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Freecaster Maribor World Cup Feedback

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My Nuts Are Flat
Apr 18, 2002
18,040
3
Towing the party line.
Although I no longer work for freecaster, i am close friends with the owner who posts on ridemonkey once and awhile.

He has asked me to start a thread here to collect feedback (both positive and negative) about this weekends first paid event with the new player.

Please be constructive, whether it is good or bad.

Just know that the Live feed for the World Cup is hanging by a very, VERY thin thread at the moment.
 

Uncle Cliffy

Turbo Monkey
Jan 28, 2008
4,490
42
Southern Oregon
I think people need to realize it's not ESPN. Having any coverage in our sport is good coverage. It would be a shame to see it go away.

I'm happy to pay the fees within reason, but I'm usually asleep...
 

Dogboy

Turbo Monkey
Apr 12, 2004
3,208
581
Durham, NC
I thought the coverage was adequate and the technical performance of the feed was very good. I watched 4x on Saturday and DH on Sunday. I had a ride on Sunday so I watched DH until it was time to go and then picked up on the replay where I left off. The live stream never went down for me. The commentary for 4x was fine - Martin knows his stuff and knows the riders. The DH commentary was mostly ok, but the announcers really need to pay attention to what is going down on the course whether it is the 60th rider coming down or the 6th. Surprising, exciting things happen throughout the race and people in the box for interviews, etc need to be secondary to the action on the track. That's about it. I was more than satisfied for the $2 it cost me and I hope it can continue.
 

Pegboy

Turbo Monkey
Jan 20, 2003
1,139
27
New Hamp-sha
Well, I am not sure what the end result will be but so far I've have some difficulty. I paid through Pay pal..no issue. I received my code and logged on for the replay at around 8:45 EST last night and it never loaded. I logged on and off a few times, waited but still nothing just the spinning "stopwatch" in the center of the event screen. I spent about a half hour or so before giving up.

I will probably try again tonight but I am starting to lose interest. Last year I had no problem with streaming etc. on the same computer with the same service, so I am not sure why it's happening. I am not the guy who is going to bitch and moan because I paid <$3 for something that used to be free. Hell, I've lost more money in couch cushions in one sitting so it's no big deal. I will pay for the next race regardless, but if I don't have some success I will probably lose interest and end up a lost customer. Hopefully it gets sorted out.
 

bdamschen

Turbo Monkey
Nov 28, 2005
3,377
156
Spreckels, CA
I'm in the same boat. It would be a shame to lose live coverage or at least re-broadcaster as though it's live coverage of world cups. I'm fine with paying a small fee to watch, but I'm not usually awake nor am I willing to wake up for a live feed. I'm down to pay to watch it later though.

All that said, it doesn't matter whose fault it is, there can't be any loss of quality or coverage. If a stream can't be seen as reliable, people will be hesitant to pay for it. I know there are a million different challenges with running an operation like this, but if the feed is good quality, with good coverage and dependable, I would be more comfortable forking out more money for it.
 

andyt

Chimp
May 24, 2005
26
0
To be honest the connection was the best its been for ages, held the whole show no freezing. First year was ok, then has just got progressively worse as more people started watching, the whole of last year was terrible, freezing all the time - resorted to multiple laptops. Boom boom is pretty bad, glad Warners back next one - hes a twat but at least hes funny & gets excited.

Watched it all again for a decent picture on proper TV later on Eurosport2 with one of their roadie commentators who knew nothing about DH

Keep it up
 

Capricorn

Monkey
Jan 9, 2010
425
0
Cape Town, ZA
endless problems. thought it was my code which I bought a week prior to the race. bought another on a whim (yeah, it is that cheap), but same problem persisted. Caught stone last 30sec of sam hill's run which is 30sec of the WHOLE DH event (mens and womens).
Tech support was a friendly dude who stuck it out with me trying to figure out what was wrong.
Issue seems to be what looks like a global proxy server for south africa. The techie mentioned someone else from ZA was having a similar problem to mine, were tech support noticed multiple IPs linked to an unlock code. Granted, very few folks have static IP broadband in ZA, but even non-static IPs only change when logging on and off from the connection, or following the mandatory 24hr IP leasetime.

The problem experienced was:
1) not authenticating on the first go. I had to refresh the page many multiple times.
2) initially, video only ran for exactly 10sec before going back to the static default image. 30sec after that, the sound came thru, but no video. Same static image (greg minnaar)
3) following refresh of webpage + re-authenticating a code, same thing all over again. Same thing occured if I close and reopened the browser. Even updated my version of flash player, but that didnt help.

