Cycling.TV sucks!

"Tony S." <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:O%Fbg.2697$qn2.1852@trnddc04...

Quoted message said:

2nd day in a row the feed is unwatchable -- on the first big mountains
day.
No problems with my net -- I'm consistently getting 5+Mb/s speed tests
while
the OLN feed is crapping out even though I lowered the connection speed
several times. This thing isn't worth the money, considering you can get
the
RAI feed free.

-Tony

The folks a cyclingTV are trying to put the problem over on to RAI. Here's
the last email I received from them:

As the commentators are telling you, the Italian feed is rather poor at the
moment because of the weather and altitude. Check out this evenings
highlights and this should prove it to you. Please set your datarate at 100
at the least for the live and reruns.

James

Customer Services

Cycling.tv & OLN International Cycling

[email hidden]

James, even at 56kbs the stream is lousy. There's too much demand for your
system to handle. When I record the recaps at night at 1200kbs there are no
problems due to fewer users plugging in.

BL.

Please change the datarate and media server in the settings menu.

James

Customer Services

Cycling.tv & OLN International Cycling

[email hidden]

For the third day your broadcast is becoming intermittent. You need to
upgrade your stream capacity if you expect to continue selling this product.

Brian Lafferty

B. Lafferty said...

Quoted message said:

The folks a cyclingTV are trying to put the problem over on to RAI. Here's
the last email I received from them:

As the commentators are telling you, the Italian feed is rather poor at the
moment because of the weather and altitude. Check out this evenings
highlights and this should prove it to you. Please set your datarate at 100
at the least for the live and reruns.

They're probably correct. I watched the stage on Eurosport and the
picture quality was horrible even before the climb started. Once they
got onto the climb, it went altogether and we spent the last 10km
looking at the finish line.

--
Andrew
http://www.cageofmonkeys.co.uk

"Andrew" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

B. Lafferty said...

Quoted message said:

The folks a cyclingTV are trying to put the problem over on to RAI.
Here's
the last email I received from them:

As the commentators are telling you, the Italian feed is rather poor at
the
moment because of the weather and altitude. Check out this evenings
highlights and this should prove it to you. Please set your datarate at
100
at the least for the live and reruns.

They're probably correct. I watched the stage on Eurosport and the
picture quality was horrible even before the climb started. Once they
got onto the climb, it went altogether and we spent the last 10km
looking at the finish line.

--
Andrew
http://www.cageofmonkeys.co.uk

I understand that breakup problem. The difficulty with cyclingTV is that
you could not even see the feed from the finish line. The error message was
coming from cyclingTV with a black screen. I switched over to RAI for the
end of the stage and saw as much as you did.
There's no problem watching and recording the hour or so of highlights at a
very high bit rate if you do it late at night when most of the US tifosi are
asleep or elsewhere. If they can't deliver what the contracted for, perhaps
they should give a discount if you only purchase the highlights. Still,
it's not a bad deal.

Two problems today: 1)RAI certainly lost their feed during a good part
of the final climb and, 2) OLNTV doesn't have the horsepower to handle
the traffic.

For the past several days I've watched the feed stutter, drop and die
as the race reaches its conclusion and as more and more folks log on.
The player keeps poping up the notice that I need to drop the
connection speed until I'm down to 56Kbps! Running various speed tests
and watching the quick refresh of the Cyclingnews.com "live" Giro page
convinces me that it's not a local problem. Yesterday I watched the
live feed from RAI and got my English commentary from Cyclingnews.com
while the OLNTV player just laid there, deader than a doornail.

Sometimes switching the media server over on the settings tab will help
briefly (missing the race while the player tests out the connection)
but not for long.

TomYoung said:

Two problems today: 1)RAI certainly lost their feed during a good part
of the final climb and, 2) OLNTV doesn't have the horsepower to handle
the traffic.

Trying to run broadcast services on a unicast medium is doomed to failure.
Better to wait for the full package from that nice man in The Netherlands.

Stu Fleming said:

Better to wait for the full package from that nice man in The Netherlands.

I've heard that Mr Raket doesn't do stage races.

--
E. Dronkert

Tony S. said:

2nd day in a row the feed is unwatchable -- on the first big mountains day.
No problems with my net -- I'm consistently getting 5+Mb/s speed tests while
the OLN feed is crapping out even though I lowered the connection speed
several times. This thing isn't worth the money, considering you can get the
RAI feed free.

-Tony

I have been to RAI and can't find the live feed. Can you help?
Courtney

campycd said:

Tony S. said:

2nd day in a row the feed is unwatchable -- on the first big mountains day.
No problems with my net -- I'm consistently getting 5+Mb/s speed tests while
the OLN feed is crapping out even though I lowered the connection speed
several times. This thing isn't worth the money, considering you can get the
RAI feed free.

