22 comments

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  Simon Burke

  10 months ago

  I have used justin.tv and its hit and miss - i didnt use it for England, i was streaming Shanghai Sports coverage through Sopcast. Justin has low quality compared to some streams and is akin to reading in a car, you eventually get sick from it. I use Justin to stream Soccer Saturday but my impression is games have been poor and you have to pop it out else you get the chatbox and as the game is slightly delayed people tell you the score before you see the goal. Based on your experience of them yesterday Gaffer I will try them again this weekend and see if its any better - I believe they stream at about 250K which isnt great though.
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  BC

  10 months ago

  I've thought for quite a while that the Premier League ought to do something similar to the NHL Center Ice package online. Make all the matches available to view online, both live and archived for later viewing, and include lots of highlights and behind the scenes material as well. As global as the EPL is, I'm surprised this hasn't come about yet. On of the hold ups might be the online TV packages that each club has on their respective websites. The EPL would have to compensate the clubs adequately if they start an online service because the subscriptions to the clubs' individual TV programs would surely decline substantially.
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  ossie's dream

  10 months ago

  There are parallels with the music industry. Web technology has dramatically changed the way people consume the product, whether it's an album or a football match. The suits in charge have been slow to keep up with the pace of change and have resorted to knee jerk reactions in an attempt to aggressively cling on to the old business models, which have been extremely lucrative for them.
  
  So, in the US, we see the RIAA suing college kids for illegally downloading music and Net Result in the UK preventing football fans from watching YouTube clips of goals.
  
  They're swimming against the tide, as sites like Justin.tv will continue to pop up and geeks the world over will figure out ways to break into the gated communities created by the football authorities and music bigwigs to protect their product.
  
  In music's case, we see independent labels (who are usually keen to try new things and push the envelope), experiment with new business models. For example, many bands have realized that the money doesn't come from album sales but from touring, merchandise and advertising. I wonder what the football equivalent of this is?
  
  As someone said above, as long as fans can watch a game online for free, they will. So subscriptions won't work. But I'd gladly sit through a few commercials to watch a quality stream online. How hard can it be?
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  Phil McThomas

  10 months ago

  "People won't pay for something that they can find for free."
  
  Yes and no.
  
  People will pay for convenience and a quality of service guarantee.
  
  For instance, I know I can go on the internet and download music from this place and that. But instead I go to Amazon and pay $9 for a CD's worth of music.
  
  * I don't have to worry about spyware in the plug-in I have to download, because I trust Amazon.
  
  * I don't have to keep changing services to whatever is available today, because Amazon is going to be around forever.
  
  * I know the music is going to be exactly what I ordered - no blank tracks, no poor quality
  
  * I know I'm not going to get any problem from the RIAA or anyone else, because what I'm doing is illegal.
  
  My experience with online streaming of soccer matches is terrible. I've never lasted more than 2 minutes because of (a) poor quality video, (b) foreign commentary, (c) never sure how long it's going to work for, (d) I'm tethered to my computer (e) it only works in "real time" and I need DVR-like convenience.
  
  So if the Prem offered me something that was great quality, reliable, legal and offered DVR-like convenience (plus highlights, please), I'd be first in line to pay for it.
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  eplnfl

  10 months ago

  The real danger to the sport of Justin.tv and similar sites is the quality of the comments being made by those joining in to view. To say that an uneducated opinion of whatever game is being streamed is being put out in the adjoining chat box is a under statement. This site and it's experts has always provided thoughtful commentary on the football action of the day. People who may flock to those sites to see the game are left with no other option and will be stuck with some pretty mindless chat. I would urge any one forced to turn to those games on Justin.tv to join the chat here or other sites that present insightful and knowledge based comment on the games of the day. Not just the "up yours" comment you see elsewhere.
  
  Hopefully, the football/soccer world as a whole and their media will learn something from NBC in the US who is now putting online for free many of their tv broadcasts. NBC is streaming online their NFL coverage and did a great job of presenting the Olympics online. It's the future!.
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  Curty

  10 months ago

  People won't pay for something that they can find for free. Sure the Premiership would stand to make some money by selling all their games online at a centralized site especially if they promote the site right. Most people however will take a less quality feed especially if it is free in comparison to a 10 or 20 dollar a month subscription price.
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  Robin

  10 months ago

  Not only soccer fans can view EPL matches in Justin.tv's site but also able to embed the video player.
  
  I think that is brilliant although it would be limited to fast internet connection only.
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  Bill

  10 months ago

  You can get over 2,000 MLB games from direct from MLB's website for $125 a season. They even have a mosaic application where you can watch up to six games at once (whichever game you click on gets the audio feed). The only catch is that you don't get games from your local team (or whatever market MLB deems you to be a part of), nor the national game of the week on the weekend, but that is on free broadcast television so you're not really missing out.
  
