GDT: GAME 21 | Sens Flaming Out in Prime Time | Mon Nov 25 2024, 7:30PM | Prime Video

BonHoonLayneCornell

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Oct 16, 2006
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Netflix's market cap is 20X Rogers but they couldn't put up a successful live stream of a big event.

Bell and Rogers choose to provide shit services because there's no alternative for customers so they don't give a shit. This isn't an example of Amazon flexing their financial muscle.
The Paul vs. Tyson fight was crazy though. During its peak, over 65 million people were watching concurrently. That's in another stratosphere compared to a Senators vs. Flames Monday night game.
 

BankStreetParade

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Jan 22, 2013
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Are we comparing the broadcast or the streaming service itself?

Amazon has been in the streaming business since 2006, bell started IPTV in 2010. Rogers was 2018 from what I can tell.

There's also the reality that IPTV services were seen as a bit of a second fiddle for Bell and Rogers, they focused on their cable and satellite delivery first.

I think both (or all three) companies have competitive advantages in different ways.
Broadcasting.

TSN has been around since 1984, doing sports, specifically. Bell has owned TSN since 2011 and has spent billions on TV rights for sporting events.
Sportsnet has been around since 1998, doing sports, specifically. Rogers has owned Sportsnet since 1998 and has spent billions on TV rights for sporting events.

Amazon has only entered the live sports event market in the last 5ish years.

It's not a comparison that makes any sense no matter how you look at. Established expertise, revenue models, distribution, media rights share, etc.
 

Golden_Jet

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Sep 21, 2005
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Broadcasting.

TSN has been around since 1984, doing sports, specifically. Bell has owned TSN since 2011 and has spent billions on TV rights for sporting events.
Sportsnet has been around since 1998, doing sports, specifically. Rogers has owned Sportsnet since 1998 and has spent billions on TV rights for sporting events.

Amazon has only entered the live sports event market in the last 5ish years.

It's not a comparison that makes any sense no matter how you look at. Established expertise, revenue models, distribution, media rights share, etc.
Yet somehow, Amazon puts out a better quality picture.
 

Micklebot

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Apr 27, 2010
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Broadcasting.

TSN has been around since 1984, doing sports, specifically. Bell has owned TSN since 2011 and has spent billions on TV rights for sporting events.
Sportsnet has been around since 1998, doing sports, specifically. Rogers has owned Sportsnet since 1998 and has spent billions on TV rights for sporting events.

Amazon has only entered the live sports event market in the last 5ish years.

It's not a comparison that makes any sense no matter how you look at. Established expertise, revenue models, distribution, media rights share, etc.
Ok, because the quote I saw was "Bell and Rogers have more than enough funds to make as high quality a stream as Amazon does lol", but a bit further back talks more about the overall broadcast, so I think we have two parallel points being discussed.

I was seeing a lot of complaints about the TSN and Bell streaming platforms during the game, I figured that spurred some of this.

Not sure what revenue models, distribution, or media rights share has to do with whether or not Amazon can put out a good broadcast though.

Wrt the NHL, a lot of stuff is actually contracted by the broadcasters, not internal talent, so for example, it's the same cameramen regardless. A lot of expertise is basically the same regardless of whether it's TSN or SN televising the game. I imagine that is the same with Prime, they've contracted the same companies for camera work and I suspect the same directors ect as all the other broadcasters do, the difference boils down to the platform they broadcast over, and the panels and on air talent they set up.
 

BonHoonLayneCornell

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I would bet they are willing to take a loss on it to break in to the market. Sort of like Microsoft and Gamepass. Provide a superior product at a loss, get the market share, then you can start charging applicably
 

Micklebot

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The Amazon 4K is a better picture than the Sportsnet and TSN 4K games imo.
Might be, it's been a while but from what I recall, they can only dedicate so much bandwidth to the channels, and have a cap that needs to be divided between the entire catalog of channels Bell (or Rogers) has, so while it's 4k, that doesn't mean there isn't significant compression,

With a streaming platform, I suspect there is more options available.

I'm not sure if SN and TSN are locked in at the quality set by the cable/Fibe that Bell and Rogers use, maybe the streaming app could go higher, but then it becomes a question of whether they made that backend investment or not,
 

Tuna99

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That's a choice, it costs more to do 4k, so from what I understand most games are just in 1080p

Money is no issue, they had like an 8 panel show for a Monday game in Ottawa, they spent more on their broadcast Monday in Ottawa then HNIC does on a Toronto Saturday game
 

Micklebot

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Apr 27, 2010
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Money is no issue, they had like an 8 panel show for a Monday game in Ottawa, they spent more on their broadcast Monday in Ottawa then HNIC does on a Toronto Saturday game
That's what I was getting at, Amazon chose to spend the money to get a better quality picture, nothing to do with expertise.
 

Golden_Jet

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Might be, it's been a while but from what I recall, they can only dedicate so much bandwidth to the channels, and have a cap that needs to be divided between the entire catalog of channels Bell (or Rogers) has, so while it's 4k, that doesn't mean there isn't significant compression,

With a streaming platform, I suspect there is more options available.

I'm not sure if SN and TSN are locked in at the quality set by the cable/Fibe that Bell and Rogers use, maybe the streaming app could go higher, but then it becomes a question of whether they made that backend investment or not,
They all use compression, the difference is Amazon is 4K and uses HDR,
TSN and Sportsnet upscale to 4K, on their games, with a select few recorded in 4K on TSN.
Sportsnet does 1 or 2 games a night in upscaled 4K, TSN, 1 or 2 a week. (Cable/fibe)

Audio wise, Prime has Dolby Atmos if you have a system that can support it.

