cannot stand Sky's NFL coverage, I don't think I can say too much in the open but if you already have access to a VPN or DNS service you should be good to go.

Latency is an issue with streaming sports as all services are 20-30 seconds behind their broadcast equivalents, but this is only a problem if you are avidly on social media during an event or a very near neighbour is watching the same thing as you and you can hear their cheering.

Re: Linear is old tech - on demand is the future
 

For me the slight delay would be no problem.

My issues would be

1) additional cost
2) smooth service as offered by std to channels
3) huge amount of my broadband usage
4) inability to record to watch at a later date (rarely in when matches are on)