OT: Hockeystreams vs Gamecenter

[Midas0]

and Hockeystreams just ****ing bugged out/froze/stopped working again.

edit: and it's back! missed the end of the 1st period because of it.

 

[Midas0]

I have mixed feelings about Hockeystreams. It's nice to be able to watch all the AHL, OHL, and NHL games, but the HD stream (3200kbps) is so choppy and laggy for me that I have to switch to the low quality stream every time. Hockeystreams has been good lately, but earlier on in the season there were many hiccups like the website crashing, streams going dead, etc.

Last season I had NHL-GCL, and the whole "black-out" thing pissed me off beyond belief. I don't own a television, so I can "tune-in" on TSN/CBC on a whim. And the the GCL stream has like a 30 second delay which means I couldn't follow the game on twitter/hfboards because I'd read about things before they happened on screen. The 30 second delay kind of ruins the whole experience... you're not watching a "live" game anymore, it's essentially a "recording" at that point.

I'm not sure what I'll do next year.

 

[PoutineSp00nZ]

and Hockeystreams just ****ing bugged out/froze/stopped working again.

edit: and it's back! missed the end of the 1st period because of it.

yeah that wasn't the best impression for me given that its the first game I've watched since buying a month of service

Quality isn't bad though, its smooth. Not top of the line HD but still very nice.

 

[John Holmes*]

Yes, I definitely don't care the slightest bit about the broadcast holders who continually screw over consumers. The guys who play a professional sport for a short period of their life, I care about them. The league that operates and provides entertainment to me for 9 months a year, I also care about.

What a ridiculous argument. If you are going to make a stand on moral grounds, it's best to be batting over .500...nomsayin?

I also scoff at the "Pro athlete has a limited career to earn money to last a lifetime" arguments.

So what....go get a real job like everybody else. Guys like Phil Esposito had summer jobs.

 

[Busboy]

it's not really important but if you want to know the math

best GCL stream is 4.5mbs, bluray is typically about 40mbps, so about 8x more info

4k is exactly 4times the pixels of 1080p

You're confused as to what resolution is.

I showed you the exact resoultion of 1080p, which is 1920 X 1080. 4K is double that, quadrupled it would be 7680 X 4320.

Mbps is the data transfer rate and is very different from resolution.

 

[Ron Jeremy]

I use hockeystreams with no problems. Was down for one game at the start of the season, but fine since.

 

[HavlatMach9]

You're confused as to what resolution is.

I showed you the exact resoultion of 1080p, which is 1920 X 1080. 4K is double that, quadrupled it would be 7680 X 4320.

Mbps is the data transfer rate and is very different from resolution.

remember quality is measured by bit rate, not resolution. blu ray is very high quality because of it's bit rate

as for resolution of 4k, what's so hard about understanding that it has 4 times the pixels as 1080p?

1920x1080p=2.1 megapixels
3840x2160=8.3 megapixels

 

[John Holmes*]

Nerd fight!

 

[Busboy]

remember quality is measured by bit rate, not resolution. blu ray is very high quality because of it's bit rate

as for resolution of 4k, what's so hard about understanding that it has 4 times the pixels as 1080p?

1920x1080p=2.1 megapixels
3840x2160=8.3 megapixels

I don't know, maybe you can try harder to explain because I don't know what you're talking about.

1080 hd has 1920 pixels hotizontally and 1080 pixels vertically.

4k has exactly double the amount of pixels vertically and horizontally and the industry standard and basic photographic/video application of the concept of resolution would indicate that the resolution is double, not quadruple.

I work professionally in video broadcasting and almost never refer to bit rate, especially when talking about picture quality.

 

[Busboy]

What a ridiculous argument. If you are going to make a stand on moral grounds, it's best to be batting over .500...nomsayin?

I also scoff at the "Pro athlete has a limited career to earn money to last a lifetime" arguments.

So what....go get a real job like everybody else. Guys like Phil Esposito had summer jobs.

It's not about morals. I steal plenty of TV shows and movies.

I'm just trying to understand why someone who is clearly a fan of the NHL and players would chose a service that rips off said league and players when the NHL offers the exact same service (when combined with unblock-us).

I'm just trying to get some clarification, not trying to judge.

I definitely have no clue as to what you're saying about batting .500.

 

[EssendonBombers]

I don't know, maybe you can try harder to explain because I don't know what you're talking about.

1080 hd has 1920 pixels hotizontally and 1080 pixels vertically.

4k has exactly double the amount of pixels vertically and horizontally and the industry standard and basic photographic/video application of the concept of resolution would indicate that the resolution is double, not quadruple.

I work professionally in video broadcasting and almost never refer to bit rate, especially when talking about picture quality.

You're doubling the boundaries of a rectangle whilst keeping the same aspect ratio. Therefore 4 times the pixel area.

i.e. 3840*2160 = 8,294,400 = 4*2,073,600 = 4*1920*1080

 

[HavlatMach9]

it's probably just semantics, 2160p is called 4k, but it does have 4 times the pixels of 1080p.

GCL just needs to put up the 4500k 60fps stream, honestly, it looks tremendous.

 

[PoutineSp00nZ]

It's not about morals. I steal plenty of TV shows and movies.

I'm just trying to understand why someone who is clearly a fan of the NHL and players would chose a service that rips off said league and players when the NHL offers the exact same service (when combined with unblock-us).

I'm just trying to get some clarification, not trying to judge.

I definitely have no clue as to what you're saying about batting .500.

Not exactly the same service, hockeystreams offers more than just the NHL, including international hockey. Which is the main reason i chose to go with them for a month to try it out.

