Ugh. So put this in the "why media companies are going to go out of business soon" column. Background: We got rid of cable a year and a half ago, and about the only thing that we really missed watching was the Tour each year. So last year (and the start of this year) we've poached each stage from a certain overseas bittorrent forum. Each day the stages are up, SD links go up relatively quickly, HD links take longer but are delivered in 720p clarity. Bit of a pain in the ass (get home, start download, watch during dinner if it's ready, etc), but the picture quality of the HD is great.
Well, after deciding to cancel Netflix (and looking to boost our "legal" media viewing), we signed up for the "All Access" coverage by NBC. $24 discounted rate since it's week 2. Well, it worked yesterday, tonight, not so much. Have been working for almost an hour and a half trying to get it to work. First there was a Silverlight snafu. Then, once we actually got it to work, we ran into our biggest (and continuing problem): the segment is 5.5 hours long, and the fast-forwarding..... sucks. If you click ahead in the program (say, 2.5 hours in so you don't have to be still watching it at 3am), it takes FOREVER to try to buffer the program. Like, working on at least 45min "forever". It'll buffer a tiny amount (3-5sec worth) and then go back to silent buffering. I've finally given up and set ~250kB to a HD download of today's tour. I've asked for a refund, but who knows, they've stated "No refunds". I'm guessing that they don't want to have to pay up when you realize that you're not actually getting *anything* that you're paying for.
Beyond that (from what we saw last night), All Access sucks in the following ways:
1) Nowhere near HD signal. Silverlight (the MSFT plugin) allows you to see the download, and the maximum download available. For us? 2.1mb. That's practically 1/3 our max download (that we can almost always reach). We've watched events before with Silverlight (Olympics, World Cup) that were a 3.5mb down, and it was a MUCH clearer picture. **Note, they recommend a 15mb down signal for the "best picture". I'm guessing that the 6mb down that we've got puts us into a lower cap that doesn't come anywhere near utilizing all of our bandwidth, but if you have a higher D/L speed you might get a better picture?**
2) 1" blank border around the left, right and top of the screen (on my 15" laptop, I can only imagine what it would look like on a TV) to allow for:
3) BANNER ADVERTISING!! Yup, paying $30 (or $24 like we did) is apparently not enough $$$$$$ for NBC, as they feel the need to take up ~15% of the screen for their constant advertising. And yes, even though we haven't actually been able to get it to work tonight, the banner advertising has worked PERFECTLY...
So, at the end of the day, instead of getting something in gorgeous HD that *actually works*, I'm stuck with a stuttering, buffering, non-working BULLSH!!T that is the stupid NBC/Versus feed. Here's a clue, media companies: Put out a SUPERIOR product and we'll pay for it. But don't give me a glitchy, ill-prepared, sub-par product and charge me through the nose for it. It's no wonder people are going to illegal means to get media, the legal channels fvcking SUCK!
/rant
Well, after deciding to cancel Netflix (and looking to boost our "legal" media viewing), we signed up for the "All Access" coverage by NBC. $24 discounted rate since it's week 2. Well, it worked yesterday, tonight, not so much. Have been working for almost an hour and a half trying to get it to work. First there was a Silverlight snafu. Then, once we actually got it to work, we ran into our biggest (and continuing problem): the segment is 5.5 hours long, and the fast-forwarding..... sucks. If you click ahead in the program (say, 2.5 hours in so you don't have to be still watching it at 3am), it takes FOREVER to try to buffer the program. Like, working on at least 45min "forever". It'll buffer a tiny amount (3-5sec worth) and then go back to silent buffering. I've finally given up and set ~250kB to a HD download of today's tour. I've asked for a refund, but who knows, they've stated "No refunds". I'm guessing that they don't want to have to pay up when you realize that you're not actually getting *anything* that you're paying for.
Beyond that (from what we saw last night), All Access sucks in the following ways:
1) Nowhere near HD signal. Silverlight (the MSFT plugin) allows you to see the download, and the maximum download available. For us? 2.1mb. That's practically 1/3 our max download (that we can almost always reach). We've watched events before with Silverlight (Olympics, World Cup) that were a 3.5mb down, and it was a MUCH clearer picture. **Note, they recommend a 15mb down signal for the "best picture". I'm guessing that the 6mb down that we've got puts us into a lower cap that doesn't come anywhere near utilizing all of our bandwidth, but if you have a higher D/L speed you might get a better picture?**
2) 1" blank border around the left, right and top of the screen (on my 15" laptop, I can only imagine what it would look like on a TV) to allow for:
3) BANNER ADVERTISING!! Yup, paying $30 (or $24 like we did) is apparently not enough $$$$$$ for NBC, as they feel the need to take up ~15% of the screen for their constant advertising. And yes, even though we haven't actually been able to get it to work tonight, the banner advertising has worked PERFECTLY...
So, at the end of the day, instead of getting something in gorgeous HD that *actually works*, I'm stuck with a stuttering, buffering, non-working BULLSH!!T that is the stupid NBC/Versus feed. Here's a clue, media companies: Put out a SUPERIOR product and we'll pay for it. But don't give me a glitchy, ill-prepared, sub-par product and charge me through the nose for it. It's no wonder people are going to illegal means to get media, the legal channels fvcking SUCK!
/rant