  Justin.tv is excellent because they always have the game, but if you can find the game on SopCast or TVU you'll usually get a better quality stream.
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  ls7

  10 months ago

  Great. Bring attention to it...now it's going to get shut down by lawsuits and we'll be up the creek again :)
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  Ian Portsmouth

  10 months ago

  I'm none too happy about EPL Talk's promotion of Justin.tv, which is going to draw additional users and, perhaps, the attention of TV networks (although I'm sure they already know about it).
  
  Still, I find it to be the perfect antidote for a dearth of football on Canadian television (the Cro-Eng game is on Setanta here, but not until Friday night). Better yet, it allows me to watch important matches in my office and in my backyard, using my laptop. Euro 2008 in the afternoon sun sure beat watching it in my basement -- even if the Justin.tv picture quality was deficient.
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  Charlie

  10 months ago

  Between FSC, GolTV and Setanta on my DirecTV, I usually find what I'm looking for football wise from the comfort of my well-worn couch. I will go on the web for video streams on occasion though.
  
  How many Americans on this board actually paid the $25 fee for the US pay-per-view of last year's FA Cup Final with it's less-than-attractive match-up? Not me...
  
  Does anyone really think the FA gives a damn about making its product more accessible on a global stage through technology and doing so at a reasonable price? Not me...
  
  I'm sure the FA has been well aware of Justin.tv's existence by now, but I'm not worried about it. Even if Justin.tv, Sopcast or TVAnts were to get blown out of the water by a series of legal torpedoes, someone else will come along in short amount of time and take their place. That's the way things work on the Al Gore Intaraweb Thingy he (allegedly) invented. Napster as we knew it went under, bit torrents came along and picked up the slack.
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  Ruam

  10 months ago

  If you want a link to all free streaming sites, that are updated daily, go to this URL. It is updated every day, so you know, where to find the match, that you're looking for....
  
  http://www.fsicrew.info/streams/todays-links/
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  Todd

  10 months ago

  I pay for FSC and Setanta broadband...but sometimes I watch the match on justin.tv anyway because the match isnt on delay, or i prefer the english (sky/bbc) commentators. makes me wonder why i am paying...i guess i just feel like a complete POS if I just take it for free. but justin.tv is great for someone with a mac, like me, who cant do most of the P2P. and really, theres often a very minimal delay
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  Richard Whittall

  10 months ago

  Once you get over how entirely unethical it is, Justin Tv does the trick very nicely. Only football is not meant to be watched on a grainy laptop with the musings of a thousand 14 year-old wannabe xenophobes commenting non-stop right beside the picture. I have a giant mac so full-screen ruins it.
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  Dave

  10 months ago

  I have used Justintv for a few years now...the streams are not of the highest quality all the time but it does just fine when there are no other ways to watch a game
  Plus you get to watch the panels from BBC and RTE when they show the games....which is worth the hassle of buffering or the idiots on the chatbox.
  Plus they will let the stream run longer sometimes and after the ireland game I got to watch the Apres Match skit and Top Gear :)
  For all you Celtic fans out there...there is a Scottish fella on justintv with a channel called TicTalk and he shows all the Celtic/scotland games...but he also commentates on them himself!! LOL and he doesn't hold back either...his slaggins are fierce!!
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  Curty

  10 months ago

  I have a techninque with Justin.tv where I downsize the page to where the viewing box is as small as possible that it fits in the corner of my computer monitor that allows me to surf the internet and when I when I want to switch to the game I can just mouse over and click the viewing box. This allows me not to have to watch the chat that is going on and allows me to just watch the game when I want to watch it. It really works out great1
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  stop publicizing justintv

  9 months ago

  or you can just hit the 'pop out' button and remove the chat entirely....
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  alex

  9 months ago

  Setanta allows you to watch games online for a subcription fee (8 pounds a month) which seems pretty reasonable. I have a friend (in the US) who watches a ton of games there. So clearly Setanta has figured out there's an international audience for their games and IS broadcasting online already.
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  psilas

  9 months ago

  Thats right, I've had the Setanta streams for about 4 months and I'm very happy with it for my 8 quid.
  
  If you watch football you'll be even happier as I just use it for the boxing which at the moment, has some great fights lined up.
  
  I think the way forward has to be fairly priced pay per view streams though, as I only watch boxing so about 3-5 pounds per event seams fair if theres only 1 fight a month/match.
  
  I believe Eurosport UK also has a stream for only about 35 pounds per year which is great if you like Euro boxing/football or tennis!
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  steviethek

  9 months ago

  Agree with Phil above. Price a high quality offering fairly and you'll make money and give people what they want.
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  djspurs15

  8 months ago

  I used to have Sky Sports 1 and 3 for an extra few pounds on top of the normal sky package, but then they raised prices AND took sky sports 3 away leaving me with the same price. They're ar$£holes for doing that. I had no choice but to just let number 1 go too. I think of watching games on p2p as REVENGE. Sweet revenge.
  
  What Setanta and Sky Sports do is highly unfair. Prices are high and you only get one match per week on Setanta. They should lower prices and offer the whole premier league fixture list each week if they want to stop justin.tv and others from denting their precious profits which they get millions of anyway!
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  Lisa

  7 months ago

  we can buy many of these tv shows online
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