13 Sep 2013

HD EPL online still a month or two away

7:02 pm on 13 September 2013

Premier League football returns to New Zealand screens this weekend after the international break.

It's also the fourth week of the new internet-only platform for delivering the English top division live to New Zealand viewers.

And the boss of the company that took the football off Sky TV and sent it over the net to its customers admits they're still working on a few teething issues.

Coliseum CEO Tim Martin concedes Premier League Pass dot com isn't perfect yet with an encoding problem affecting wide tracking shots - and there's no specific timeframe on delivering High Definition TV coverage online.

Martin says they're working on HD, but it's more important to fix those encoding tics before they go for the highest quality feed - but he's hoping to get HD onto local screens in a month or two.

Martin says they're looking at the possibility of adding other football leagues such as the French Ligue 1 to the website, and he's confirmed they have talked to New Zealand rugby bosses about buying rights to the code when it comes up in 2015.

However one major stumbling block to adding the All Blacks et al to their portfolio is that Sky also films the games they screen, while the NZRU is very loyal to Sky.