I have access to On Demand telly via two conduits : my V+ cable TV box and the general internet via my laptop. I'm including the V+ box there as it has a collection of On Demand sources available to it, including BBC's iPlayer, ITV Net Player, 4 on Demand and the Virgin1 Player. I currently use it for watching stuff like the Doctor Who repeats, as the V+ box hooks up to a telly that my laptop isn't compatible with (explanation later).
How does the V+ manage ? The best description is "competent" :-) I only have an old CRT telly due to being forced to buy it at completely the wrong time ... (link attached for the "why"!) so it's not capable of showing HD. If it did, then I'd have the option to upgrade that "competent" a bit. As it is, BBC iPlayer through it gives playback as you'd expect to see on a live broadcast or from a recording. The interface on the V+ box is a little slow but that and a tendency for it to take a few hours for shows to become available are the only drawbacks.
So a good showing from the V+ box, the only downsides being noticed because I'm an impatient button presser :-)
How about the laptop ? Here's the techie part :-)
My current laptop is a G70-120EA made by Hewlett Packard. It's powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo T5800 capable of running at 2GHz. It's got 3GB of RAM and it's hooked up via wifi-G to a 10Mb/s internet connection. The internet comes in through a cable modem hooked up to a Linksys WRT54G2 wifi-router. However, I have to de-rate the cpu (Power Options) by 50% to stop it overheating due to a duff cooling fan. There's still plenty of power available in there though. Unfortunately I have to suffer watching via the laptop screen, due to my old CRT telly not having inputs that can take the D-SUB and HDMI outputs from the laptop. Upside, there's a 17" screen on the laptop :-)
I've tried 3 internet based on-demand services so far : SkyPlayer, BBC iPlayer and Channel 5's On Demand service. How do each fare ?
Sky Player : In the final days of me being with Sky, this allowed me to keep up with a few shows that my Sky Box + Dish weren't able to pick up. I've not used it since switching away from Sky though, so my knowledge is a little old. Impressions - high quality playback, no issues with download rates, good choice for movies etc but limited otherwise.
All On Demand suffers a little from lack of choice, you're dependent on what the providers of the service are interested in squirting down the pipe. Some providers are better than others and for what they don't show, there's always DVDs :-)
Back to Sky Player - very competent on downloaded programmes, although live streaming was VERY susceptible to jamming via other internet activity. As in, I used their streaming Sky Player News programme to test the Airfoil utility I've described in a post below and the conflicting streams rendered the news programme unwatchable. That's about 700kbits/s coming in and 1Mb/s going out. There were other issues being caused by glitches in their login code, where the Skyplayer app would kick you out, unless you knew the trick to logging in. It also required its own player application, although IIRC that branched to Windows Media Player.
(note - this could also have been a router issue, I've changed from a rubbish Philips to the mostly good Linksys but can't remember when ... the conflicting stream issue could have been the Philips getting in the way, plus Airfoil streaming got kicked to touch for other reasons)
Verdict - Good for Sky owners :-) No use whatsoever for other people. Let me watch Star Wars Clone Wars when my Skybox decided it would block Sky Movies Premier. Last word here - Examine the T's & C's closely ... I couldn't get SkySports streams through it, even though I had that as part of my Skybox package.
BBC iPlayer : UK people will know (and love) this service well. It's been around for a while now (in internet terms !) and has evolved since day 1. If I called the V+ "competent", then this can only be described as "excellent". BBC make most of their programmes available quickly after they're broadcast and in the UK, it's free to view. No adverts either. Quality depends on the stream you're using :
Normal - uses about 750kbits/s bandwidth and is Not broadcast quality
High-Def - about 2-2.5Mbits/s and is definitely broadcast quality
I'm also able to do other stuff over the internet while iPlayer is doing its thing. Think frenzied internet browsing with an iPlayer window showing Grand Prix coverage while cricket is on the telly. (I will freely admit to being an Information Junkie)
Ok, Ok, that temptation to play was too much. I'm now listening to music from iTunes (Portishead) streaming over the network to remote speakers while an iPlayer window is playing back coverage from the earlier MotoGP. Here's how it behaves :
What you're seeing there is the output from a Vista gadget called Network meter, that I have monitoring the wifi coming and going from my laptop. The green line is approx 1Mbit/s going from laptop to my remote speakers via an Apple Airport Express. The yellow spikes are from iPlayer grabbing data from the server. They peak at 10Mbits/s, so it's taking its bites in at the maximum potential of my cable modem, with no interference in my music playing. That's probably due to buffering both in the Airport and from iPlayer.
iPlayer used to come in as a separate app but has compressed into being Flash now. That's good although Flash does come with certain vulnerabilities, which is why I use Firefox with the Flashblock app so I can control when Flash apps load. No compatibility issues to report there.