So in a nutshell, i bought 2 codes for exactly 30sec of race footage. Amazing afternoon of racing.
I dont know where the fault lies, so I wont apportion blame. I just hope some solution could be found cos frankly, i'm super stoked for the service, and will keep paying, as long as it can work. But a no-BS assessment about connectivity from ZA will be appreciated. If it cant happen, let us know then we wont bother stepping into e-Poo, and thus no reason to spread unnecessary, negative experiences.
 
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Demomonkey

Monkey
Apr 27, 2005
857
0
Auckland New Zealand
Pre-purchasing the access was very easy and inexpensive at NZD2.50.

Trying to access later what I had pre-purchased was frustrating as the screen just returned to the 'purchase' screen. There was no "enter your previously supplied purchase code into this box" screen - so to speak.

As a result I ended up purchasing again once the event had started. It hooked in straight away but I have no idea if it was the first code or second that got me in.

Anyway, the feed was faultless. Pity the UCI only put 6 cameras on course.

Nice work Freecaster!!!!
 

thom9719

Turbo Monkey
Jul 25, 2005
1,104
0
In the Northwest.
I didn't get to watch it live, but we all watched the repeat which was perfect.

The only complaint I had were the announcers. They were terrible. Bring back Rob Warner and Fabien Barel.

Just for you're own broadbast numbers though, I think we had 20+ people watching the feed from one payment of $2. You have a lot of fans of the coverage here!

-KT
 

ebarker9

Monkey
Oct 2, 2007
848
242
Had no issues with video streaming, which was a first while watching a WC on Freecaster. Only real complaint would be in the audio department. Need whoever is doing commentary to be clearly audible and everyone else to stay out of the mix. As it was, the commentators did a reasonable enough job (though I'm looking forward to having Warner back) but there was way too much random background talking/mumbling/whatever.

Otherwise, very pleased! Well worth the small fee.
 

toodles

ridiculously corgi proportioned
Aug 24, 2004
5,480
4,720
Australia
Mine stuffed up constantly leaving me frustrated and annoyed. I'm fine with the purchase price and general format of it, but the player doesn't handle recommencing very well. So if the connection is slow or interrupted - instead of jumping to the next section, it goes to the title screen and fails to recommence. Sometimes the audio stream restarted (and I considered just leaving it at that like a radio announcement except the commentators weren't letting me know what was going on) - but mostly nothing restarted until I refreshed the screen.

I missed several of the top riders runs as a result and I don't think any one period of replay lasted longer than 1 minute. I'm on a 9.5Mbps connection and had a consistent and uninterrupted ping trace to Freecaster.tv of less than 300ms.

I'm aware that people's individual configurations can also cause these issues, but I'm at a loss after trying several routers and different PCs. Friends on different ISPs have reported the same issue.

I'd gladly pay 5x more for a solid consistent feed.
 

'size

Turbo Monkey
May 30, 2007
2,000
338
AZ
i had zero issues with the whole package from code purchase (paypal) to the full live stream. as another mentioned, this was probably the most stable and reliable stream i've had for WC racing from freecaster since they've been doing it. i'll gladly pay the $2 for this all season long.

i noticed on the freecaster facebook discussion page they are asking for country, ISP and internet speed - not sure if it's wanted or needed here, but: USA, Cox Communications, 6-7Mb/s.
 

UiUiUiUi

Turbo Monkey
Feb 2, 2003
1,378
0
Berlin, Germany
worked flawless here
payment via SMS worked fine too
just had connection issues with opera then switsched to firefox.

critisism:
the live feed from the UCI or whoever is resposible for the pictures sucked...

to many riders on course and, only saw half of them actually riding...

i know they wanted to get the race through as fast as possible because of the conditions still this does not help...
we want to see as much of the race and the racers as possible...
need mor cameras on track... and yeah i know thats expensive :(


looking forward to the next race!

PS: i liked the announcers scott beaumont was cool, and the other guy at the 4x race actually sounded like he cared for the racing... was great
but please keep scott from imitating rob warner the original rob is bad enough...

need more 4x races in mud makes the racing worthwhile to watch :)
 
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stiksandstones

Turbo Monkey
May 21, 2002
5,078
25
Orange, Ca
I had zero problems, but&#8230;only tuned in for the last 20 guys. I think the fee should be more (eventually). The world needs to get over the 'everything should be free on the web' mentality.
That being said, while I had perfect feed with Verizon fiber optic line, my boss had some hiccups on his feed in a neighboring town with verizon DSL.
 

Arkayne

I come bearing GIFs
May 10, 2005
3,738
15
SoCal
My live feed was uninterrupted from start to finish.
Payment via SMS was quick and easy.

Criticism:
My wife didn't like the announcers. I prefer RW.