-Tony

I have been to RAI and can't find the live feed. Can you help?
Courtney

See the thread titled "OLNTV OFF AIR", or just go to
"www.media.rai.it". There will be a row of tabs across the top of a
window. Click on the tab that shows "<<" until you see the Sport tab,
then click on that.

"Tony S." <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:O%Fbg.2697$qn2.1852@trnddc04...

Quoted message said:

2nd day in a row the feed is unwatchable -- on the first big mountains
day.
No problems with my net -- I'm consistently getting 5+Mb/s speed tests
while
the OLN feed is crapping out even though I lowered the connection speed
several times. This thing isn't worth the money, considering you can get
the
RAI feed free.

-Tony

I totally agree. This is not ready for prime-time and they should not be
charging for it.

This really surprises me that you guys are having problems with OLNTV.
The connection I get is perfect. I put the media player on "full
screen" mode and it plays like a TV. I get now picture breakup at
all(except the actual breakup from the live feed)

I have a standard broadband connection....and run a Linux OS.

Frank Drackman said:

"Tony S." <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:O%Fbg.2697$qn2.1852@trnddc04...

Quoted message said:

2nd day in a row the feed is unwatchable -- on the first big mountains
day.
No problems with my net -- I'm consistently getting 5+Mb/s speed tests
while
the OLN feed is crapping out even though I lowered the connection speed
several times. This thing isn't worth the money, considering you can get
the
RAI feed free.

-Tony

I totally agree. This is not ready for prime-time and they should not be
charging for it.

Stu Fleming said:

Quoted message said:

Better to wait for the full package from that nice man in The Netherlands.

Ewoud Dronkert said:

I've heard that Mr Raket doesn't do stage races.

Mr Raket's got a girlfriend now ?

"B. Lafferty" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

"Andrew" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

B. Lafferty said...

Quoted message said:

The folks a cyclingTV are trying to put the problem over on to RAI.
Here's
the last email I received from them:

As the commentators are telling you, the Italian feed is rather poor at
the
moment because of the weather and altitude. Check out this evenings
highlights and this should prove it to you. Please set your datarate at
100
at the least for the live and reruns.

They're probably correct. I watched the stage on Eurosport and the
picture quality was horrible even before the climb started. Once they
got onto the climb, it went altogether and we spent the last 10km
looking at the finish line.

--
Andrew
http://www.cageofmonkeys.co.uk

I understand that breakup problem. The difficulty with cyclingTV is that
you could not even see the feed from the finish line. The error message

was

Quoted message said:

coming from cyclingTV with a black screen. I switched over to RAI for the
end of the stage and saw as much as you did.
There's no problem watching and recording the hour or so of highlights at

a

Quoted message said:

very high bit rate if you do it late at night when most of the US tifosi

are

Quoted message said:

asleep or elsewhere. If they can't deliver what the contracted for,

perhaps

Quoted message said:

they should give a discount if you only purchase the highlights. Still,
it's not a bad deal.

I agree, the RAI breakup problems has nothing to do with the ability of the
cycling.tv feed to keep up with demand in essentially re-broadcasting the
RAI over their servers with English audio. When I switched to the RAI feed
it showed the finish line, and sporadic pictures, but the feed itself never
went dead. On Friday the OLN feed was simply off-the air an hour into the
stage. Saturday it was obviously server overload at some or most locations
as more and more people tuned in to watch the climax of the stage.

-Tony

Any chance that your "standard" broadband connection, whatever that means, is a cable modem?

-eric

Jamie said:

This really surprises me that you guys are having problems with OLNTV.
The connection I get is perfect. I put the media player on "full
screen" mode and it plays like a TV. I get now picture breakup at
all(except the actual breakup from the live feed)

I have a standard broadband connection....and run a Linux OS.

Frank Drackman said:

"Tony S." <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:O%Fbg.2697$qn2.1852@trnddc04...

Quoted message said:

2nd day in a row the feed is unwatchable -- on the first big
mountains day.
No problems with my net -- I'm consistently getting 5+Mb/s speed
tests while
the OLN feed is crapping out even though I lowered the connection speed
several times. This thing isn't worth the money, considering you can
get the
RAI feed free.

-Tony

I totally agree. This is not ready for prime-time and they should not
be charging for it.

"Eric" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Any chance that your "standard" broadband connection, whatever that means,

is a cable modem?

Quoted message said:

-eric

Mine's not, it's FIOS fiber optic, and it tests fine to different government
speed test sites when the OLD feed is crapping out. I emailed cycling.tv
yesterday, and they admitted they were "upgrading servers" over the weekend
and were having problems. They have never denied they have problems. Today
the feed worked "ok", at a lowered speed of 256k, to avoid the picture
stalling and rebuffering. I couldn't get the RAI feed to work today so this
was necessary.

-Tony