Mobile TV Buyer's Guide: Vodafone Live vs. Foxtel Mobile
Daniel Long
|
Nov 25, 2008 2:43 PM
TV on your phone - is it really the way of the future or just clever gimmickry? We looked at both major services to see who’s better, who costs more, and should you even be interested.
In what's shaping up to be a mobile TV duopoly, Telstra (Foxtel) and Vodafone remain the only competitive players in this small, but growing segment of the 3G marketplace.
It may not be on everyone's radar just yet, but we imagine as 3G speeds and content options increase with time, the mobile TV market is set for explosive growth over the next couple of years.
We put both services through seven gruelling rounds and scored each product at the end of every round to see which was best.
Round 1: Channels & Cost
Vodafone Live
What do you need to get started?
A Vodafone Live! capable handset. You’ll need to connect to the Vodafone network and purchase credit to use the services, which also include online browsing. We tested the mobile TV service on the Sony Ericsson W910i.
Package 1) News & Sports - Sky News, Sky sports, BBC World, FOX SPORTS News TV, Sky News Sport, Billabong TV (surfing), The Footy show, All Aussie footy News, Team Vodafone News, Football News, Sky weather, Sky Business, Sky UK, Sky top stories, Sky News Eco Channel. Cost: $8/month
Package 2) Music & Entertainment - MTV, South Park, Nickelodeon, TMF (music), Summer Heights High, The Chaser, Landline (rural news features), Mythbusters, E!, MavTV (hot chicks and gadgets), Sky Showbiz News. Cost: $8/month
Package 3) Rugby - Fox Sports Rugby TV (Rugby Union games, Super 14, etc.) Cost: $8/month
Free to air content? Yes, SBS and ABC live channels.
Costs: Each packages costs $8/month
Best channels deal? The Bumper Pack gets you all the packages and channels for $14.95/month.
Free TV? Yes, it’s really free. As much as we doubted this, there are three half-decent channels in this section to choose from – Street TV, Ninemsn TV and clips from Australian Idol.
Street TV is a nice mix of interviews with artists, filmmakers and culture cats. ninemsn TV takes a supply of Channel 9 network footage and edits them into brief snippets – a mix of footy show antics, Getaway stories, Tropfest, Funniest Home Videos and their current affairs programmes.
18+ content? While we didn’t get past the Parental lock system, we're sure these channels will prove popular. The Adult TV channel cost $8 per day/ $15 per month.
Strangest channel offering? Naked News in brief – sure to generate a few giggles down the back of the bus. In second place for oddness, MavTV feels totally amateur and a little bikini heavy (is that a bad thing?).
TV on demand? Yes, you can purchase classic and modern TV shows from as little as $2.50 (Chaser, Mythbusters, etc).
Most popular channels? (1.) Southpark ( 2.)MTV (3.) FOX Sports, (4.) Summer Heights High (5.) Sky News
What’s lacking? Although purely subjective, we would've liked to have seen some rugby league content, a dedicated movie channel (which dosn't exist on either service strangely enough), and a couple of dedicated comedy and documentary channels.
(- continued on next page - )
Foxtel Mobile
What do you need to get started?
A Foxtel Mobile capable handset, connected to the NextG network. We tested the mobile TV service on an Imate Ultimate 9502.
Package 1) News & Docs Sky news headlines, Sky news , National Geographic Channel, Fox News, Discovery mobile, CI (Crime Investigator), CNN, BBC World
Package 2) Sports - W (wrestling channel), union, Fox Sports news, Euro Sports news
Package 3) Entertainment - TV1, Sci-Fi, Fox8, F (Fashion channel), E!, Comedy channel, Bio
Package 4) Music - Max, Channel V, V2, TMF, CMC (Country Music), MTV.
Package 5) Kids – Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Nick Jnr, Animax, Disney
Package 6) Additional channels - Weather channel, Sky News Now (both are free with any package)
Costs: Any 2 packages for $12/month
Best channels deal? Ultimate deal (all packages) for $18/month. Or 24 hours of ‘selected’ content for $4. That could be good or bad depending on how ‘selective’ the content is. Imagine, 24 hours of the wrestling channel. Yikes.
Free to air content? No chance.
Free TV? No way. Niente. Nadda.
18+ content: Keep on dreaming....
Strangest channel offering? W (wrestling) channel – as if one crazy episode of fake American wrestling wasn’t enough!
TV on demand? Sadly, no. But there’s definitely space for it – Foxtel are virtually a pay per content monopoly.
Extras? BigPond TV on mobile, which includes TVN horse racing.
Most popular channels? (according to official stats) (1.) FOX8 (2.) The Comedy Channel (3.) Channel V (4.) Channel V2 (5.) TV1
What’s lacking? Considering this is Foxtel, the offerings are still slim compared to what you get at home. For instance, there is still no rugby league content, even though that’s one of their flagship products at home. There is no lifestyle, food or travel channels either. Annoyingly, there are no live channels (like on Vodafone Live!) bundled either.