Overall, not bad considering the price.
 

slyfink

Turbo Monkey
Sep 16, 2008
9,289
5,029
Ottawa, Canada
I was riding in Bromont the day of the race. I was too tired to watch the replay when I got home (it's a three hour drive). I intend to pay for the content and watch the race when I get a couple of hours free some time this week. Other than that, no comment yet.
 

ods

Monkey
Feb 22, 2008
389
0
Port Angeles
The feed was the best yet for us. One time it paused for about 5 seconds and that was it. I actually liked the commentators because of their rider knowledge and back stories. Surely not as funny as Warner, but until something comes in right between the two, I'll take what we can get.

For more camera coverage, esp. the top 30 or so, I would pay a lot more than 3 bucks.

We make a party out of it at 4am here on the West Coast. Used a projector on the wall, fatty breakfast, ghetto mamosa's, and then a day of dh'ing, does it get any better?
 

Whoops

Turbo Monkey
Jul 9, 2006
1,011
0
New Zealand
Payment process = painless.

I watched it delayed (too tired to wake up) and the feed was flawless for me.

4X commentary was pretty good (if a little dry), DH not so much (though still adequate).

Overall - happy to pay to watch, and thanks to Freecaster for persevering with this... I'm sure there's much more money to be made covering other sports.


Note to trade teams - I heard the comments about you looking for ways to support FC. Good to hear - hope it works out.
 

rosenamedpoop

Turbo Monkey
Feb 27, 2004
1,284
0
just Santa Cruz...
Firstly: Thank you for existing Freecaster...! Please don't stop doing that.:thumb: I can only guess at what a giant undertaking it is to broadcast over the internet from a different location every time...

I paid the $2ish gladly this time and will again. I did have to reload about 20 times during the DH, quite frustrating but compared to not watching it was well worth it.

I feel that most people who are willing to pay $2 to get up at 5am, will pay more. I will. If lack of funding is getting in the way of smooth streaming, please charge me more!




.
 

rosenamedpoop

Turbo Monkey
Feb 27, 2004
1,284
0
just Santa Cruz...
My 2 cents on commentary:

Rob is great for color and general excitement level. Listening to Rob by himself is like drinking too much coffee right before bed. There must be Yin to balance his Yang.

Anneke, Scott, and Martin are all great "straight men". But listening to them together without Rob is like Spock without Kirk, Wilder without Prior, Aykroyd without Belushi...



.
 

snowskilz

xblue attacked piggy won
May 15, 2004
612
0
rado
Complaints: Right about 20 riders to go the website crashed on me. Tried to refresh a few times and nothing worked. Waited a few minutes and it was back. Luckily i had live timing up on a different screen so i didnt miss a beat.

Praise: $2 was too cheap! i would say go to $3 us. The sms to pay was simple and the stream worked for the top 10.
 

davetrump

Turbo Monkey
Jul 29, 2003
1,270
0
let's see

SMS payment was almost too simple and easy

$1.99 USD might as well have been free

Turned it on at 8am eastern time just as the first male rider was coming down and it worked flawlessly all the way until the end.

I have never had issues with the past feed either so I am not surlprised it was perfect again.

My guess is that most of the people complaining should point the finger at their internet provider/infrastructure and not at freecaster

to summarize...:thumb::thumb::thumb: three thumbs up
 

Dox

Monkey
Aug 26, 2009
263
0
Montreal, QC, Canada
let's see

SMS payment was almost too simple and easy

$1.99 USD might as well have been free

Turned it on at 8am eastern time just as the first male rider was coming down and it worked flawlessly all the way until the end.

I have never had issues with the past feed either so I am not surlprised it was perfect again.

My guess is that most of the people complaining should point the finger at their internet provider/infrastructure and not at freecaster

to summarize...:thumb::thumb::thumb: three thumbs up
:stupid:
 

LittleBIGjumP

Monkey
Jul 15, 2006
149
0
Gold Coast OZ
Had a few problems at first.

It froze a bit then sound only, and droped out a few times.

It got better as the women finished.

Then it was fine.:D


What can we do from this end to help, if anything?


Regards,

Hama:thumb:
 

nh dude

Monkey
May 30, 2003
571
16
Vt
it worked great. i purchased it on sat night. tuned in sunday am around 830 eastern . no skips no spinning wheel of death. well worth the 3 bucks. i hope they keep it up.
 
Aug 4, 2008
328
4
Feed was ok!

But I'd like to join to others who criticized the commentary.

Yes I understand that commentators are not professionals (at least this weekend). What I don't understand is that somebody didn't give them a little list of dos and do nots...

