Spark Sport
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Switched to Duke for second 40. Better stability as you'd expect. Stink the stream had some stutters. Not a great look in spite of the effort to resource it.
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I had a few moments of buffering and fuzzy display maybe 10 or so times, but overall was watchable so stayed with the stream. Am on fibre.
Spark will be very disappointed they had to concede to free TV. Wonder what they’ll do for the next game.
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Did it work well for anyone? Obviously seems like there were a lot of issues based on Twitter but those enjoying at home with no issues are hardly going to complain.
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What kind of broadband does everyone have? What speeds? In Oz, realistically the most you can get is 100/50 and for a bunch of apartments 50/25 is the best - most people I know (personally) in NZ have at least 100/50. So is it app issues? Issues with it all getting to NZ?
Also, watched the game at my mates place using Kayo and we probably had three times when it dropped back to SD so it does happen elsewhere (at my place doesn't usually drop back).
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What kind of broadband does everyone have? What speeds? In Oz, realistically the most you can get is 100/50 and for a bunch of apartments 50/25 is the best - most people I know (personally) in NZ have at least 100/50. So is it app issues? Issues with it all getting to NZ?
Also, watched the game at my mates place using Kayo and we probably had three times when it dropped back to SD so it does happen elsewhere (at my place doesn't usually drop back).
@Nepia said in [Poll] Will you use Spark to watch RWC?:
What kind of broadband does everyone have? What speeds?
1000/500 here. Didn't watch on that though - had some freezes at the place we were, which was annoying. Critically, didn't lose any action - just a delay.
Other than htat, the picture was good HD for us (on a projector)
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@Nepia I'm on fibre and get around 80/20 speeds so wasn't expecting any issues, and didn't have any in the previous matches.
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7 times it froze temporarily. Not a disaster but not good enough either.
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From Spark Sport:
Midway through the first half we identified that the quality of the video stream was fluctuating for some customers. This meant that customers experienced brief, intermittent periods of reduced video quality such as pixilation and buffering.
We were uncomfortable at the quality of the experience our customers were getting and, as we always said we would, we moved quickly to provide them with an alternative means of watching the match. We had prior established procedures with our partner TVNZ to enable live, free-to-air coverage at short notice.
We made the call just before half time to immediately simulcast the rest of the match live on TVNZ Duke and we communicated this through our channels and the media. A banner message was also subsequently displayed on Spark Sport.
The video streaming quality issue improved shortly afterwards and from midway through the second half streaming across all devices appeared stable once again.
The majority of customers continued to watch via Spark Sport and did not experience video quality issues. The service peaked at 132,000 concurrent streams and by the end of the match had dropped to 126,000.
There were not the same video quality problems during the day’s two earlier matches. Although some customers needed help from our care teams at times during the day, for the most part these related to isolated device issues and in-home set up.
The root cause of the video streaming issue is still being investigated with our international streaming partners. However, we can confirm that the issue was not related to New Zealand broadband capacity, with the demand for this game well within our operating thresholds. It was not confined to customers of any particular broadband provider.
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@Machpants said in [Poll] Will you use Spark to watch RWC?:
Not much use to those of us that don't have TVNZ
But reasonable for them as a provider. Confident that it will get better, and pool games are where you want them to find the issues.
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I had some brief periods of low resolution in the first half (5-6 of duration 10-20 seconds) but otherwise it was ok. Not perfect for me, but I am not upset either.
On the plus side, I thought pre and post match was a step up from what we see from Sky.
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Spark is telling customers it's "too early to say" if the streaming issues which plagued Saturday night's All Blacks match will be resolved in time for Sunday's matches. "Unless we confident of this, then we will look to simulcast tonight's matches on TVNZ DUKE to ensure New Zealanders have a good viewing experience," a spokesperson for Spark said on Sunday morning. "We intend to make a decision on whether or not to simulcast by 1pm today [Sunday], to ensure our customers have adequate time to prepare for today's matches."