 

[MainDotC]

Don't forget now there's UHD coming out, so all that HD discussion is for newbs. You should be laying down $15K for the UHD setup.

 

[Trevor Lahey]

Not exactly the same service, hockeystreams offers more than just the NHL, including international hockey. Which is the main reason i chose to go with them for a month to try it out.

If GC had a monthly option I may have gone that route, but the blackout thing ultimately kills it for me. I really just want to watch Sens games, anything else is a bonus. I signed up for a month of HS tonight and was not disappointed at all, the Sens feed froze in the first but I switched to the Blues feed, it was fine and by the second the Sens was back. I used low-quality anyway because I was on wireless at work, it was still way better than any other method I've found. $18 is completely reasonable for a month, especially considering the other leagues and apparent Olympic coverage as well.

I pay an arm and a leg for HD cable at home, but I work evenings during the week so I can't feel too bad for looking for a reliable, cheap way to catch some Sens games during some down time at work.

 

[SilverSeven]

and Hockeystreams just ****ing bugged out/froze/stopped working again.

edit: and it's back! missed the end of the 1st period because of it.

In 3 years I havent had GCL crap out on me a single time.

 

[SilverSeven]

It's not about morals. I steal plenty of TV shows and movies.

I'm just trying to understand why someone who is clearly a fan of the NHL and players would chose a service that rips off said league and players when the NHL offers the exact same service (when combined with unblock-us).

I'm just trying to get some clarification, not trying to judge.

I definitely have no clue as to what you're saying about batting .500.

Not only that, but the GCL service is better. The layout is better, the mobile experience is better, the PVR functions are better....all for $10 less a year.

And blackouts can be circumvented for free.

 

[Caje]

Not only that, but the GCL service is better. The layout is better, the mobile experience is better, the PVR functions are better....all for $10 less a year.

And blackouts can be circumvented for free.

AHL and OHL seal the deal for me. I don't really care about the layout, the mobile experience (I either watch it on my desktop or hook my laptop up to my TV with an HDMI cable), and never use the PVR functions. If all you want to do is watch hockey and don't care about all the extras, then HS is better than GCL.

 

[Caje]

Slightly off-topic: is there anything like Hockeystreams for baseball?

 

[maclean]

I might give HS a try if we make the playoffs. The Olympics might be neat too for some compressed games of other contenders. Will Sochi be doing its own constant Olympic feed? For the Vancouver games I had the straight feed on all the time while working. Though I'll admit it was weird watching the gold medal game with no commentary.

 

[Smash88]

Slightly off-topic: is there anything like Hockeystreams for baseball?

I know they have a basketball site now, and I heard they were looking into NFL but no baseball I know of..

Although I hear MLB.tv is the best of the major sports in terms of their streaming service.

 

[Smash88]

Not only that, but the GCL service is better. The layout is better, the mobile experience is better, the PVR functions are better....all for $10 less a year.

And blackouts can be circumvented for free.

How are you getting it for 10$ less? It was 149$ at the start of the year and it just recently dropped to 99$..

Like I said, GCL was great, had no issues at all. But the added content was what really got me over to HS.

 

[Lenny the Lynx]

AHL and OHL seal the deal for me. I don't really care about the layout, the mobile experience (I either watch it on my desktop or hook my laptop up to my TV with an HDMI cable), and never use the PVR functions. If all you want to do is watch hockey and don't care about all the extras, then HS is better than GCL.

I've been on GCL for years but might try HS next year. The issue for me is my laptop is a bit of a p.o.s and it just has the tiniest bit of a skip to it, whereas i use GCL on appletv and its just perfect.

Also I don't need AHL or OHL. I just read the prospects thread here and use what other people say to develop extremely firm opinions on certain prospects, then I use those to declare with absolute certainty that certain guys are busts, or that they are can't miss players. Its not perfect but its enough to get into petty arguments on here which is great.

How are you getting it for 10$ less? It was 149$ at the start of the year and it just recently dropped to 99$..

Its $149 in NA for the whole season but $99 in any other country. So use a VPN to sign up and voila. Probably not sustainable but it worked for me. Its actually really surprising you can get away with it actually.
But its a moot point, because you can pause your 1 calendar year HS subscription so their price is for more like 1.25 seasons so HS is cheaper.

 

[Toffu]

I was hockeystreams user for a long time. Never had any problem, my big recommedation.

I have mixed feelings about Hockeystreams. It's nice to be able to watch all the AHL, OHL, and NHL games, but the HD stream (3200kbps) is so choppy and laggy for me that I have to switch to the low quality stream every time. Hockeystreams has been good lately, but earlier on in the season there were many hiccups like the website crashing, streams going dead, etc.

Last season I had NHL-GCL, and the whole "black-out" thing pissed me off beyond belief. I don't own a television, so I can "tune-in" on TSN/CBC on a whim. And the the GCL stream has like a 30 second delay which means I couldn't follow the game on twitter/hfboards because I'd read about things before they happened on screen. The 30 second delay kind of ruins the whole experience... you're not watching a "live" game anymore, it's essentially a "recording" at that point.

I'm not sure what I'll do next year.

What internet speed do you have?

When i tried to play HD game on 5mbps connection, there was lag. But at my home connection (100/100 mbps) there is no lag, everything works perfect.

 

[Caje]

Also I don't need AHL or OHL. I just read the prospects thread here and use what other people say to develop extremely firm opinions on certain prospects, then I use those to declare with absolute certainty that certain guys are busts, or that they are can't miss players. Its not perfect but its enough to get into petty arguments on here which is great.