Overall it’s just better.
 

jbeck5

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Cousins is very replaceable.. I like giving Rino a chance.. there are other guys that can fill that role too.

I like Ostapchuk's game . I wonder if they try to keep him up for a while.

I actually don't like cousins at all.

Hes not physical. He's not distracting the other team. He takes bad penalties. He's not overly strong defensively.

What was the point?

He almost always takes a bad penalty. It's rather annoying. Bench him. Play ostapchuk.

It's more an embarrassment on the people mugging for the camera. The kids are fine trying to get noticed on tv, they are kids after all, but the adults doing it look like idiots.

The kids too lol let's be real.

It's like the intermissions version of banging on the glass lol

Yet somehow, Amazon puts out a better quality picture.

I noticed a worse quality. With cable, it's always crisp. With streaming, it depends on a lot of factors.
 

jbeck5

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The Amazon 4K is a better picture than the Sportsnet and TSN 4K games imo.

Wasn't even close for me lol I have the top internet with bell fiberoptic cable...

Our bell cable and rogers cable before is always wayyyyyy better than any stream. That's my experience.
 

jbeck5

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Money is no issue, they had like an 8 panel show for a Monday game in Ottawa, they spent more on their broadcast Monday in Ottawa then HNIC does on a Toronto Saturday game

This is true. They had way better in between entertainment/reporting than TSN or Sportsnet.

Just wish the picture quality and FF/REW options were better.
 

jbeck5

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Well they are the largest cloud provider in the world and own like a third of the market. That seems like a big advantage to lean into in the streaming game.
How does it compare to Netflix?

That fight was brutal for bandwidth. Everyone I know had to watch it a bit delayed because watching it live was an never ending shit show of loading.

Never had this issue with cable. Super bowl
.grey cup. Stanley cup final. Oscars...all the biggest viewing shows...smooth and clear.

Every time I do streams? Poor quality or a lot of loading. And yet my download and upload speeds are great.
 

Golden_Jet

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I noticed a worse quality. With cable, it's always crisp. With streaming, it depends on a lot of factors.
I have cable,/fibe and like I said above, the Amazon picture is better than the 4K games I get on cable. (Which are quite good themselves).
Makes sense as I showed what each platform uses above for video and audio

Might be your setup/system as most see noticeable improvement on Amazon, as can be seen in reviews in the Prime thread.

Edit: should have mentioned it’s 60fps on Amazon in HDR as well.

 
Last edited:

lang006

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Jan 2, 2020
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I really like John Forslund's play by play. His goal calls are excited sounding enough but not over the top. The crew stuck to calling the game all night and didn't continually get into off topic conversations as play was going on . I'd take him as play by play over any of those Sportsnet trots out there.
 

bicboi64

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Was pleasantly surprised with the quality of everything on Amazon, might have to make it my regular way to watch Sens on Monday games
 

Mark Stones Spleen

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The Paul vs. Tyson fight was crazy though. During its peak, over 65 million people were watching concurrently. That's in another stratosphere compared to a Senators vs. Flames Monday night game.
I'm not doubting that. Rogers and Bell have decades of live entertainment experience. Amazon puts in a ton of money into their tv platform but the majority isn't live sports. I'm just making a point that their market cap isn't the reason they put together a superior quality hockey broadcast. The post I quoted using "net worth" is ridiculous. The program was good because they cared to make it good. Rogers and Bell simply don't give a shit, they've got plenty of money to do it, they just don't want to.
 
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BonHoonLayneCornell

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They all use compression, the difference is Amazon is 4K and uses HDR,
TSN and Sportsnet upscale to 4K, on their games, with a select few recorded in 4K on TSN.
Sportsnet does 1 or 2 games a night in upscaled 4K, TSN, 1 or 2 a week. (Cable/fibe)

Audio wise, Prime has Dolby Atmos if you have a system that can support it.

Overall it’s just better.
Not all compression is the same though. They're using more bandwidth to provide those features. In other words, they're just spending more.
How does it compare to Netflix?

That fight was brutal for bandwidth. Everyone I know had to watch it a bit delayed because watching it live was an never ending shit show of loading.

Never had this issue with cable. Super bowl
.grey cup. Stanley cup final. Oscars...all the biggest viewing shows...smooth and clear.

Every time I do streams? Poor quality or a lot of loading. And yet my download and upload speeds are great.
I didn't watch through Amazon tbh, it was their feed I found elsewhere in 1080P, so not a real comparison for me.

I also didn't watch the Jake Paul fight cuz I knew it would be a joke. I watched a small highlight pack later, so can't weigh in on that, but clearly they were bottlenecked on their end, not the users, so I think that was a bit of a one off.

In general, if you wade out into the high seas, you can easily see the average sizes these streamers send out and they're not equal. Netflix is on the low end. A movie from them in HDR is usually 9-12 gb's. Apple and Movies Anywhere on the high end around 20-30gb's. Amazon and Paramount are sort of in the middle. UHD discs get as high as like 80gb's for one movie and is the gold standard.
 

swiftwin

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I have cable,/fibe and like I said above, the Amazon picture is better than the 4K games I get on cable. (Which are quite good themselves).
Makes sense as I showed what each platform uses above for video and audio

Might be your setup/system as most see noticeable improvement on Amazon, as can be seen in reviews in the Prime thread.

Edit: should have mentioned it’s 60fps on Amazon in HDR as well.

Yep, the image quality was miles ahead of the garbage on Sportsnet or TSN. It might not matter on some TVs, but on a 77" OLED, the difference was unreal.

The boomers at the NHL needs to pull their heads out of their ass and get on board with proper streaming services. Nobody uses cable anymore.
 

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