Like: Do let Cedric into the booth - but throw him out after 2 minutes.
Do pay attention to racing and try to offer some insights...
Do know at least something about DH racing, beyond usual media stars, even if you're a 4x racer.

For example not everyone racing WC is Brit or American - we others do have our heroes and we hate if you ignore them or even forget to acknowledge their existence due to senseless rambling.

And yes - I understand that you had to pick two racers to jump-in for Warner. And I do understand that for this sport oversize ego is mandatory (guilty myself - obviously) - but for public appearances you need to get over yourself.

Oh and yes - I'm prepared to pay more - without even flinching.
 

adrock33

Monkey
May 7, 2002
149
0
kentucky
I purchased it on Sat. I had to work Sun. so I watched the replay when I got home. It was flawless. Thanks Freecaster for having the replay up so fast!!! I missed Warner!!!
 

jhazard

Chimp
Dec 28, 2008
23
0
Durango, CO
paypal worked great - thank you.

Code worked as promised. Great work.

Watched for about 8 minutes, then the feed froze. reloaded and it was all good. For 30 seconds.

Repeat last step 5 times.

The site apologized to me, and issued me a code to watch another event for free with. It was same code that was initially sent to me. Left me a bit skeptical.

So, for me trying to watch the live feed was aggravating.

The replay worked perfect though, I could even jump forward and back in the timeline with no issues. Just the reply was worth the price of the code.

SUGGESTIONS:

I read somewhere in another thread that is recommended to have 3 gigs free on the partition that your browser runs in. Had I known this before hand, it would have been a great help - there should be more obvious tech help/tips for "enhancing" ones viewing experience. Not everybody is an internet tech geek ;)

Props to the announcers for stepping up, but they pale in comparison to Rob Warner (as long as he's teamed with a straight man). They were a bit NPR-ish.

Charge more. In a thread response by the man from Freecaster, he suggested that if people paid 2 or 3 times more, things would significantly change for the better. Go for it. Charge $10 per race or whatever. More camera angles or other content would be awesome (and yes, I KNOW they are UCI's cameras!), and I bet most would pay. $10 - $15 is not unreasonable. (but I'm cool with paying a couple bucks just to watch the replay - I don't want to get up at 6am on Sunday to watch anything.)

So, even though I had sour live feed experience, the replay made up for it, and I give it all thumbs up. Thanks Freecaster.
 

Transcend

My Nuts Are Flat
Apr 18, 2002
18,040
3
Towing the party line.
For what's it's worth, i had a beer and a good discussion with the producer from the tv production company after the Dh. He is as disappointed with everyone else with 6 cameras only, but his hands are tied by the UCi budgets.
 

Banshee Rider

Turbo Monkey
Jul 31, 2003
1,452
10
I had a perfect feed as well. Well worth the money. I like it when people stop in for a few minutes such as Cedric and Rob from Santa Cruz, it'd be awesome to see that happen more often.
 

dhkid

Turbo Monkey
Mar 10, 2005
3,358
0
Malaysia
really happy with it, will be happy to pay more.

martin whiteley was really good for 4x, made the most out of quite a boring race.

nothing against boom boom or aneke, but would much prefer to have warner back.
 

Arkayne

I come bearing GIFs
May 10, 2005
3,738
15
SoCal
I'd pay $5 for it. I'd do $10 if they added another camera so they didn't have to replay a slo-mo garden.
 

Kingswood

Chimp
Feb 27, 2005
43
0
I had a good feed here in Australia right from the start. There was one 2 minute period where I got some freezing, but that worked itslef out.

A friend about 50 minutes away had a terrible time, constant freezing, got the massive ****s and went to bed.

So what makes his feed crap and mine good, surely that has to be a problem out of freecasters hands yeah?????

I agree with a lot of the comments about the commentary. Scott Beaumont is cool, he talks about bikes and riders, and when he is watching the riding he is pretty on to it.

I like it with Warner and Beaumont, thats the winning combination but they need to keep watching the racing, maybe keep a more professional atmosphere in the box so people that come in (i.e Gracia) dont bring in megaphones or whatnot and create a "This sounds like crap but would be much funnier if you could see what is going on in this room" type vibe.

That said, I enjoy the guests for sure, and I love Warner keeping it hectic and funny, and I could listen to Anneke Beerten's sexy euro accent all day.

Pleeeeeease keep the broadcasts coming, I will pay more for sure.
 

rosenamedpoop

Turbo Monkey
Feb 27, 2004
1,284
0
just Santa Cruz...
Everyone is saying they are willing to pay more for even better coverage. Please listen freecaster, please listen.

It also seems to me that UCI budget could be supplemented by us, the viewers, to make seamless top to bottom coverage possible. Please listen UCI, please listen.






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