Verdict - they've steadily improved a service that's been outstanding for a while. Yet they've still improved it. Quality of playback is excellent, although it's giving me a Lol moment on the test I'm running now because the subtitles on the MotoGP coverage seem to be from a political environmental programme instead of MotoGP.
Finally, 5 On Demand : I checked this one out because I've been watching the series Warship on Channel 5. Normally I catch it off the V+ box recordings but for some reason, it decided to eat the final episode. Cue internet research ... and finding 5's On Demand service :-) Saves the day again, just like Skyplayer in the last days of my Skybox.
You need a login for this one, in the name of parental protection. That doesn't seem to achieve very much, as although it asks for an email and a date of birth, it doesn't request any bounceback confirmation. So the parental protection is torpedoed from the start because it's trivial to insert a false year into an age. There is email notification of the creation of a new account but because there's no bounceback authentication, it doesn't have to be valid.
Quality of playback ? Good but not as good as iPlayer. Possibly suffers from trying to be too good with an app that isn't as well developed as iPlayer. Instant comparisons are that playback is jumpy and the cpu runs hot. So the player isn't as efficient as iPlayer. (Can't remember bandwidth consumption). Technically I could have boosted playback performance by letting my laptop go at full speed but it would have likely crashed 5 minutes after I did so ... Doesn't bode well for people attempting to use this on machines that aren't as well specced.
Big minus - not even the commercial Skyplayer suffers from adverts mid programme but the adverts are in the 5 On Demand player. Can't even fast forward them. Bah. Can't blame them though, they have to pay the rent, without the ads we wouldn't have the catch up service and you can always alt+tab away to check email & stuff.
Verdict - early days here, they'll hopefully have the time and cash to introduce improvements that make the player more efficient.
So - summary time :-)
Things have moved on a bit since On Demand facilities got introduced and they've improved over time. BBC's iPlayer in particular is particularly impressive (not least cos it lets me watch Grand Prix at the same time as Cricket !) and hopefully 5's offering will improve to match it.
Because episodes only tend to be available for a week or so, they won't replace Digital Video Recorders, except when the DVRs have issues like the V+ box with the Doctor Who's (attempting to schedule a recording of the first show on a channel with a turn-on time was crashing the box). And the picture quality and most importantly the sound is better off DVD. Questions are also present on equipment compatibility, like the roundhole-squarepeg of my laptop to telly hookup.
I better explain that DVD comment : Picture quality isn't visibly different (noting I don't have access to High-Def) but sound is. Both picture and sound are "broadcast" quality, i.e. picture is good but sound is just stereo. I've gotten used to the greater atmosphere of 5.1 playback off DVDs, which the streaming players don't offer.
That said though, the facility is improving into an excellent catch up service for stuff where you're not wanting to buy the DVDs. And it's great to see a facility like iPlayer get integrated into the V+ box :-)
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Forgot something - there's a computer shopping magazine out there that I will no longer even take off the shelf to check out what's in there, let alone consider buying it.
It was filled with technical gaffs, with the last straw being them stating that Wireless N was the minimum needed for streamed video over a network. LIES !
Wireless G at a potential 54Mbps or an actual 11-20Mbps is faster than your typical broadband connection, it's still faster than my fast 10Mbps connection. My own experience shows that it's plenty for streaming video from internet sources.
On a home network with not many clients, going for 300Mbps in the home instead of 54Mbps is wasteful. You get no additional internet access benefit and your hardware wouldn't be able to use that bandwidth anyway cos it's hard disc won't be fast enough.
So if anyone tries to sell you a Wireless N router by claiming that you need to spend more for streaming video, tell 'em to get their facts straight and then shop elsewhere.
That said, there are routers and there are quality routers. If my first one (a Philips) had been up to the job, I wouldn't have needed to buy a second.
(lol - must take the pills that stop the rants)
(deleted 1x comment as it appeared to have little to do with the post and everything to do with a sales pitch, from a non-existent blogger account)
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