Foxtel may be gearing too much of their content to the hipsters out there, while potentially ignoring a good segment of their older audience by choosing not to host more lifestyle content.
Round 1 Verdict: A few sharp jabs from the Vodafone Live! service leaves the Foxtel Mobile suffering serious content fatigue. Vodafone Live contains a truly remarkable range of Foxtel, free to air and proprietary content, built for the live brand.
Vodafone Live! remains excellent value at $14.95 (if you bundle) and beats Foxtel Mobile's American stable of content, which fails to outshine classic episodes of the Chaser, Summer Heights High and live ABC.
At $14.95/month for all the Vodafone TV content, it’s slightly cheaper and better value than Foxtel’s Ultimate Package at $18/month. $8 per package on Vodafone Live is actually really darn good value too.
Round 1 Score card winner: Vodafone Live!
(- continued on next page - )
Round 2: Entertainment value – who’s got better shows?
It really depends on the TV show/genre you most prefer. Although this section is purely subjective, we feel that Vodaphone Live!, which have re-runs of the Chaser, Summer Heights High & Live (yes, live!) SBS and ABC channels – emerge as favourites. We’re talking classic Aussie TV here, whereas Foxtel Mobile (not including news) uses a heavy amount of American content.
Much of the Vodafone Live! content feels miles ahead of channels like Fox News, CI, Fashion channel and Fox 8 which are flying the flag for the Foxtel Mobile brand. Even Ninemsn TV (which is free) is a tasty mobile morsel, worth chewing over between bouts of Footy show comedians, and Tropfest shorts – which makes it surprisingly good value.
Most of the Foxtel stuff is redundant if you’ve already got it hooked up at home – you’ll most likely find some of the repeats hard to suffer through. Obviously the Vodafone live content is also repeated, but live ABC and SBS clearly make up for it in our opinion.
However, we did miss not having MaxTV/Channel V on Vodafone Live! In addition, Foxtel mobile manages to throw a few quick jabs with their key channel inclusions that include the Discovery channel and the National Geographic channels. These channels are known for their excellent content and that makes this round a hard one to score, based on those quality inclusions by Foxtel.
Round 2 Scorecard winner– Vodafone Live
Round 3 - Original Content? How often does the content refresh?
You might notice your favourite shows play shorter than usual. Well, that’s because the mobile content is based on a recipe designed around pre-recorded ‘snack’ sized shows that have been cut for length, and perhaps intended for audience used to quick cutting MTV style shows. Not surprisingly, MTV is also one of the channels on offer from both services.
We asked a spokesperson from each company to give us the low-down on content management for both services.
Foxtel Mobile: “Nine channels are live rebroadcasts of existing Foxtel Home channels. The remaining are what we call "looped" channels. Currently they are updated weekly and consist of between two and six hours of scheduled programming. We are moving some of these channels to twice-weekly cycles in the near future.” - Telstra spokesperson Peter Taylor.
Vodafone Live!: “It very much depends on the content. We have a number of 'live' mobile TV channels eg BBC World, TMF, SBS, Sky News, ABC. We have a range of channels that are that are updated throughout the day eg FOX Sports, Sky News Sport. We also have 'looped channels' that are updated a few times a week eg MTV, Southpark, E! Entertainment, Summer Heights High. With regards to our Music - this is updated on a daily basis with the latest artists and albums. Editorial Packs for News and Sport are updated as News and Sport happens.” – Vodaphone spokesperson Nicole Crabb.
Mobile TV update summary:
Foxtel: Updated weekly. 6 – 8 hours of actual content per channel.
Vodafone: Updated multiple times a week, including live content.
Round 3 Scorecard Winner: Tie (Although bonus points should go to Vodafone Live for ABC & SBS)
(- continued on next page - )
Round 4: Casualities of the fine print
Fair use? How fair is really 'fair'? That’s the question we posed to both mobile services.
Foxtel Mobile Contains a (rather important) clause at the bottom of their pricing details which stipulates that “Usage limits of 15 mins per session and 200 mins per month may apply”.
We were told by Telstra spokesperson Peter Taylor that this simply meant that users ‘could’ be disconnected after they went over their designated session time. "It wouldn’t happen every time", he added. It was designed to stop major leeching of the network over long periods of time.
Peter Taylor explained the policy a little further, adding; “The key word here is 'may'. These usage limits were put in place by Telstra to ensure the performance of the Next G network would not be adversely impacted by excessive usage of Mobile FOXTEL from Telstra. To date Telstra has been reasonably flexible in policing these limits because the service has not resulted in any such adverse impacts. Telstra reserves the right to enforce these limits if necessary.”
In all honesty, 15 minute session limits do seem rather pointless (and unfair) if you’re undertaking long trips on the bus or train. Considering the peak hour commutes of many people in the big cities and you can guess than 15 minutes won’t get most people far at all.
200 minutes a month equals less than 7 minutes a day – which is hardly enough to watch two music videos on either of their music channels. If Foxtel Mobile are fair dinkum about this service taking off, they’ll need to remain very flexible in the policing of these limits, or upgrade the NextG nextwork to handle the extra traffic.
