Participant Observations 26/8/17 - Foxtel Now, One Week In

It's now been about a week that I've had the OTT Foxtel subscription, and it's looking increasing likely that I will end the Foxtel satelitse subscription and go pure OTT instead. Here is a matrix I created to quantify my consumption:

Characteristic	Best	Middle	Worst
Functionality	PTV	FTA	OTT
Fidelity	PTV	FTA	OTT
Advertising	PTV	FTA	OTT
Audio & Sound	FTA	OTT	PTV
Latency/Delay	PTV	FTA	OTT
Signal Stability	PTV	FTA	OTT
Cost	FTA	OTT	PTV

Some notes:

• PTV is clearly the best platform for sports except possibly the most important one - cost
• Presentation is not included. It's more on taste, and the Foxtel platforms carry a combination of their production, and C7's production.
• Advertising is interesting - FTA ads are regionalised, while OTT is national and PTV has none. 
• Advertising matters - as soon as an ad comes on, I almost always reach for the remote or the phone.
• Audio and Sound quality is not represented in the table, it is a descending matrix of volume. FTA is the loudest, PTV the quietest. I would think PTV audio quality is actually the best.
• OTT is about 30 seconds behind the other platforms in terms of latency or delay. Again, this matters when I'm texting with friends during games. It would be even more of an issue if I was betting during games.
• OTT is well behind in stability. It takes anywhere between 30 seconds to 2 minutes for the OTT signal to stabilise when changing channels, so changing channels is much rarer. Also it can pixelate occasionally. But I was overall impressed with the quality of the stability and fidelity of the OTT signal, especially on mid-length shots. The main difference comes in long shots and ball tracking, where the movement can get a bit noisy. Some playing around with TV settings is useful, but it's not as good as PTV no matter the settins adjustment.

So why am I getting rid of the PTV? Basically, the cost mainly, and I don't think the added functionality of it warrants keeping it - it's only marginally better.

This raises the question of how 'hard core' I am as an AFL fan, because if I were truly hard core about being an AFL fan and seeing my team in the best possibly way, I might pay whatever it took.

But I think the research is also about finding the strategies to access content for people that can't afford it, so in some respects I'm trying to establish what I'm willing to forgo (functionality, latency, fidelity, advertising) in addition to the cheaper cost, in order to get access to my team every week.