One thing that annoyed me about all the advertising for Now’s Mega Sports Pack was that it was far from clear what was on offer. Well, now we know, and it is somewhat better than expected.
As well as the ‘on demand’ service for EPL games, they also have a similar service for the Champions League. Except it’s better. It seems to include every single game (they seem to have a random selection of each week’s EPL games), and that they remain available indefinitely (whereas games from the each round of EPL games are only available till the next round starts).
The commentary teams seem to the same as on Sky in the UK, and for selected games we also get the full pre-game coverage from Sky Sports Xtra. Which is nice. Well, except that there is several hours of it, and you can’t jump to the start of the game – with fast forward at a maximum of 16x it takes a long time to get there! In fact the fast forward and rewind functions are rather clunky, and it can be a very frustrating experience trying to watch something again or find a particular part of a game.
It’s also a bit bizarre watching all the build-up (players arriving at the ground, reporters standing in an almost empty stadium) days or weeks later – and the references to pressing the red button to choose the game you want to watch are of course meaningless to Hong Kong viewers.
The picture quality is very variable. For all the talk about SD & HD (standard and high definition), the reality is that only a few games seem to be available in what I would describe as SD, and the rest of the coverage is very fuzzy on a large screen (perhaps that’s why they give away 9" football-shaped TVs). When the odd game does turn up in decent quality, it’s a pleasant surprise (Arsenal’s home game was one).
As far as I know, HD is only available for selected EPL games, and not currently for any of the Champions League coverage, but couldn’t we at least have SD quality? Please!
Ordinary Gweilo 
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