Vodafone Live! - They seem a lot less restrictive about their policy. On their webpage, there doesn’t appear to be any kind of fine print that stipulates usage or session limits.
Round 4 Scorecard Winner: Vodafone Live!
Round 5 – network accessibility
Foxtel Mobile - Telstra NextG network
Vodafone Live - Vodafone network
If you’re on Optus, Virgin or 3 – you’re out of luck.
Round 5 scorecard winner: Tie (both are annoyingly locked to one specific network)
Round 6 – Future expansion of channels
At the moment, both mobile TV networks could use a few more channels, a bit of movie variety and live sport that isn’t news coverage or rugby union games. We asked a spokesperson each network about their future channel plans and were surprised to learn that some channels may be getting the cut.
Foxtel Mobile – “Mobile Foxtel from Telstra boosted its channel range from 16 to 33 in October 2007. The performance of the existing line-up is being re-evaluated and it is possible that some of these channels may be replaced with alternative programming in future."
"However, our customer research suggests the number of channels currently available is about right, and therefore our main focus has been on improving the existing channel selection - better content and more variety". (Peter Taylor)
Vodafone Live - “Yes we are keen to add more TV channels to our Mobile TV offering and more big TV shows.”
Round 6 scorecard winner - Vodafone Live Round 7: The service reviewed
How did the service work in general? Is mobile TV the answer to those long commutes?
Foxtel Mobile’s key advantage over the Vodafone Live service is that it allows you to access your Foxtel IQ2 box from home, which is actually quite handy if you’ve forgotten to record your favourite show. You can also bring up the electronic programme guide to see what's on.
However, as in the case with both services, you cannot rewind or forward your mobile TV – Foxtel Mobile is not set up in the same way you might use your IQ service.
Buffering:
This can be a real headache for either service, although we found in general that the Vodafone Live! service interrupted less times than the Mobile Foxtel in our testing. However, this has more to do with your 3G connection, rather than the service itself.
Coverage:
The NextG network is going to have a much stronger network coverage than the Vodafone Live! service because it has the biggest 3G network infrastructure in Australia. Therefore, if you live in regional areas and outside the capital cities, we reccommend taking a closer look at Foxtel Mobile for its reliability.
Synch
Every now and then we found either service suffered from noticeable lip synch issues (also linked to buffering issues). Thankfully, it doesn’t seem to happen all the time and we’re hoping both services will iron out this issue in the future.
Resolution
We suggest a handset that has the highest capable resolution available. For Foxtel Mobile, we tested the service on an Imate Ultimate 9502 and found the difference quite noticeable compared with a Sony Ericcson W910i (for Vodafone Live!).
The 9502’s 640 x 480 pixels were far away the best performing mobile TV resolution we've viewed. The picture was much sharper and you could see what was going on in fast moving shots during sports.
The Sony W910i could only manage 240 x 320 pixels by comparison, almost half of the Imate and the picture lacked decent quality as a result. A good resolution will vastly improve your mobile content viewing.
Round 7 scorecard winner - Tie
Bonus Round: The iPhone Debacle:
We asked Peter Taylor from Telstra if the iPphone would be compatible with Foxtel Mobile (and related mobile TV services). Mr Taylor told us that, "as is the case around the world, the iPhone doesn’t support Real Time Streaming Protocol which is the standard for delivering TV and video to mobile handsets. So unfort (sic) at this stage, Foxtel Mobile isn’t supported."
We've also heard from various sources that Vodafone Live! is likely to have similar problems with the iPhone as well, although we could not substantiate this in our research.
The Real Time Streaming Protocol:
According to the Apple streaming page, when one uses "the open standard Real-Time Transport Protocol/Real-Time Streaming Protocol (RTP/RTSP), no file is ever downloaded to a viewer's hard drive. Media is played, but not stored, by the client software as it is delivered. Real-time streaming is often preferable to progressive download for webcasts of live events, delivery of long-form video, and 24/7 Internet radio and TV channels."
Were still at a loss why Apple dosn't support mobile TV? It seems like a great loss on a pretty awsome handset. The iPhone's large screen size is perfect for watching mobile TV on and this is a great loss to their users.
Winner: All other handsets.
Loser: Apple iPhone owners.
Overall Winner of the best Mobile TV provider:
Vodafone Live!
For best value, Vodafone Live! seems to have the market covered with its selection of live channels, pay per view shows, 18+ content (if that's your cup of tea), and popular Australian programming.
Content for both services is updated regularly, but Vodafone Live’s content is slightly cheaper and seemed better organised in our testing. Foxtel has much greater coverage and some excellent documentary channels, but it's really hard to beat the good value of the Vodafone Live! service.
If you're regionally based outside of a captial city, then we might reccommend edging towards Foxtel, as we're quite sure that the Next G network beats just about anything on the Vodafone 3G coverage maps.
But there has to be an overall winner; Vodafone Live wins after 7 rounds - although at times the match was too close to call.