Live Video

Not sure about the replays, but on the live video there's a time line at the bottom which shows goals, yellow cards etc. It auto hides so it's not always visible, but you can deduce the score from that.

One funny thing on Saturday is that when we scored the camera man appeared to get excited and drop the camera, as it showed a picture of a brick wall for a few seconds. Did anyone else see that?

 

For anyone struggling to find the Full Match Replays...

https://twitter.com/bfc_official/status/896736675979767809

FTR, believe me when I tell you that most clubs using this new iFollow service are dealing with many issues and lots of complaints. I won't write it off just yet, but I have to say from our end it's been a downgrade. New things are supposed to be an improvement aren't they? Can't say this is at this point. But like I say, could be teething issues. We're trying our very hardest to make it work in terms of what we can do, which is upload things to it as timely as possible. But how it runs and all the technical stuff is out of our hands.

The live streams are just that though. You're getting the feed from the ITN camera. It would cost a lot of money to make it seem like a proper broadcast and that's why none of the iFollow clubs are doing it, to my knowledge. Norwich have apologised for issues with it today.

Derby were one of the few who opted out of this deal and launched their own TV channel. Rams TV. They have a mobile studio, 6 dedicated staff, they have two commentators purely for it, a guy in the studio hosting and an ex player summarising. Like a proper broadcast. Hundreds of thousands of pounds thrown at it. They have more media staff than we have centre mids. Mel Morris has made it clear that Championship clubs are getting mugged off in terms of Sky Sports revenue. This whole overseas streaming is step one to something else. Pretty sure UK fans will end up getting this sort of option down the line.

Good or bad thing? I dunno.

I am at the games so I can't say that it works, but perhaps an idea would be to open two tabs on your browser, with the live stream on one and Matt's comms on the other? Probably out of sync, but who knows. Just an idea. As for the score in the top corner, like I say, you're getting purely the ITN feed. One camera setup.

And as pointed out above by Ian, there is a nice feature now where you can jump straight to goals, bookings, reds etc. And can rewind, play slo-mo replays etc.

Like I say, best to give it some time. It's month one of the season.

Ta.

 

That's exactly what I did yesterday, worked a treat although not exactly in sync.

 

As Cloughie said when they televised the first live game on tv (i think it was) 'they just ruined football'. He'd be spinning in his grave at this next move. Really would put the nail in the coffin of football as a spectator sport for the fans attending games.

 

You say that; but the aforementioned Mr Clough embraced tv coverage by appearing as an analyst at every opportunity which I'm sure supplemented his already generous income very nicely. The word hypocrite springs to mind.

 

Matt while you're online have you any idea what is causing the poor sound quality with the new system? I know it's not your fault, nor is it the club's, but it really is poor, distorted and hardly any bass, almost like a bad telephone line. It's intelligible and you do get used to it while listening, but out of interest I thought I'd ask.

 

The commentary situation baffles me. Still not sure why they can't sync the audio and video. TV companies have been getting around the delay issue since live games were first broadcast back in the sixties.

I also think they should be recording the iFollow audio and aligning with the full match replays to enhance the subscriber experience.

They seem to be over compressing the commentary feed as well as; our isdn mixer settings have always worked fine until this season and turning the mics down doesn't seem to make any difference to the audio output clipping issue, causing distortion and making it a difficult listening experience.

 

I've just answered YT's post. I think our feed is being over compressed at the server end.

 

I got the live video on iFollow, but there was no commentary. How did you do it mate.

 

Over compressing makes sense, but given that there's enough bandwidth to stream live video it seems strange why the audio needs to be compressed to the extent that it is clipped. I'm sure it's a known problem which will eventually be sorted.

As far as the sync is concerned, if the commentary is ahead of the video it's just about possible to get it in sync at home by pausing the audio momentarily. On Saturday the commentary was behind the video by about 3 seconds in the first half, and ahead of it be about the same amount in the second. That meant I could look away when both their goals went in, so I suppose there was a silver lining.

 

Open 2 tabs in your web browser and log into iFollow in each tab, then choose the video in 1 and the audio in the other. You have to do this on the same device, as iFollow won't let you use the same login on 2 different devices.

I always listen (or watch) on a laptop, so I've no idea what happens on other devices like ilaptabpads or whatever, or on phones.

 

Yes it would be nice to think that that they will listen to subscribers' comments and address the issues raised. iFollow is potentially a really good service for supporters if NeuLion can sort out the teething problems.